Saillon, Sion, Sheep

Saillon, a hotsprings hotel complex in the middle of this valley, was running a special - breakfast, dinner, spa, overnight - so we went.
The Japanese take hotsprings really far (a craze begun in the immediate postwar), where you're surrounded by exquisite gardening in a stunning setting, with a pretty elaborate bathing ritual, but we really enjoyed Saillon's vineyard landscape - they called it "wine therapy."
We'd heard how beautiful it was, soaking in mountain scenery, then on to your 5 courses which, fortunately for Michael and Jack, offered tuna salad
and cantaloupe at the salad bar. BTW, that red drink is SIROP, the standard kid's drink of fruit syrup (comes in many flavors) mixed in water. The syrup actually tastes really really good - I use it on pancakes and as a base for cobbler desserts. The lime version inspired me to work on my margarita, again. Bingo! The next day, we drove to Sion, a rugged town where buildings were almost exclusively made of stone and rock, with some homes featuring roof tiles made of large, irregular slabs of slate. The church and castle are high-up on a little hill.

That evening, we took the bus to the Metropole Theater, where the Lausanne Opera was putting on a children's production, The Blue Sheep, complete with orchestra.

I think the opera responds to popular racism, symbolized by the unfortunate election poster of the People's Party, where a black sheep was kicked out by 3 white. For example, it wouldn't be unusual for some Swiss to get up and move to another table, if non-whites were seated next to them.

I also find racism perplexing because it's not always marked by biological difference, ie skin color. Koreans and Japanese, in the modern period, have hostilities, despite racial sameness; and the category of whiteness doesn't explain Jewish, Irish, or other ethnic groups caught in some kind of flux.
In the opera finale, all the sheep formed a chorus line, singing the virtues of tolerance. The almost exclusively white audience of means - who else pays 30 francs per head to see a children's opera? - probably felt confirmed in an elaborate example of preaching to the choir. We just enjoyed taking our own little sheep to see live theater downtown, by a 7 minute bus ride. They were entranced.