Local Activites

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.

They had several different rounds so we got to see lots of races. Thankfully we got there just in time to get a decent place to stand. As you can see, the city was packed with people wanting to see the fun! Here are a few pics of the races. Look closely and you'll see a skater carrying an American Flag!


















We spent the rest of the night having dinner with friends at Holy Cow, one of our favorite burger joints, then exploring some Lausanne nightlife before catching the train back to Geneva.

A few weeks later, I went with my friend Hilda to the annual Geneva Autoshow.  I hadn't been before and she had an extra ticket. So we went one night after work and got to see a lot of fancy new cars that we could dream about one day owning. Here are a few of my favorites. I doubt I'll be owning any of these anytime in the near future, or ever, but they are very pretty and a girl can dream :-)

The rest of March has been spent working and travelling. So far this month, I've been to Berlin, London, Paris, and coming up this weekend is Prague!  An amazing month of travelling to some of the most popular destinations in Europe. More to come on each of them...

Skiing the Alps and then some

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!

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!

Finishing Out the Year

Our last stop in Austria, and our last trip of 2012 was to Innsbruck, Austria. This small ski village was so beautiful. From the center of town, you can see the mountains jutting up into the sky in every direction.  Travers and I arrived by train, a short ride from Salzburg. When we arrived at our hotel though, they told us that some of the rooms had flooded due to a burst pipe or something, so they were putting us up at another hotel a few blocks away. We were a bit hesitant and thinking this was going to be a disaster, but to our delight, the hotel was closer to the center of town, so it ended up working to our advantage.  As always, we dropped our bags, and immediately headed back out to explore. We were only there for a day so we had to make the most of it.  We walked the 2 minutes to the center of town, and were able to see the last Christmas Market that was open in town.  We grabbed two vin chauds and continued our walk.

We strolled through the narrow cobblestone streets, walking past the famous Golden Roof Museum, and stopping into another brewery for some more Austrian beer!  It was getting darker now, and some festivities were going on back in the main part of town. We watched some musicians play music, and the Golden Roof had some entertainment going on in the upper balcony as well!  We watched the show with all the other people, then found a a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner.  With a couple margaritas, and some tasty Mexican food in us, we continued walking around and stopped at a few more bars and restaurants and tried to mingle with the locals.











The next morning, we had just a few hours before we had to catch a train to Munich for our flight back home.  So we decided to head up the mountain to take in some views of the city below.  We walked past the center of town, towards the river. Following the river, we walked to the base of the funicular that would take us up the mountain. The walk along the river was breathtaking. The combination of the river, and the blue sky and the mountains covered in snow were just breathtaking.









We took a bridge to cross the river, and then waited for the next funicular to take us up the mountain. Once up there, the sun was shining so bright that a lot of the photos didn't come out very well, but the views were still amazing.

We decided to have lunch up on the mountain, and being that it was our last Austrian meal, Travers got the traditional goulash soup, and I got a traditional Austrian sausage.  Taking in the views a bit more, we knew it was time to go.  So we headed back down the mountain, grabbed our bags from the hotel, and headed to the train station.  It was a quick stop in Innsbruck, but we both want to go back and take our ski gear with us so we can enjoy the mountains even more.  This small village was a wonderful way to wind down after a week long trip in Austria, and it was a great final stop to all our travels in 2012.

Beer, Mozart, and Beer

Training from Vienna to Salzburg took just a few short hours. We saw some beautiful Austrian countryside, and arrived in the small town of Salzburg.  Dropping our bags at Hotel Elefant, we still had a bit of daylight left to explore. We strolled through Old Town, seeing the remnants of the Christmas market that had recently closed, and dodging tons of people that were walking the streets.  We saw some museums and old buildings. Then decided to walk to a nearby brewery, Augustiner, to experience the Austrian beer drinking culture first hand.









With a large pretzel to hold us over until dinner, we had a couple beers and took in the beer hall culture.  After we got our fill, we walked back towards town and stopped in at a restaurant, Baerenwirt, we had seen on the way there. We had delicious austrian food, some more austrian beer and wine, then headed back towards town to our hotel for the night.

The next day was our only full day in Salzburg and we wanted to make the most of it. We purchased the Salzburg Card, which allowed us 24 hour access into tons of museums and historical buildings. We started with the Residence Museum, which houses the state of Salzburg's painting collection. After that, we found Salzburg's oldest bakery, Alteste Backerei, buying some freshly baked bread as a mid-morning snack. With bread in hand, we walked through St. Peter's cemetary then into the catacombs, where there were narrow passageways and staircases.





















We walked some more, passing by a farmer's market, then finding our way to Mozart's childhood home.  We toured the house (unfortunately were not allowed to take photos), and learned all about Mozart and how he grew up. We then crossed the river to the other side of town, and headed towards Mozart's home where he lived with his wife and family as an adult. Again, we learned all about Mozart and about the music and operas he created.











After learning all we could about Mozart, we hopped on a bus to the Stiegl Brewery on the other side of town. We were pretty hungry at this point, so before touring the museum, we had lunch in one of the restaurants there, again filling ourselves up with delicious Austrian food and a couple Stiegl beers.  We toured the brewery after that, learning all about how they make the Stiegl beers, then had two more in the bar at the end of the tour before hopping back on a bus to the center of town.











We went back to the hotel to rest for a bit and got ready for our night out. We were going to see an Austrian music concert!  We left the hotel and headed back across the river to the Stein Hotel. We went up the elevator to the Steinterrasse, which is a modern swanky lounge with a large terrace that overlooks the river and the old town beyond, which was beautifully lit up at night.  After a cocktail, we walked to  the Mirabell Palace to listen to a Mozart concert. We couldn't see much of the palace at night, but the room they held the concert in was fully decorated in gold walls and was just gorgeous to listen to beautiful music in a beautiful room.  After the concert, we walked back towards the center of town, having a small dinner at Zwettler's Stiftskeller before heading back to the hotel for the night.










The next morning, we still had a few hours left on our Salzburg Card, so we headed up the funicular to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. From the funicular, we had great views of the city below, and there were even better ones from the top of the fortress.  There was a marionette museum, where we posed as some medieval characters. We then took a tour of the fortress, taking in some more spectacular views of the city below.









We felt like we had seen as much as there was to see of Salzburg. While a smaller town, it was just as exciting as Vienna. We had learned all about Mozart, were able to experience the beer drinking culture, as well as the music concert culture, and just enjoy a great trip.  The next destination was to an even smaller town, Innsbruck. It would be a great city to end our tour of Austria!

Christmas in Austria

We spent Christmas day partially on a plane and partially in Vienna, Austria!  After a slight detour to a nearby town due to excessive fog in Vienna, we finally landed and made our way to Le Meridien hotel in Vienna.  As usual, we wasted no time in dropping our bags and heading back out to explore the city. We strolled through the town, into Old Town, and down the major pedestrian shopping streets. We passed by some beautiful buildings, and went into St. Stephen's Cathedral, which had an amazing multi-colored lighting design inside. We stopped and grabbed a classic Austrian snack of a cheese sausage stuffed into a baguette. Yumm. Then as the afternoon turned to evening, we stopped at Cafe Central for a couple Irish Coffees and a traditional strudel. Double Yumm!

The city was decorated in colorful lights, strung from building to building, and as the sun set, all the lights came on and gave the city a magical feeling! What a great place to spend Christmas!

After Cafe Central, we walked past a Christmas Market that had closed the night before, but thankfully it was still lit up all over.  The backdrop was a gorgeous building that was all lit up inside. And in front of the market, were some bright red butteflies!  We found another market nearby that was just as pretty and lit up, so we strolled past all the shops, having a vin chaud to keep us warm.












That evening we had dinner in a cave/cellar restaurant called Zwolf Apostel Keller, which served traditional Austrian food, and had musicians that come by your table and play songs based on the country where you're from.  We had some hot goulash and delicious schnitzel and lots of yummy other Austrian delights.  After dinner, we strolled back through the streets, taking in more pretty street lights and seeing all the fog that had rolled in.









The next day, we took the metro out to another Christmas Market and the Schonbrunn Palace! The market was just in front of the palace and had a huge Christmas tree in the center.  We grabbed some vin chaud and walked through the shops, mostly the same as the night before, but really interesting to see all the Viennese artwork that was displayed.  We bought two tickets to go into the palace, and followed the audio guide around the palace to see all the lavishly decorated rooms.  After touring the palace, we grabbed some lunch at one of the shops in the market, then strolled through the gardens before heading back towards the city center.









In the afternoon, we took a tour of the Vienna State Opera House and vowed that we would return to Vienna some day and actually go to an opera.

That evening, we had dinner at a more modern restaurant called Kulinarium 7.  We opted for a wine pairing with our dinner, and our waiter was wonderful, describing each dish that came out and every wine that accompanied it.  Afterwards, he took us on a tour of the cellar downstairs, where all their wine is stored, and where they had recently built an additional dining area where you truly feel like you're in a cave.

Our final day in Vienna was spent walking to another part of town to see another palace and some more gardens. It wasn't as impressive as the Schonbrunn Palace, so after strolling through the gardens, we opted to forgo the palace tour and head back to the hotel so we could get an earlier start on heading to our next destination.  Vienna was a great city to visit, but much larger than I anticipated. I was looking forward to our next destination, a smaller town, and the home of Mozart, Salzburg!