2013 has been filled with ski days and ski weekends. January was spent skiing in Leysin and Zermatt, both in Switzerland. And February was spent in Torino, Italy and Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Leysin is a resort just a short hour and a half train ride from Geneva. Our friend Mike came with us, and his wife Shelley, their new baby girl Harper, and Shelley's father met us there by car later on. We got up early as we were only going for the day and finally got up the mountain (seems we can never make it up before 10am), to hit the slopes. We were a bit ambitious the first run, having to go through some thick mogul and heavy snow, but after that, we went down lots of nice runs and crossed the mountain with ease. And luckily we were blessed with a sunny day! The good weather turned foggy and cold in the afternoon, so we called it a day and warmed up with a few drinks for apres-ski before heading home. Unfortunately, heading home meant hiking up a long gradual slope we had walked down from the train. With a good 15 minute walk back uphill, I have never felt so out of shape. Huffing and puffing, I blame the high altitude. But, we made it just in time to catch the train back home.
The following weekend, we went to Zermatt, to celebrate our friend Michelle's birthday! This is an annual trip she has been doing for years now and this was our second year celebrating with her. We took the train Friday night and much to our surprise and dismay, ended up getting stuck several stops too early for Zermatt. Some bad weather and rocks had taken out the power lines for the train!So we waited until they sent a bus to come get us. Knowing the European culture about lines, we knew we were going to have to fight to get onto the first bus. Our group sprinted up to the bus as soon as we saw it approach, and fought our way on, barely squeezing in with the other passengers. Unfortunately, one didn't quite make it (he's new to living in Europe and hasn't learned that lines and patience don't exist here), so he had to wait for the next one. Finally making it to Zermatt, we had dinner at
Grampis, one of our favorite places in the heart of town. Then headed downstairs to hear the piano man sing and play some American classics. We finished the night off at the bar at Hotel Post, then went to bed hoping to get some good weather the next day for skiing.
Saturday, we woke up and had a nice surprise: Our first full sighting of the top of the Matterhorn! Of all the times we've been to Zermatt, we had yet to see the top. And this was as good as it was going to get even though it was a bit hazy. We put our ski gear on, hoping for the weather to stay nice. Of course, the further we went up the mountain, the worse the weather was. Our first run of the day was through what I would call a whiteout. We couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us. And with no depth perception, it made it very difficult to ski. Thankfully this slope wasn't too steep so I pizza wedged it (very ungracefully) down the mountain until I could see again.
We immediately decided to go over to another side of the mountain with better weather. We had a nice rest of the day, stopping into an Igloo Bar for lunch, then to the Hennu Stahl Bar for apres-ski.
Dinner that night was at
Chalet de Giuseppe, one of the best Italian restaurants in town. We celebrated Michelle's birthday and enjoyed a delicious meal. I was starting to come down with something, so I went back to the hotel after that, but the rest of the group had a fun night dancing at Hotel Post. We went home the next day and hopefully will celebrate with Michelle again next year!
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| Michelle with Giuseppe himself! |
February, we took a road trip to Torino, Italy. When I was in college, I spent a summer studying in Torino. About 10 years ago, I wasn't sure how much I would remember. Mike, Shelley and their baby Harper came with us. We had stopped for dinner on the drive down, but we still wanted to go out and explore Torino a bit once we arrived. So we walked through town, and finally stumbled on Via Garibaldi, which is the main pedestrian only shopping street, and just around the corner from where I had lived when I was there years ago. I was so excited to have found it and to actually remember it! We finally found a bar to stop into and have a glass of wine before heading back to the hotel for the night. We wanted to go skiing the next day, and had to get an early start as the mountains were an hour drive away.
When Torino hosted the winter Olympics in 2006, they used
Sestriere ski resort. So we decided that since it was good enough for the Olympics, it would be good enough for us. Driving the hour to get there, we made it up the mountain by 11am (again, never before 10am with us), and lucked out with some sunny weather! We skied all over the mountain, finding some fabulous runs that weren't crowded and really enjoying ourselves while we got some speed and flew down the mountain time and time again. After one apres-ski drink (we had to drive the hour back to Torino after all), we headed back and rested up a bit before going out to a tasty Italian dinner. Mike and Shelley stayed in that night with the baby, so Travers and I went out after dinner, finding a fun cocktail bar and meeting some local Italians who showed us the hot spot for the night to go dancing. Staying out a bit too late, we had a wonderful night, dancing away!
Two weeks later, we decided to go to Crans-Montana in Switzerland to go skiing. We booked a hotel for one night, and with our friend, Mary, we drove up to Crans-Montana one morning. I had been pretty sick around this time and still on anti-biotics, so I opted not to ski that day and let Mary and Travers have fun on the mountain, which I was very jealous as they said it was a beautiful sunny day with wide open runs. I rested and explored the town and waited until they were done for the day. That night, we had tasty Thai food for dinner at
Le Thai, then went for an after dinner drink or two before heading back to the hotel for the night. Sunday was spent going to the grocery store in Crans-Montana (amazing that a Swiss grocery store was open on a Sunday) before driving back to Geneva. It was a fabulous trip, and I would love to go back when I'm healthy and actually ski next time!
Our March is quite busy with work trips and fun trips, but we hope to get in at least one more ski trip to Chamonix this year. We just hope the snow stays long enough into April so we can enjoy it. But so far with 4 ski trips this year, not to mention our trip to Gstaad we took before Christmas, I think we've gotten in a lot of ski time this year exploring Torino and the Swiss Alps!
March started out with some local excitement. Ok, not exactly local, but just a short train ride to Lausanne for the Red Bull Crashed Ice event! Basically they build this long ice skating course down the hills of Lausanne. Then skaters representing different countries race down the track, pushing, shoving, fighting their way to the finish line, often crashing into each other, the walls and the ice.
