Holiday in Switzerland

We spent the first half of December holidaying in Switzerland.

It was quite a crazy trip. 9 adults and 4 kids aged 1 to 4.

We left on a Singapore Airlines flight at 0125h, so that was a crazy start already. There was so much luggage, including 4 strollers.

But I cannot complain. My 2 kids were relatively well behaved and settled during the flight. My 2 nieces were however a different story. Especially the littlest one... but it was a long flight. 12 hours direct to Zurich.

When we arrived, Zurich was covered in snow. We were quite unprepared for the severity of the weather. And then there was the transfers that we had to take with the kids and luggage to the hotel. Which was technically close ( less than 10 minutes by foot ) but with our bags and kids we had to take a taxi to the hotel.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we repacked, changed our gear to the warmer clothing then made our way to the main street just outside the train station. We had lunch at the Sprungli cafe ( which was supposed to be world famous ). And that was the start to our numerous hot chocolates we had throughout the trip.

The next day we caught a train to Zermatt, home of the mighty Matterhorn. We had to change trains at a town called Visp. Initially we planned to take it easy, allow ourselves 45 minutes between train transfers. But. When we arrived at Visp, it was snowing heavily, and the train station was open to the elements! We made the 8 minute dash between platforms with bags, 4 strollers and kids. The train ride was 3 hours in total, with the last leg climbing up the mountain towards Zermatt.

Zermatt was beautiful. It was covered in snow, and there are only horse driven carriages and electric taxis allowed on the streets. The main street outside the train station had many shops, especially luxury watch and clothing shops. We were fortunate to have come outside of the school holidays; I can't imagine the crowds when the holidays actually started.

We signed Madison and Elizabeth up for private ski lessons for the first 2 days. In retrospect we should have let them acclimatize first, because they were grouchy and tired during the lessons. By the 3rd day in Zermatt they had adjusted, but were then tired from skiing. The temperatures in Zermatt ranged from -5 to -23 degrees Celcius, which was the coldest I have ever experienced.

We were lucky my parents came along, because they refused to ski and were agreeable to babysit. So while the older 2 were having lessons, the rest of us went skiing. That was truly the best part of the entire trip. Those few hours of complete bliss, up on the mountains, with the powder and next to the majestic mountains. The runs were so long! It took easily over half an hour getting down to the next chairlift or gondola. We managed to cover the entire Zermatt ski trails the 4 days that we skiied.

Food was a big challenge. Initially we were all excited about the meat, sausage and cheese that they offered, but after half a week of the same food we started to baulk at another meal of sausages. In Zermatt we rented 2 apartments so we could make some meals. Trouble was that we didn't have much choice of asian foods at the supermarket.

We were quite sad when Zermatt came to an end.

The next leg went by really quickly. We caught the Glacier Express from Zermatt to Chur. It's a panoramic train experience, where you get wined and dined for several hours while enjoying the views of the mountains. Unfortunately when you have to also entertain the children for those hours, it was much less civilised. We also had a mix up in our ticketing and didn't get to sit in the first class cabins as initially planned.

We were at Chur for 1 day as a stopover after the Glacier Express. It was also freezingly cold. Chur is supposedly Switzerland's oldest town and also quite pretty. We walked around the old town for a bit the next morning. It was generally quite quaint but still too cold. Cobblestone streets and lots of buildings with pointy peaks and roofs.

The final destination was Lucerne. Surprisingly the weather was milder at Lucerne. It was definitely busier and more touristy than the other places we had been. Again we spent time looking at the touristy things such as the Lion Monument, a rock wall with a lion carved into it to commemorate the mercenaries who died during a war. There was also the Chapel bridge. We also walked around the lake to get to the Swiss transport museum, where we spent an afternoon. That was quite interactive and fun for us all.

We did quite a bit of shopping while in Lucerne, buying mostly cheese and chocolate. With globalisation quite a few of the shops that we saw in Switzerland are available here too. In Lucerne, we finally caved in and had dinner at 2 Chinese restaurants for the last 2 nights. It was unbelievably good. ( it's all relative )

We were meant to fly off from Switzerland at 10am, but our flight got retimed to 330pm. That really made our day easier. We had breakfast at the hotel, then made our way to the airport.  Because of the delay the airline gave us CHF30 per person in meal vouchers, which we then took our time to spend it all!

Again, on the flight back, my poor sister was stuck with the 1 year old for the entire 12 hours! Madison and Annika were relatively ok... slept through most of the flight and watched TV the rest of the time.

Now.. its the post trip blues and recovery from jet lag! Both kids were sleeping in past 10 am this morning!