Zermatt, Switzerland

John has been working like a mad man for the past month so, thanks to Mom and Stan’s Christmas present, we flew away to Switzerland for an awesome long weekend and much needed break. It was one of our best weekend trips yet!

When I was in university, my sister was living in Switzerland and all the family went over to ski in Zermatt. Zermatt is a quaint little pedestrian village at the base of an incredible ski resort and the famous Matterhorn peak. I wasn’t able to go at the time, so this past weekend was my chance.

We flew into Basel in north Switzerland on the border of France and Germany. Zermatt was on the opposite side of the country, right on the Italian border. The 3.5 hour drive between the two places gave us a chance to see lots more of scenic Switzerland. On the drive we discovered the Swiss love of tunnel building; they spare no expense! Even when we thought a road over a hill might have been easier, the Swiss would stick a gratuitous tunnel there for the fun of it.

We stopped in a summer resort town on a lake called Spiez before heading up into the Alps. To get to the other side of a mountain range, we had to drive our car onto a train which shuttled us through a long, dark tunnel to the other side of the mountain. It was a very weird experience and I tried not to think of the huge mountain mass above us.

The road up towards Zermatt was windy and the towns we drove through were classic. Part of the road was on the edge of a cliff. The road pavement was crumbling away on the edge and the metal ‘safety’ barrier was attached to the crumbling pavement. I was wishing for a tunnel! (Future travelers don’t worry – they are building a tunnel and it’s about finished.)

We couldn’t find accommodation in Zermatt so we stayed in the village below called Tasche, at the hotel “Elite”. The Elite was built the 70s and hasn’t changed one bit, which we got a kick out of. Because no cars are allowed in Zermatt, you have to leave your car in Tasch and take a train for 15 minutes up to Zermatt. Despite being a pedestrian village, there are tons of electronic carts buzzing around Zermatt to shuttle people and luggage to their hotels. We almost got hit a few times because we couldn’t hear them coming.

We arrived in Zermatt late Friday afternoon and caught our first glimpse of the Matterhorn. We got acquainted with the town, rented our skies and decided which gondola we wanted to take so we could get a fast and early start on Saturday morning. We had a drink at the National Hotel and then a huge dinner including goulash soup (yum) and cheese fondue (not yum).

We were up and at them early on Saturday to hit the slopes. We were expecting forecasted sunshine but it was snowing and all we could see were clouds. We boarded the first gondola up towards the ski area under the Matterhorn – and still couldn’t see anything, it was a total white out. We blindly followed a track down to what was luckily another lift to take us farther up the mountain. We were really starting to get down, thinking we would be skiing blind all day with no mountain views, and then, a white light appeared above us. We broke through the clouds – and there was the Matterhorn, gleaming in the sunshine!

We skied above the clouds in the sunshine all day. The conditions were awesome; light fluffy powder and long groomed cruisers. We took a cable car twice up to a crazy high peak with excellent views over the Zermatt valley, the Matterhorn and into Italy. It was such a fun day!!!

The clouds below us cleared at the end of the day so we skied all the way into the town. Halfway down we saw the track that we navigated in the morning in the white out – it is a good thing we stuck to the track because otherwise we would have skied off a cliff!

That night in Zermatt, we had a beer in a pub and watched world cup ski jumping. This is not something we normally (ever) do but we got into it quite quickly. By the end of our beers we were judging jumpers techniques and speed, and estimating/betting on jump distances. (It was surprisingly fun.) After another filling Swiss dinner, we cozied up in our 70s hotel with our tea (yes, the Brit tea drinking has worn off on us).

We had a good long Sunday sleep in and woke to glorious sunshine. We took our time driving back to Basel, on a different route than what we drove in on. It took us through a new mountain pass, cross country ski land, beautiful Swiss villages, another car train in a mountain, and the pretty lake city of Lucerne.

We love all our weekend trips but this one was one of the best! Thanks Mom and Stan.

Salzburg, Austria

Despite her very busy work schedule, John’s sister Lauren managed to get away for 10 days and she flew to London to visit us. She spent a few days exploring London and then we flew to Salzburg, Austria for a winter getaway. Andrew and Jess joined us as well.

We found a great deal on a hotel, breakfast, ski bus package. It was a 4 star hotel and far nicer the accommodation we usually get. We had a good laugh comparing it the hostel dorm room we stayed in when we went to Salzburg in Nov/06.

We arrived Wednesday night, and after a great sleep and breakfast, we caught the ski bus to Shladming for a day of skiing. We had a fun day getting our ski legs back, and trying to navigate around a new mountain in the snow. We made a wrong turn near the end of the day which resulted in a panicked race down the mountain so we wouldn’t miss the bus back.

Friday was Lauren’s 29th birthday. She had sleep in and then joined A&J for breakfast. The hotel surprised her with champagne and cake. They got a tour of the old town, explored and shopped and managed to not get too bombarded by Mozart and the Sound of Music.

John and I skied Flachau on Friday. It was a beautiful sunny day so we were able to enjoy the gorgeous views of the Austrian Alps. My mom taught skiing in Austria back in the day so I thought of her as I cruised down the slopes. All over the mountain there are on hill lodges for eating and accommodation. They were so quaintly Austrian and one had an outdoor coffee bar.

Friday night was birthday celebration night. We went to the old town for dinner in a classic Austrian restaurant, which unfortunately for Lauren only serviced beer and wine. Lauren had to be introduced to a raddler (aka shandy ie beer with 7-up) and after dinner we made a bee line out of to the bar next door so she could get a rum and diet coke. After that bar, we went to a roof top cocktail bar with a view of the old town, and then we headed to another one where Lauren charmed the Italian waiter and he brought us several rounds of free shots. Our last stop was the hotel bar, where we managed to buy one more round before it closed. We then played a bit of poker and hit the sack.

We all slept in Saturday but woke up in time to enjoy one more delicious breakfast. Poor John had to work so the rest of us explored Salzburg. He met us in the afternoon and we had a beer at a traditional beer hall. It was like a college dorm cafeteria, but with 4 different massive rooms (beer halls) instead of one. Andrew figured out how to get the beer – you get a beer stein from a shelf, it is hot from the wash so you run it under the cold water fountain, then you pay and get a ticket, then you give the ticket to the beer vendor who fills your stein. We bought some of the shaved radish they were selling (why?) and headed for dinner at a great restaurant near our hotel.
We all flew out to London on Saturday night – thanks guys for the fun ski trip! Thanks for visiting Lauren!

Paris, France

We left for Paris on the Eurostar from the new St Pancras station early Friday morning, to meet up with John’s parents who had headed to Paris on Wednesday. The Eurostar was such a treat to take; easy to get to, quick check in time, pretty scenery to watch out the window, and seats with head rests that prevented me from my habitual head bobbing whilst sleeping.

I know I keep raving and gushing about cities, and that is not going to stop with Paris. It was so beautiful! I loved the monuments and Parisian buildings, and I loved how they were completed by the cities layout. The open streets and the well planned monument locations allow for perfect sight lines of the places of interest around central Paris.

We dropped our bags off at our hotel in the trendy Bercy area of Paris (it reminded us of Kits in Vancouver), and then we took the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. We climbed the stairs to the top and took in the view of the city; the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, financial district, Champs Elysees, the Obelisque, the Louvre. A huge traffic circle (the intersection of 12 streets) surrounds the Arc and we spent several minutes studying the French traffic circle etiquette. I guess it didn’t really surprise us that the yielding rules were the opposite of England.

From there we walked to Trocadero, an area overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Enroute we grabbed two pain au chocolates, and once in Trocadero we had a coffee at a café with full view of the Tower. (Was paying EUR10 for average coffee worth the view?) We spent the afternoon hoofing it around Central Paris, hitting most of the sights on the west side. We capped it off with some crepes before heading to the hotel to meet up with Ken and Lindsay. (France is not good for our health – we eat way too many pastries and crepes.)

We had a lovely dinner with K&L and got caught up on all their Paris adventures. They were having a great time exploring. We also had some fun discussions about the US Presidential primaries.

On Saturday morning, John went to the Louvre with his parents. They wisely took tours once inside which showed them the highlights of the massive museum and gave some explanation of the art (helping with John’s non-existent art appreciation). The highlight for him was learning how to read Egyptian hieroglyphics.

I went to the Louvre several years ago, so on my sister’s recommendation I took a train to the Chateau of Versailles. The massive palace and the huge gardens really were impressive. There is a large silver collection in Louis the XIV’s state apartments of the palace, several pieces of which came from Rosenburg Castle in Copenhagen, which we’ve been to.

With precision timing, we all met back up in front of the Louvre in the early afternoon and walked east along the river to see Notre Dame Cathedral. The Parisian buildings along the way were equally interesting to look at. From there we split up; Lindsay went to a decorative arts museum and Ken went back to the Louvre. John and I wanted to check out the exhibit everyone was lined up for at the Grand Palace. We looked in the window and figured it was some sort of light show/exhibit. It turned out to be a large exhibit on trains, sponsored by the national rail company. The French seemed fascinated - we weren’t. A fashion show of French rail uniforms throughout the decades? No thanks. The most interesting part was that you could go into old trains, but there was an hour line up for each one, so we skipped that. Then John got yelled at by a security guard when he knocked over a barrier while trying to take a picture, and was told “This is not your home”. Great. We left. Now if the exhibit had been airplanes and airports, John would have been there all weekend.

Later on we walked through Place Vendome, a ritzy square where I can picture Posh Spice et al congreting at fashion week. Near the grand Opera House we found a quaint piano bar and had some drinks and French Onion Soup.

We finished the night off by going to see the Eiffel tower lit up. On the way, we had one of our funniest/embarrassing tourist moments to date. At the piano bar, John pulled out his pocket Metro guide and figured out the trains we needed to take and where to connect, to get from the Opera House to Trocadero. Once in the station, we double checked our route by consulting a large metro map on the platform wall. We were all staring at it, loudly trying to figure out where we were. We could see the green line we needed to be on, but the station names were all different. Just as we were about to give up thinking we were at the wrong station, a French woman took pity on us and managed to explain to us in French that we were looking at an advertisement, not the Metro map! We were so embarrassed but we sure got a good laugh about it. We were all chuckling, including the kind French lady, all the way to our connecting stop.

K&L of course got an early start on Sunday and they were out exploring a huge, intricate garden in Bercy. We rolled out of bed a few hours later and walked through the garden ourselves, and then along the river. It was nice and sunny so we went back into Central Paris to see some of the sights one more time before catching the train back to London.

Thanks for the fun weekend K&L and thanks to all John’s family for coming to visit us over Christmas. It was great having you here.

Scroll down for Portugal’s blog. Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/

Albufeira, Portugal

After a lovely Christmas in London with John’s parents (Ken and Lindsay), grandma (Pat), uncle (Trev) and our Aussie friends Andrew and Jess, John left with his family VERY early on Boxing Day to fly to Portugal. They flew into Faro on the southwest coast of the country and did a short drive into the Algarve to Albufeira and our villas. They were busy the first few days exploring the towns in the area and walking the local beaches. After working those few days, I gratefully joined everyone on the 29th.

It was beautifully sunny every day of our trip. The sun high in the sky beating down on us felt so good after a few dark months in London. It wasn’t beach weather but we usually stripped down to t-shirts by mid afternoon with highs of 16 or 17. It really cooled off at nights though.

John picked me up at Faro airport and took me straight to the old Moorish capital of Silves where we met his family for lunch. Silves had a Moorish fortress and a busy food market. As we have said before, we love traveling in the winter. One of the perks is that the locals venture out and you can see more of what life is like when a place when it isn’t overrun with tourists. Locals were getting their food from the market and wandering through the streets at Silves. They all had their winter coats on, while we foolish tourists were in t-shirts. We all enjoyed a huge lunch in Silves of local fish and Portuguese chicken.

We were staying in villas in a golf resort. Our apartment had balcony facing the south sun, overlooking a pool and palm and cork trees. We spent our mornings there drinking coffee and reading. We felt quite at home in our villas, making and eating dinners, and playing Cribbage and Pentago. We also got our first Bridge lesson.

The small part of Portugal that we saw was similar to neighbouring southern Spain; the inland was less rugged and picturesque but the coast made up for it. The beaches and cliffs were stunning. On my second day there John, Ken, Pat and I went to the southwesterly tip of the country. We ate lunch on the sunny patio of a restaurant overlooking a beautiful beach and cliffs (big highlight of the trip). We drove along the cliffs, past the surfer vans and the big fortress. We stopped at one the lighthouses and admired the sheer drop to the water below. The cliffs and surge of the ocean took my breath away, not to mention the fishermen perched precariously on the edges, tied to the rocks and casting down to the water.

On the last day of 2007 (Happy Birthday Sarah!), John and I drove inland to the cute town of Alte. We walked to a waterfall that John’s family had discovered earlier, explored the town and then enjoyed a coffee on a terrace overlooking Alte’s valley. We tried a local delicacy, which looked like a tasty Beaver Tail style pastry. It disappointingly turned out to be a sweet potato concoction. We should have gone for the Portuguese tart. Later in the afternoon we hit some balls at the driving range at our resort. Much to John’s chagrin, they wouldn’t let us on the course because we didn’t have golf shoes.

We started the New Year’s celebration with drinks and appies at Pat’s villa and then we walked to our restaurant for dinner. Chef Chico and his family did not disappoint; the meal was excellent and great value. We finished the low key evening back at the villa where we tried out the fire place. We were told it might work – it didn’t and we smoked ourselves out (but noted that no fire/smoke alarms went off. Safety first in Portugal). Trev and his girlfriend where the only young ones at heart; they headed into Albufeira along with thousands of others for what we heard was an excellent fire works show. We watched the top of it from where we were and watched some of the spectacular London ones on TV.

We were happy to have a fairly mellow evening as we left for London early on the 1st. It was a nice, slower paced, relaxing trip to end off the year, and it was wonderful to share it with the family. Thank you to John’s colleague Octavio for providing us with lots of tips on his home region. Scroll down for Christmas in London blog. Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/

Christmas in London

We had a busy December after getting back from Prague.

John has a new InterVISTAS colleague in the UK; Ian and his wife Sarah, who joined us in Prague and live in Bristol. So for the InterVISTAS-EU Christmas party, John and I went to Bristol and we all went out for dinner at a bangers and mash restaurant (very English). We stayed overnight with Ian and Sarah and they toured us around Bristol the next day. Parts of the city are really beautiful and grand. It is on a breathtaking gorge and the old buildings took me back 100 years. Where were the horse drawn carriages and men in top hats? We also went to the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum and learned all about the good and bad of Britain taking over the world.

We froze our butts off playing in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament on Sunday the 9th, and then counteracted any benefits of the physical activity a week later with a big Christmas lunch with the team.John’s parents arrived on Dec 14th and his grandma and uncle four days later. They roamed around London and England at record pace. We have managed to cross a few London things off our list with them – the Natural History Museum, a historical walking tour of the square mile of the London City and the Museum of London.

A highlight for me was on Dec 23rd when Jess, Lindsay (John’s mom) and I went to St Paul’s Cathedral for a carol service. It was an incredible experience. The Cathedral is so impressive but not excessive. We lucked out and got seats up in a gallery so we could over look the proceedings. The boys choir paraded through in their traditional robes and sang with heavenly voices. It certainly wasn’t like carol services I had been to in the past; it was much more traditional. The carols were ancient, the program quoted composition dates hundreds of years old. The only carol we knew Hark the Herald Angels Sing. I knew the words to O Little Town of Bethlehem but the music was from the 1500s.

On Christmas Eve day, John’s parents and grandma kindly got to work for me in the kitchen – coffee cake, nuts and bolts, xmas dinner prep, xmas eve dinner. Thank you! What a treat!On Christmas morning we opened our stockings, beautifully made by John’s grandma, and ate a hearty breakfast. John’s family did a lot of shopping at the London markets and they found some really lovely gifts – I was impressed by what they found. Our friends Andrew and Jess brought the turkey over midday and we all went for a walk through the local parks. We spent the afternoon reading, playing games and visiting and then sat down for some more eating.

Thank you to all our guests for making it a special day. I was exhausted by the end of the day, and I had lots of food help. I have much more appreciation for all of our family members who have put on Christmas in the past.
John and his family were off early on Boxing Day to catch their flight to Portugal. I worked a few extra days and joining them on Saturday.

Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/

Prague, Czech Republic

After going to the mother of all Christmas markets in Vienna last year, we decided to see what Prague had to offer this year. Prague's been on our to do list since we got to Europe, so we took a long weekend and checked out the city with Andrew & Jess and Ian & Sarah. Unfortunately Leah was pretty sick for the entire weekend, so she is getting a break from blog writing...

So the logistics planning for this particular trip turned out to be exceptional. We flew out of London City airport, which is a painless tube ride from Ealing, and more importantly, security processing takes about 12 seconds. LCY is pretty much a business airport to serve Canary Wharf and the City, so it was extra quick on Saturday morning. We flew on Swiss Air, which meant being treated far more humanely than we're used to with Ryanair & Co. Assigned seats, free beer and Swiss chocolates, what more could you ask for?

We arrived in Prague on Saturday evening and took the metro to the Hotel City Bell, which was a great find by Jess - huge rooms, a good buffet breakfast and walking distance to the city center. We dropped our bags and met up with Ian & Sarah at the pub across the street, and set about reducing our APB (average price per beer). The Czech Republic brews some excellent beer, and pints are about $1.75, compared to $6.50+ in London.

We headed over to the Christmas markets, which were closed for the evening except for the grog stand. We didn't know what grog was, but decided that everyone had to have one (except Sarah, who's pregnant). Turns out she was the lucky one. Grog is rum & hot water, and it's pretty nasty. We all gave up after a few sips, except Andrew, who easily won Grog. Andrew found us a great restaurant for dinner, we had a night cap at the pub next to the hotel, and then hit the sack.

Sunday we took a 4-hour(!) walking tour around Prague. The city is quite beautiful, particularly the architecture, and the Old Town is in excellent shape. The highlight of the tour was probably the guide, a student-looking guy whose habit of long-winded explanations was pleasantly offset by his general wierdness. His best move was reciting some obscure fact about Prague, and then saying "Yessss" with an arm pump as if he's just scored in sudden death overtime. "Czechs became disenchanted with the church after the 30 Years War, so we're mostly athiest now. Yessss" (arm pump). "Corpses legally belong to the City of Prague, so we can take your organs without your consent. Yessss" (arm pump). We spent our 20 minute lunch break at a traditional Czech restaurant called McDonald's, and then continued the tour up to Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral, which look down over the city.

We were pretty well frozen by the end of the tour, so we found a cafe in Wenceslas Square to warm up with a coffee. We then headed in to the Old Town Square to check out the Christmas market. It was absolutely packed, and didn't really have the same authentic types of crafts as in Vienna, but it was a really nice atmosphere. We picked up a couple of things, and tried the rolled up sugared bread (called trdelnik we think), before heading for dinner. Dinner was traditional Czech dumplings with meat, sauce, cranberries & cream. After dinner we picked up a few beers at the grocery store and played cards back at the hotel, where Ian destroyed us in his first ever game of Diminishing Whist.

Monday morning we went to the Museum of Communism, one of the attractions that didn't get a "skip it" from Arm Pump the tour guide. I thought this museum was actually really interesting, but I think my travel companions were less impressed. Favourite facts: a) the Prague memorial to Stalin took about 300,000 person days to build in 1955 before being demolished in 1962 after a collective change of heart towards Stalin, and b) the entire national hockey team was tried and imprisoned after the communist takeover (for what exactly, I'm not sure)...

Ian & Sarah had to head back to Bristol, so the rest of us had a leisurely lunch and a final cruise through the Christmas markets. We didn't get any snow unfortunately, but the rain held off until we were enroute to the airport. A few more Swiss chocolates later and we were back in London. All in all a successful trip - beautiful city and great company!

Bled, Slovenia

We still love Slovenia! We went to Slovenia the first time about a year ago and we wanted to go back so we could explore the Lake Bled area and the national park in the Julian Alps. Slovenia is “mini-Europe”. It has beaches on the Adriatic, old castles, historic cities, beautiful churches, caves, and the Alps, all crammed into its tiny borders, and the bonus is that it is still relatively undiscovered and great value for money.

We arrived midday Friday the 9th, and while John had a meeting with the airport I got my weekly Economist reading out of the way and continued devouring The Wolf of the Plains (a great new book about Genghis Khan).

We got to our destination of Bled later in the afternoon. Lake Bled has an island with a church on it and a castle high up on a cliffs of its shore. John found us this great hotel, outside of the town and right on the lake. We had a view of the castle, the church and all the rowers skimming across the water. The hotel was really good – clean, neat atmosphere and delicious local food. Friday evening we bundled up and walked around the lake. That worked up our appetites for a dinner of local food and then we hit the sack very early.

We spent Saturday exploring different sights in the national park, which consumes the northwest corner of the country. My friend Barb was the one that originally recommended hiking in Slovenia. First we went to the famous gorge, but unfortunately, the trail was closed, so we weren’t able to see much of it. The trail was mostly made up of boardwalks along the gorge walls but they were damaged in a big storm.

We took on a tiny gravel road through the park (non stop beautiful scenery) to a waterfall, which we hiked up to, and then we picnicked at the base of some stunning mountains. By mid afternoon, we were at the north end of the park and we thought we would take the only road that went across the park. It looked like a quick cut through, but our map didn’t show elevation. We started to go up and up and then we came across a sign that told us about the road. It is called the “Russian Road” as it was built by Russian prisoners of war in 1916. It goes through a very high mountain pass and it is closed during the winter. The sign advised of the road’s 50 hairpin turns (switchbacks), 25 on either side of the pass. The road, the turns and the spectacular mountain scenery took our breath away. So did the cold air and snow when we got out of the car at the top of the pass. The route certainly exceeded our expectations!

By the time we got to the bottom of the pass, the sun was setting. We flipped a coin to decide our route back to Bled, either around the north end or south end of the park (going back over the Russian Road was not considered). We chose the north route which took us through Italy. The Italian border crossing was really cool. It was at the top of another pass, lower than the Russian Road one, and it had fortresses in ruins on either side. We eventually made it back to our cozy hotel in Bled, where we enjoyed another great dinner and early to bed.

On Sunday, we drove to Bohinj Lake, another beautiful sight. We had the urge to do a bit more physical activity than the day before so we walked around the lake which took about 2.5 hours. The sun was shining, the lake was like a mirror, the air was crisp and the ground was covered in autumn leaves to kick our way through. At the end of the walk, we had a coffee on a café patio over looking the lake.

Driving to the airport on Sunday afternoon, we were talking about how it was such a perfect weekend -- fresh air, amazing scenery, long sleeps, yummy food, good value, and decent flight times. Of course, we jinxed ourselves and our flight was four hours late leaving. Aside from that, it was such a lovely weekend getting back to nature. Slovenia is definitely worth a visit!