May 28: Tarasp Vulpera
Vulpera is quite small and appears to comprise hotels almost exclusively, very few private homes.
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From the Crayola/Mickey D's bus stop bench, a look down the main road at Vulpera and a very distant glimpse of Ftan.
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A succulent with pretty yellow flowers just starting up.
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Near the bus stop is a little chapel, the Kapelle St. Johannes Baptista. Vulpera and the rest of Tarasp is mostly Catholic in contrast with the rest of the Unterengadin.
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Despite its early-19th century construction, the Kapelle has a fantastic modern door...
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...and a modern mural at the altar...
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...and a modern stained-glass window.
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But the entrance side is a lot more traditional. The balcony looks barely high enough to stand up in!
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The upstream side of the chapel. The porch is for getting up into the balcony inside.
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A grand edifice across the street from the Kapelle.
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Heading out of Vulpera and uphill to the southwest, I stumbled upon a golf course in the woods.
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I appreciate the avant-garde mowing at upper left.
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That is some echt krummes Holz.
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The golf course blindsided me with nostalgia for Bermuda, which I visited almost every winter with my family growing up but hadn't been to in five years at this point; we used to stay near the Port Royal golf course and explore around it a lot. But this was a muddled-up nostalgia, given the views of the Alps in the distance and the boreal forest impinging on the greens.
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I assume these colored posts are a golf thing, but it's more fun to imagine they're a cryptic work of land art.
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Whoops!
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Coltsfoot! A familiar sight around home in New England too.
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The trail wound up through the woods...
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...and then a sublime cloud-shadowed view began to open up across the valley.
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Crest upon crest.
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A pretty excellent spot for a little break and Ausblick.
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A closeup on Ftan-Grond, clearly visible across the way. Ftan is just as phonotactically delightful a place as Vnà.