The rising sun casts an orange radiance on the long rocky ridge. At seven in the morning, the sun slants on the tree line. Above is the bare mountain, bright and stark. The pines below are still a dense dark green. In a few minutes, their conical tops will be kissed by the spreading light.

The mountains here are modestly high, but have well-defined features. I am told that they are called the Turretas. Little Towers, in English. To the South lies Italy. Here in the Swiss valley of Val Mushtair, the little towers look down on green pastures and a few prim houses. They speak a rare blend of Italian and German, called Romanch in these parts.

The sound of tinkling cow bells reaches me.

I can see the cows from where I sit and sip coffee. They are just a few black blobs from a distance. Although they range freely, they seem content with this particular patch of grass and have been camping here since yesterday. In the stillness of the still unlit valley, the sound of the bells carries far. A nutcracker chips away at a pine, close to where I sit.

It will soon be bright all around. It’s a shame that we are out of bread, though. Spreading thick slabs of butter on warm, toasted spelt bread has been a pleasure. The bread was procured from a humble supermarket from the “village” downhill, but what a great bread it turned out to be. Two flattened loaves hitched together like two halves of the brain. Dinkelbrot or something it’s called.

Arjun is soon awake, the sun is bright, and we walk down. Lilac lilies, called the Alpine Crocus, spring abundantly from the lush grassy slopes. We walk past an old, yet brightly pastel home with a medieval-looking metal bar sticking out from the facade angled downwards. It’s a three-hundred-year-old sundial, and its shadow correctly marks the time, give or take a few hours of modern accounting practices like daylight savings.

We take the shortcut and trample on the grass, still wet from the dew. I will learn later that this is the farmer’s house. The sole farmer of Tchierv. Other than his two cows, one of his possessions is an old, rusted-looking excavator, whose still-shiny hydraulic pistons proclaim its worthiness. Arjun is equally thrilled and frightened of its apparent state of “abandonment”, but happily gets atop and shifts transmission levers.

We take our time exploring the levers of this ancient machine. The house walls have paintings of some sort of bear-dragon, with a lolling tongue for extra medieval cheer. There is a beautifully manicured flower garden, with a few vegetables.

Alas, it is a Sunday and the supermarket is shut. A stream gurgles behind, and we try to find the ginger cat who knew how to cozy up to humans so well. The cat is probably attending mass in a pine wood church somewhere. 

Our disappointment at the lack of bread is short-lived. We meet Marissa, our wonderful host, along the “Main Street,”  and she generously offers us a chunk of her own provisions. Life returns to its idyllic Alpine greens and tinkling bells. 

Fortified with dollops of butter, dinkelbrot, and milk, which is probably sourced from a cow far away, but seems to acquire a “wild pasture”, flavour by sheer proximity to the mountains, we set off to explore the mountains. 

A broad, easy trail skirts the grassy slopes. There is something about the way the light is polarised that makes the skies blue and every blade of grass shimmer. Every now and then, a mountain biker pushes up. Everyone is attired from the pages of an outdoor magazine and is polite to an extreme. We meet an old couple who are taking in the view from a bench, and they offer us a seat. Here in the Swiss Alps, with purple thistles, ancient sundials, bright yellow buses that follow atomic clocks, and apple strudel never far away, civilization has scaled new heights.

We graze on wild raspberries and watch orange butterflies. On a log over a stream, Arjun finds tan brown puffball mushrooms, the size of marbles. We prick a few and watch the orange spores drift away.

The trail opens up on level ground, with vast fields where a large red tractor poses against the Alps for a picture that would make great advertising copy. This is the village of Lu. Next to a patch of free-ranging fowl, with a barn full of rolled hay, a path leads to two white domes. These are spankingly modern telescopes, and they run courses where you can practice your nebulae photography skills.

On a bench, there is a shiny aluminum box with free books to read, enjoy, and pass around. There are more distant cow bells coming from the hills above. The farmers have curtains that are hand-knit and depict birds and wild goats. Only in the Swiss Alps does this make any sense. 

We chose a more strenuous hike the next day. The trail is over big gnarly roots of pine trees and grey shale boulders. Before tectonic plates rammed each other and created mountains, all of this was under the sea, and the finely pounded sediment now makes for interesting rocks that flake off in layers. The good Swiss have marked the trail with broad stripes of red and white painted on these rocks, and Arjun makes it a point to high-five each marker. We are slow but steady, and after a few hours, we emerge onto a broad open pasture.

This is Alp da Munt. I will learn that the word Alps simply means an open pasture, where cows graze in the summer and shelter in stone and wood huts when the weather turns cold. A buzzard shrieks near the treeline. An eager  “Maus”, perhaps, checks itself. 

We have thankfully packed a lunch that is just about enough. Arjun now gets to ride on Dhanya’s back. Some more walking and we see a distant snow-covered peak. I undo the hideous headgear that I have fashioned by layering a stretchy elastic scarf over a woolen band, giving off serious zombie bandage vibes. 

Our map-reading skills are a work in progress, and I was expecting a long detour to get back home. So when I see an arrow that hints at a possible shortcut, it’s worth a little dance. The shortcut turns out to descend in hurried switchbacks down the mountain. Some of the sections require careful hand-holding of the kiddo. 

We finish in good time, and I am keen to explore the local “spa”. With swimwear borrowed from our ever-kind hosts, Arjun and I head to the little swimming pool that the villagers of Tshierv enjoy. It’s heated by what must be a rather small kettle, but splashing in the not-so-cold water relaxes our hike-weary bodies. It turns out that tomorrow the pool will be drained, marking the end of the season. In winter, they have other recreations. We are the last spa guests for the year.

In the community building next door, there is a library with books stacked on red wooden shelves. Most are in German, and a few are in Romansh, the local language. I leaf through a field guide of birds and study the Spotted Nutcracker. “Tannenhäher” in German. There is raspberry syrup and coffee if you want a break from the reading. On a central table, a large chess set made with beautiful stone sits quietly. Arjun hauls some wooden toys from somewhere. But where is everybody?

Late one evening, I met a local couple who were out for a stroll. The wife has a bunch of yellow wildflowers. I learn that this village has about a hundred residents and two school-going kids. They would love for young families to move in, but it looks like Utopia has a few takers. A job in a bustling city beats the life of a subsidised farmer. Even if the farmer gets to drive a big red tractor against the alps, eat walnut honey cakes and listen to the cow bells. 

The library is not going to get busy anytime soon. The large football field has the goal posts drawn closer, so that the two kids can have a real match. I spend the evening catching the last rays of the sun. Light filters through the tangle of pine branches and casts a monochrome halo.