A Day in mARTigny

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Mark and I decide to take a trip to both Neuchatel and Martigny today. We chose Neuchatel because of its proximity to a lake and the fact that you got to ride the "tipping" train there; we selected Martigny because it seemed appealing as an artsy town. We wanted to go to the art gallery that had a large sculpture garden and in particular, a Nikki de St. Phalle sculpture.

As luck would have it (as well as a little bad timing) we missed the train to Neuchatel by about 2 minutes. So we went to Martigny first instead. We were still flying from the excitement of our day yesterday and were hoping to have as much fun. At the train station we took a few minutes to get our bearings and then set off for the museum. Immediately it became clear that the museum would be easy to find--we found fliers/posters for it everywhere! To see their website, check out: http://www.gianadda.ch/wq_pages/en/expositions/

Mark and I perused the exhibits-we weren't too fond of the paintings by Balthus, but we enjoyed the da Vinci exhibits and the sculpture garden--sadly only one Nikki de St. Phalle, but I've included pictures!

After leaving the Gianadda museum, we went to visit the St. Bernard museum. Todd would have enjoyed this museum--you got to pet the dogs! They had at least 6-8 at the museum, and started taking them for walks as we were leaving.

The rest of our afternoon was okay--we took a walk out to the castle--not all the way, but part of the way. Then we paid $4 Swiss francs to take a bus tour of the city--not our favorite part of the trip--but we ended on a positive note, had a great lunch and headed back to the train station to head out to Neuchatel.Mark enjoyed the tipping train! We didn't end up having dinner in Neuchatel--it was just too rainy, but we did purchase some beautiful cheeses and meats with fresh bread to have a nice dinner in our room while we did laundry. Quiet Sunday night:)