James' in the UK

After a very relaxing time at Gryon it was time to get back to faster pace and explore some more of Switzerland. First stop was Interlaken. I wasn't really sure what I was going to think of Interlaken. I knew it was very touristy and crammed full of your Contiki type bus tours which I thought I wouldn't like. It didn't help that I'd only been able to book into one of the main 2 backpacker hostels. I must say it was better than I expected, possibly because a lot of those visitors actually come in summer, it felt like the off season. For the next couple days we used Interlaken as a base and explored the surrounding mountains. The first afternoon we went to Gimmelwald, a little village that seemed to have more cows and cow sheds than residents and chalets. You need to get a gondola that pretty much goes straight up a cliff to get there so it was a pretty amazing spot.

The next day we got up early and went to one of the places which was definitely one of the highlights of the trip - Jungfraujoch. This is the name of a glacier that is about 3500m above sea level, which would normally be totally inaccessible if it wasn't for the train that went to the top of it! Basically many years ago some one decided to dig a huge tunnel (20ish km long?) through 3 solid rock mountains and out to the very top of the glacier. Cog rail trains run though tunnel, and the line is very steep. At two points along the line there had been 'windows' blasted through the side of the mountain so you could get out the train and check out the view. It is a bit hard to describe but it was just incredible how or why to tunnel was dug out. Anyway the view from the top was absolutely incredible, so beautiful and absolutely amazing. We took so many photos, and we could have stayed there for hours. It was somewhere that we would have never ever been able to get to if it wasn't for some crazy Swiss guy digging a tunnel. We had coffee and cake looking out over the glacier, walked up this tiny hill which we really struggled with due to the altitude, and went into an ice palace which was a series of rooms carved into the solid ice of he glacier.

Jungfraujoch

On the way back to Interlaken we went through Grindelwald, another ritzy ski resort/village. Grindelwald is quite popular with tourists and you can see why. Coming down the mountain into the town it looked exactly how you would want a village in the Alps to look.

After leaving Interlaken we headed to Zurich, via Lucerne. The train trip from Interlaken to Lucerne was pretty spectacular, starting off with snow capped mountains and lakes and eventually getting down to the green green grass and – well more lakes.

Lucerne was a very attractive city, set on the lake with mountains off in the distance. We had lunch by one of the old wooden bridges and walked around the city until it was time to find a train to Zurich.

Lucerne

Zurich is know for being very trendy, with a very happening dance music scene. It is also well know for shopping, there is one particular shopping street rumoured to by hiding vaults and vaults of gold and silver under the footpaths. I'm not sure if this is true but it was nice to spend an evening window shopping in some very exclusive stores, stopping for coffee, stopping for chocolate, all while admiring the Christmas lights and the general festive atmosphere.

Zurich at Night

Food of choice in Interlaken/Zurich: Half price Swiss Christmas chocolate!

To start our holiday we flew into Geneva which was (at that point) one of the coldest places we'd been to (although a Saturday night out in Glasgow in January still rates pretty highly on the list). You know it is cold when you are wearing 4 layers of clothes on your top half (long sleeve top, jumper, polar fleece, jacket) and you can tell that one of the lower 3 layers is unzipped!

Geneva was nice, quite pretty on the shores the lake but it was totally fogged in the whole time we where there so I don't think we saw it at it's best. It has lots of quite expensive shopping and due to being the home of the UN, it has many international influences. Almost every postcard you see of Geneva is of the fountain in the lake, which is kind of like a jet of water going way up into the air. Apparently it wasn't going when we where there so I'm not sure if it is impressive or not. We went to the UN headquarters and tried to find the Australian flag out the front – I'm still not sure that we did – and decided to walk through the Botanic Gardens. This was a great idea in theory but it was so cold and everything was dead so again we didn't feel like we were seeing it at it's best.

Next we headed to Chalet Martin in Gryon where we spend 5 nights over Christmas. Gryon was so gorgeous, a village up in the mountains complete with chalets covered in snow. Where we were staying was on the high side of the village and our bedroom window looked down over the village and the valley below.

Gryon from our bedroom window

We were staying in a back packers hostel with many other Australians so there were always lots of people to talk to. We had a fire outside at night and it was all a bit surreal standing next to the fire in a couple inches of snow looking at the Alps in the moonlight. We quickly found the snow around the fire was good for keeping your drinks cold – you just shove your beer or wine into the snow behind your seat and you didn't need to go inside to the fridge for the rest of the night.

Deck at the Chalet

While most other people were heading off skiing during the day we decided to take it easy – sleeping in, taking walks in the snow, taking day trips to nearby places and generally lazing around the chalet. Although we didn't ski we did manage to take advantage of the après-ski activities with our hostel buddies.

We spent one day in Montreux, a ritzy town on the shores of the lake. We found some more Christmas markets there and did what we do best at market stalls – eat! We had a huge cheese fondue for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon walking it off so we had room for chocolate waffles before leaving.

Another day was spent in Villars, the ski resort about 1 hours walk from Gryon. Again this was quite ritzy and not the cheapest place to visit. We caught a train to one of the ski fields higher up in the mountains and had lunch whilst watching hundreds of skiers and snow boarders wizzing past. The ski fields were amazing, runs everywhere as far as you could see and some great looking snow.

Villars

One of the best walks we did was down into the valley below Gryon. The trees were all so loaded down with snow and it was so pretty. At one stage I was contemplating doing a snow angel and was testing how deep the snow was and I disappeared up to my knees – glad I tested first!

In the valley below Gryon

On Christmas Eve we all gathered around the Christmas tree and had a secret santa gift exchange, complete with a randy santa handing out the pressies. Last I saw there was some present swapping going on with the American who ended up with a jar of vegemite. Christmas day was fun while being quite different to normal. We had a bacon and egg brunch with some of the other Australians we were staying with, although it seemed as though it was a stretch to call the cured ham 'bacon'.

After calling family back home we got into the important work – cooking lunch. We roasted a chicken and some vegetables which I think we could have sold for many many francs by the time it was done. While the food was in the oven we decided to make a snow man. Another group had already started to make one which we thought was a bit ugly and scary so we decided to go one better. In all honesty I think we took the snow man making a bit too seriously but the roast was in the oven and we didn't have any alcohol until the office opened so we had to throw our energy into something. We built a cracker of a snow man and were accused of cheating because Adrian was an engineer (not sure that really helped!) and lying about this being our first snowman.

Snowman

Because the sun was shining and it was a glorious day we ate lunch on the deck outside and admired our snow man constructing handy work. Again we were struck by how different it was to be sitting on the snow covered deck looking at the snow covered mountains and snow men instead of on the deck at the shack in Port Neill watching swimmers and dolphins.

Christmas Lunch

Food of choice in Gryon: Cheese fondue and festive log