Swiss Rest Area At Sion

So after my first descent from my aborted first ascent of the Mettelhorn, I noticed my pedometer had 22,000 steps (eventually it hit 24,000 that day). Vicki and I met up again and decided all our most reasonable goals for Zermatt had been met and that it was time to move on. In fact, it was a very pleasant day, beautiful weather, great views, a good but not exhausting workout on the trails. We are glad we did Zermatt one more time.

We drove back down to Visp, hit the main highway, drove on into the sunset, and then stopped for the night at the rest area just east of Sion. Not the most interesting rest area we have encountered, but one of them...

Sion is in Rhone country and is famous for two old hill-top
fortresses; the rest area was maybe 4-5 miles away

Thus, by day

The valley is very big-time vineyard country

Although what the Swiss do with all these grapes is a
mystery to me; it's a small country, and who drinks Dole
anyway?

So anyway, here is the aforementioned rest area, two concrete
modern buildings, both two stories high, trimmed in vines and
grapes; one building is the bathrooms, telephones, etc.; the
other is the picnic area, complete with grill, ponds with koi, nice
little paleolithic picnic tables; thus 

Bathroom building

Up on the second floor of the bathroom building

Bunches and bunches

Picnic area

Paleolithic picnic tables; as we drove on the next day, down
the road we noticed several more variations on this rest area
theme, none identical in structure but certainly in theme