Switzerland – Part Two

Ok, this is the last of it. I promise. Part Two … and then we’re done with the travel posts … and we can all get on with our lives.

Looks like a postcard doesn’t it? It was. We holidayed in a postcard. After Montreux, and skiing the gorgeous little village of Leysin, we headed to Zermatt, via train. I couldn’t believe my eyes when we arrived. It was picture perfect … a little pedestrian-only village in the alps, where the sun shone brightly …. and this view welcomed us from our hotel balcony, each and every gloriously sunny day.

It was quite overwhelming, after such a magical journey to get there …

… past snow covered villages …

… arriving at the most perfect time in the afternoon, for a walk through the pretty little streets before the sun went down.

There were ice bars on every corner!

No cars, just horse and buggies and little electric carts that would silently sneak up on you and beep you out of their way!

We were the first on the slopes each day … skiing in the early morning shadows ….

… with the Toblerone beauty always in sight!

Every day there was major breakfast scheming. It was the biggest place we had skied and we wanted to do it all.

We did it too!

We stopped at groovy bars, along the way … like this Igloo Bar.

Hot chocolates and bratwurst sausages for morning tea! Heaven, when it’s cold!

There was a whole igloo town thing happening. A bar, a hotel. Out in the middle of nowhere on the mountain.

There were places in the sun, with loud pumping music, echoing through the mountains …..

… and cosy little champagne bars, on the side of ski runs, with lambswool seats and hot chocolates for the kids.

You name it, they had it. I don’t think I am ever going to be able to sit on a chairlift again, without a heated seat! Ha! We couldn’t believe it. So sophisticated. Spot the Aussies, we went on and on about the heated seats!

And there was this darling little place, near the end of our favourite run, that served the BEST strudel!

Every. Day. Affair.

The staff got to know us. There weren’t too many people on the mountain. The strudel was fresh daily and it was all ours!

We skied long runs, all day … into the afternoon shadows …

… and marvelled at magnificent glaciers…. close up.

Look at the beautiful blue of the glacier.

 … trekked to the freezing top of the world…. (that’s me, a very flattering selfie)… it was so damn cold ….

… and braved the icy winds to ski over into Italy…..

…. to ski the other side of the Matterhorn.

Italy.

Alps as far as the eye can see.

Mindblowing.

We were pretty chuffed we made it up into Italy. The winds are strong at the top and often the cable cars are not running.We were very conscious of the time and the wind conditions because if the cable car stopped running, or we left it too late to get back, we had heard rumours that it costs $5000 in taxi fares to go the long way round back into Switzerland. I kid you not.

We skied down to Cervinia, in Italy, for a very Italian lunch of pasta and pizza, just so we could say we had eaten an authentic Italian meal and so we could use the only Italian we knew in conversation…. our musical terms. The Italians were impressed. ‘Presto, Andante, Allegro, Decrescendo’. It was the best we could do.

The border at the top of the cable car. My youngest jumped that line 20 times so that he could say he’s been to Italy 20 times!

It was cold. I remember the cold in this photo! I couldn’t hold my phone steady, it was so cold!

Back into Switzerland. Phew! No $5000 cab fare.

That’s Zermatt down there.

And I did mention the jumps, didn’t I? My youngest could not do a run without searching out jumps on the sides … through trees, over cliffs. If there was a shortcut, he would take it, even if it was a vertical drop. No fear and a very low centre of gravity…. lucky thing!

Their Dad was no better, putting his orthopaedic surgeon’s advice … to never ski again after 7 soccer knee reconstructions (yes Winnie, 7!) … to the side! That’s him. Mid air. Having the time of his life.

So …. I could just go on and on about the snow and the village and everything … and load up a million more photos and put you all to sleep. Where does one stop? We spent almost 3 weeks in Switzerland and already, 3 weeks back home, we are scheming where we are going to explore next time we can get there. There are so many pretty little ski towns to experience. We want to do a bit of a ‘ski village crawl’ next time and maybe spend 3 days in each spot and then move on. All via rail. The trains are fabulous and go EVERYWHERE!

It’s all about the outdoors in Switzerland, summer and winter. We couldn’t believe how many cross country skiers we saw, carrying their groceries, taking their dogs for walks … in the cold! It was cold. They all live outdoors, all year ’round.

One final batch of photos I will share with you is our day sledding between the towns of Preda and Bergun. We caught the train to Preda, sledded 7km to Bergun, and then hopped on the train again! It was such a magical day. No-one was around, it was gently snowing and the scenery was spectacular. Precious memories.

Oh and can I just quickly mention ‘The Glacier Express’? …. the slow panaoramic-windowed train from Zermatt to St Moritz. It’s included in the Swiss Rail Pass and it was spectactular! An all day affair, with the most gorgeous, ‘press your nose up against the glass’ scenery. It’s one of the great rail journeys of the world. So glad we did it.

Every scene, either a monastery or a church spire in the centre of it! I got a bit obsessed with the darling little village churches.

“There’s the church”, we’d all yell when we spied a little village.

Where’s the church?

There’s the church!

Yep, the whole trip was just surreal. Such beauty… and you didn’t have to look far for it. It was everywhere.

Thanks for enjoying my holiday snaps with me. If you want more piccies of snow and stuff, you can find more in my Instagram feed, a few weeks back, at: www.instagram.com/capecoddesigns

Now back to regular programming …. whatever that is?!

A-M xx

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