Downtime in St.Moritz.
Clearly summer is not the season to visit St.Moritz, while there are a lot of people around, it’s a lot quieter than Zermatt. There are some amazing old hotels that have been around since the early days of skiing and going by all the designer shops, the town specialises selling to the very wealthy – we were tempted to have a look around the Mazeratti show room but they had nothing in our colour 😊
We finished up in Switzerland proper and arrived into one of the smallest countries in the world – Lichtenstein. We’re staying in Vaduz, the capital, and staying in the rather fancy Park Hotel Sonnenhof located on a hilltop overlooking the capital.
Yesterday evening we dined outdoors in what’s known as The Nest, which when viewed from the road looks like a huge treehouse 🙄, treehouse or not, it’s still a Michelin stared restaurant. The service was fantastic and the food was pretty good too, this coupled with the view was fantastic. However a thunder storm was about to hit, no problem, a huge canopy opens up overhead and glass walls come up around encircling the nest to keep us all dry – pretty cool.
Today we started with a short hike up the surrounding hills towards Vaduz Castle. The views were very impressive. From there we headed down towards the town and came across one of the most random things – there was a beach volleyball competition taking place in the centre. Bear in mind Litchenstein is a landlocked country and to add to the randomness – Litchenstein were playing Ireland!?! So we stayed for a full game which was fun. Ireland won the match.
We visited three of the museums, all are pretty small but interesting nonetheless, this was followed by a late lunch and a walk around looking at a few more places of interest.
So as I type we’re relaxing by the pool at the hotel, which is Moroccan themed of all things. Tonight it’ll just be a casual dinner in the dining room and a drink or two out in the Nest 😋.
So that’s pretty much it, tomorrow we’ll make an early start towards Zurich and have a few hours in the city before heading to the airport.
Switzerland and Lichenstein have been amazing places to visit and we’ll certainly return at a later date and maybe next time, visit during the ski season.
Hope ye enjoyed the blog, until the next trip………
Bye for now, C and J.
Cool Zermatt…
….and it’s not even the ski season.
Car free Zermatt is the perfect Swiss setting, tradional houses with flower boxes blooming, boutique shops, cool bars, 5 star hotels and amazing views of the Matterhorn.
A lot more compact than Interlaken which makes a visit a doddle with everything centred around one Main Street with a few offshoots here and there.
On arrival we headed to our hotel dropped the bags and hit the town. We decided as we had time to take a trip on the worlds oldest cogwheel railway all the way up to 3100 meters to Gornergrat, even up here there’s a small but fancy hotel, with an outdoor seating area offering amazing views of the mountains.
The next day we took a trip up to the Glacier Paradise, a ski resort of sorts at a whopping 3,886 metres. It offers summer skiing on a few of the glaciers, there’s also a restaurant, gift shop and it’s cold, very cold. There’s also a look out platform which goes up an extra 20 metres or so, nice, but at -1C and a storm level wind, 5 minutes was the best I could handle – did I mention I was wearing short pants 😁
It also has an ice cave, which is burrowed out from underneath one of the glaciers, along with a few dozen ice sculptures, it’s very impressive.
After a few hours we headed back down the same way we came up, on the highest cable car in Europe, 60 plus people squeezed into the cabin adds to the madness as you travel over a few of the glaciers suspended by a couple of cables.
When we arrived back down to Zermatt, we grabbed a late lunch and visited the Matterhorn museum, which was very interesting, it gives a great insight to all things Matterhorn, especially the first ascent in 1865.
We spent the remainder of the evening checking out a few of the fancy shops, this was followed by a few drinks and people-watching at the very plush Royal Zermatterhof hotel, with the average price of a drink, 18 euro – needless to say it was a dive bar burger for dinner 😋
Our accommodation in Zermatt was very nice, especially the Spa area, if you’re into that sort of thing, which C is. It offered seven themed sauna type rooms, yeah I know, “themed saunas”, I did not get it, but C enjoyed trying them all and the area is all outdoors, with views of the Matterhorn of course.
One unique feature, as if the saunas was not enough, was a bar and nightclub which pulsates during the skiing season, but converts to a bar and cinema, during the summer, cool eh!
So as I type, we’ve just arrived into our final stop in Switzerland – the equally famous ski resort of St.Moritz. We arrived on the famous Glacier Express train, dubbed the slowest express train in the world. All the carriages have panorama windows so you can take in everything as it twists and turns through the amazing scenery on its almost 8 hour journey.
We’ve only one night in St.Moritz, so we’re going to make the most of it 😉
J
Interlaken and beyond.
It’s our last morning in Interlaken before continuing our journey south to Zermatt.
The last few days have been fantastic. Interlaken is a great base for visiting all the major sites and attractions and with a picture postcard setting, the surrounding scenery is amazing.
On our first evening we took the funicular train to Harder Kulm to a height of 1354 metres which offers spectacular views of the mountains and lakes below. There’s also a bar, restaurant and gift shop. We enjoyed a drink outside on the viewing terrace and the weather was a nice 22C.
Once back in the town, we wandered for a bit to get our bearings and suss out the restaurants. We went for dinner in one of the gastro bars of which there are many, as Interlaken is also a big ski destination.
The following morning it was an early start and our main reason for visiting Interlaken, a trip to Jungfraujoch, Europe’s highest railway station, at 3454 metres. As well as the station, there are several other attractions and it takes the best part of a day to experience it all, after all it took 4 trains just to get there 😊
There’s an ice cave with dozens of ice sculptures, even the floor is ice so you slide rather than walk. You can do tubing (sliding down a ski slope on a rubber tube), zip line, visit the worlds highest watch shop and the worlds highest chocolate shop. There’s also a choice of four restaurants, all this up in the snow-covered Alps.
Of course, the view, spectacular! However, you can go higher, to the lookout platform, the Sphinx at 3468 and yes, it’s cold and again the views are amazing.
However, if want to go even higher, to 3650 metres, well it’s an hour and a half trek, through deep snow to the Monchsjochhutte, which we did and the views just kept getting better, especially looking back at the Sphinx as it got smaller in the distance. Despite been surrounded by snow, ice and glaciers it felt like 20C with the sun beaming down on us.
On arrival at the hut, in this remote part of the Alps, you can have food, drinks and if required a bed for the night – impressive. Very few tourists make the trek to the hut preferring to stay at Jungfraujoch which is great as on the trek back we met just three people, so it really felt like we were the only ones around, the weather had changed though, it now felt like -1 ☃
All in all, a fantastic day and all that was left to do was take the 4 trains back down to Interlaken, hit the town for a drink or two and grab a bite to eat 😉.
Yesterday was another early start, our plan was to hike the Faulhornweg trail, the entire hike is about 17km, which may not seem like much, but when the highest point is 2681 meters, it puts it in perspective.
We started by getting the train to the town of Grindlewald and from there take a gondola to the summit of First (pronounced Fesit). The views even now are fab and it’s hot, around 28C.
For the first few kilometres the going was mostly uphill and tough going, after just over two hours we made it to the highest point to Berghotel Faulhorn which is also the oldest hotel in the Alps, of course I use the term hotel loosely. But we did have a hearty hot lunch before continuing our walk. The next four plus hours of accents and descents were tough going and despite been so high it was still very warm.
But the ever changing terrain from alpine meadows to rugged snow covered peaks made it a worthwhile slog 😨. We were happy to reach the end to Schynige Platte and enjoy the old cogwheel train journey back down.
Of course the evening is still young so after a rest and a (badly needed) shower, we hit the town and as luck would have it, it’s the Swiss national day so the place is hopping. Bands playing, street venders and fireworks going off all evening and as is a Swiss tradition there are dozens of bonfires dotting the Alps, it’s all great fun.
Interlaken has a lot to offer and we will certainly return in the future, but for now, it’s onwards to Zermatt and the Matterhorn.
J
Breakfast in Dublin, lunch in Basel, dinner in Bern.
After a slightly delayed flight out of Dublin we arrived into Basel in the north of the country. We hopped on an airport bus which brought us right into the centre of Basel with a plan to check out a few of the sites and grab some lunch before getting a train to the capital, Bern.
On arrival and after a 5 minute walk we came across a nice cafe so we stopped for a coffee and a croissant, it’s also a church!?! I’ve never seen coffee tables in a church before – however, we sat outside as the weather was fab!
Basel is very walkable with a lot of the main sites centred in and around the old town. The Rhine flows through the city and you can get some great views from the bank on both sides.
With loads of options to eat, we decided on an Italian in one of the hotels, the restaurant had a great location in a very comfortable courtyard.
As well as Swiss cuisine, French, German and our lunch choice Italian, are all well represented, however on this occasion we felt it was a tad to soon to try the fondu 😋
After lunch and a quick wander around the shops, we caught our train and headed to Bern, a quick 55 minute journey.
After a long day we arrived into Bern (we really should have stayed in Friday night) but the plan remained the same, get to our hotel, drop the bags and hit the town, which is what we did.
Bern has a fantastic tram system and its free for visitors which makes it so easy to get around. Like a lot of European capitals there are numerous choices to grab a drink and have a bite to eat, which we did. After a late dinner we headed back to the hotel and on arrival we were informed of a pop-up cocktail bar, on the roof!
No prizes for guessing where we ended up. The views from the roof were amazing and the cocktails not too bad either. There was also a DJ spinning some cool tunes.
As I type we’ve arrived into lnterlaken, our home for the next few days. This morning after breakfast in Bern we visited the Einstein museum, which was pretty good and we had lunch al fresco style down by the river, a fitting end to our short visit in Bern.
J
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