We are all aware by now that, given the choice, I’ll take
a beach over a mountain any day of the week.
This being said, when given the opportunity to ski in the Swiss Alps on
Christmas day, you take it.
We are slowly working our way through all the methods to
transit from the UK to the continent. We
flew to Paris, we took the ferry when we went to Amsterdam, and this trip we
did the Eurostar through the Channel Tunnel.
This one has to be the strangest experience I’ve had in awhile. You physically drive your car onto a train,
then you sit in your car as the train goes through the tunnel. You are allowed to get out of your car to use
the restrooms on board, but they do encourage you (strongly, in both English
& French) to stay seated in your car throughout the duration of the trip
(which only takes about 35 minutes). You’re
also required to keep your windows rolled down throughout the time under the
water. When the train is in motion, you
can feel the clickity-clack of the train, but the shocks on your car also kick
in, so you have a really odd sensation of rhythmic motion along with a slight
sea-wave of the car trying to correct for the rhythms.
After a quick sleep in Calais, we hit the road super early
Saturday morning to start the projected 8 hour drive to Lauterbrunnen,
Switzerland where we were to leave our car.
The drive, thankfully, was beautiful and pretty uneventful. It took us closer to 10 hours due to traffic
and construction delays, but don’t think we took any major wrong turns – we got
a bit turned around in Nancy, but were able to correct within two exits and get
back on track. I also learned that you can’t drive on a highway in Switzerland without going through a tunnel (and paying a fortune for the privilege!).
We pulled into Lauterbrunnen just after 4:30pm.
From Lauterbrunnen, we then had to take a cable car to Grütschalp...
...where we got on a train which took us to Winteregg...
...and eventually into Mürren.
Go back a second and look at those altitude markers. In about 25 minutes, in a combination of
transportation systems, we ascended 2,700ft.
I’ve never had my ears pop in a cable car before, but then again two
days before I’d never travelled 200 mph in a car in a train before either.
If you ever get the chance to visit Mürren, stay with Ema
at Eiger Guesthouse. She is one of the
nicest people I’ve ever met and her kitchen staff is pretty amazing too. Our room was the top middle Juliet balcony pair
& the view was completely worth the three story spiral staircase climb (with
no elevator in the building).
The following morning we had a light dusting of snow (on
top of the three feet or so that was already on the ground) so we awoke to
this.
We took a walk around Mürren to get our bearings on the
town. It didn’t take long. There are only two roads, and the only vehicles
are the snow plow and the dump truck that collects the snow and tosses it off
the side of the cliff.
We also saw quite a few small avalanches high in the
mountains. We assume they were small
because none of the locals seemed concerned, but I’m sure if I was standing
closer I would think differently!
Snow is pretty remarkable to stare at – enjoy some of my favorites
of the 50 or so pictures of snow & mountains that Adam took – have I
mentioned he really likes his camera?
I also performed the second most important snow related
activity. Made a snow angel.
The following day, we took to the slopes. Not having skied in 15+ years, I was slightly
nervous about the experience.
But after falling getting off the first ski lift, I
regained my footing (so I could fall again another 100 yards or so later). Let’s just say that I spent about equal time
in motion and laying in the snow during the day. It’s probably going to be another 15+ years
before Adam convinces me it would be fun to try this again. Maybe less, he is kinda cute.
Here’s the thing.
The four-year-olds who can barely move because their ski suits are
bigger than they are and with no poles almost never fell. I decided you’re a much better skier when you
don’t understand things like gravity or broken bones. I think too hard to ski. Yep, that’s my story & I’m sticking to
it.
For the record, Adam fared better than I did on the
slopes, but not immensely better. He
bought a video camera so that he could record the view of him whooshing
downhill. It came with an ‘inspiration
video’ of what the camera could do:
Then we have what Adam recorded with the camera strapped
to his wrist:
After counting the bruises and scrapes (13 and 4,
respectively if you care), I decided that I would stick to walking for the
remainder of my time. Not sure this
guy made the same decision.
We couldn’t figure out what was on the top of this cable
car until it was almost in the station at which point we realized that a man
had ridden outside the car up the mountain.
I really hope he got a half-price ticket!
Our final day, we took the (LONG!) cable car ride to the
top of the Schilthorn.
The Schilthorn was the filming location for the James Bond
‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. Recognize
this?
Don’t worry, I didn’t either until I watched the film
clips in the museum.
The wind started to kick up while we were outside taking a
few photos.
To the point that I didn’t think a cable car ride was a
good idea. So we went to plan B (okay,
okay, this might have actually been my plan A...)
Did you think I’d forgotten to tell you what the most
important snow related activity was? No
way!
Snow. Ball. Fight.
Because you couldn’t see Adam (and the astonishing number
of hits I had), here is a photo of him at the end of the fight.
I think we can all agree that I have won.
