In fact, there are more cows living in my village than people. It lies in a beautiful rural valley between the Jura mountain ridges and is surrounded by all shades of green. It is in the middle of a pearl string of five villages, connected with one main road and a small river. The valley attracts many horse loving people as the land is not as expensive here and there is enough green space and small gravel paths crisscrossing the mountains to hold and ride those elegant creatures.

I love my village the most because we have something like a city core that evolves around a giant linden tree. There is a restaurant, a small shop with a post office and the city building where you go to vote which is actually a beautiful and historical wooden house. Usually when I walk there to catch a bus there are always some people having a coffee on the terrace of the restaurant or working in their garden – I just smile and wave to them and they friendly greet back.

As it is a small village of 500 inhabitants, people know each other. I am fairly new here and as in elsewhere in Switzerland it is not easy to connect with people. But being friendly, present and engaged in the community in some way, I already know many of these lovely people. When I first came here, I realized that gardening is such a common thing here that you can walk thru the village anytime on a sunny day and you will meet plenty of people mowing their lawn, weeding their flower beds and watering their cucumbers. And you will have your neighbors bringing you zucchinis, apples, salad, radish and pumpkins thruout the year because they grew too many just for themselves.As you can tell, the people around here enjoy life in their homes and gardens, love to barbecue with friends and just be in their little world. The cultural life is present but manageable – there are public events every once in a while like concerts of the local brass band. There is a gallery in an town ten minutes from here and they are doing a great job exhibiting workpieces of Swiss artists. The gallery just celebrated its 5th birthday and asked me to follow it along with my camera. A fun fact about the gallery – it was once a butchery, then a farmers market and it stood empty for a long time until the idea popped up to host an exhibition there.After visiting a vernissage in the gallery I can cheerfully ride my bike home on the bike path along the small river and hope that my husband has prepared a nice dinner with the cherries from our own garden.Thanks for spending a moment in my world,

Much love from Switzerland.

Anita, thank you so much for taking us along a virtual journey through Aedermannsdorf Switzerland. Your village sounds like a tiny piece of heaven on earth and we can almost hear those cow bells ringing in the background.  How about you? Are you ready to put Aedermannsdorf Switzerland on your list of places to experience.

{Credit: Photos and words by Anita Gerster of Kandis Fotografie}