Zermatt - Skiing the Matterhorn

This post is a little delayed in getting out on the blog, but we hope you will find it well worth the wait. Zermatt was the next ski destination (after St. Moritiz) in our quest to experience the best resorts that Switzerland has to offer. There is not much to say about Zermatt except, well, in a word, THE MATTERHORN. You can't help but be mesmerized by it. Half the time, we couldn't believe we were skiing past, around and sometimes on it. Incredible. You'll see many shots of it in our video. And for Kathleen's dad, who is a very big fan of this mountain, there is a special section of the video filmed from the Gornergrat train which takes you right past the Matterhorn. Zermatt may be our favorite spot. Great mountain and great ski town (like Mürren, there are no cars allowed). You can ski down the Italian-side in the morning and the Swiss-side in the afternoon. Or, in our case, have some pasta for lunch and some fondue for dinner.
We hope you enjoy the video. Be patient with the download. It's a big one. Just like the Matterhorn.

Click photo or here to watch video.

St. Moritz: FENDI-licious skiing.

Our next ski stop was to the famed St. Moritz in the Engadine valley. This was a special trip for a number of reasons. 1) We had a good friend, Steve Boness, join us for the trip. He was celebrating the end of his 6 month expat experience in London and was heading back to San Francisco. Thanks for fitting us in Steve! 2) We were also joined by Geri and Helene, our good Swiss friends., whom we were introduced to by Steve. Geri and Helene were kind enough to invite us all to their cabin in Zuoz, a small village also in the Engadine valley and only minutes from the uber glitzy St. Moritz ski resort -- a ski resort where even the ski instructors wear Prada. (We're not kidding. They actually wear Prada ski outfits.)

After we crammed all of our gear and ourselves into Geri and Helene's car, we headed down their cabin. We arrived late, but were up early the next day to hit the slopes. We managed to survive two days of skiing in near blizzard conditions. Despite the extremely lowvisibilityy, we all enjoyed careening down the slopes of fresh power. We went out for dinner that Saturday night at a cozy local joint and then on into St. Moritz for a nightcap and some people watching. We found a little bar in the center of town, ordered our drinks and sat back and gazed as thousand and thousands of francs worth of Fendi, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton, just to name a few, went sauntering by.

Even though the skiing was great and the people watching was entertaining, the best part of the trip was breakfast time. With a beautifully laid table, we fueled up on good bread, eggs, muesli and other goodies over great conversation and lots of laughs.

Flims-Laax: Swiss Home to Snowboarding

Flims-Laax was our next ski destination. To get there, we took a train to Chur and then a bus to Flims. Confused by the layout of the train station (with the bus depot actually above the train tracks), we missed the bus. Our first not so Swiss-timed travel experience. Well, actually, everything was running exactly on time. That was our problem. When we realized where we needed to go to get the bus, we missed it by exactly 1 minute. An hour later, we were on the next bus out of of town. Normally, it would only take about 2 hours to get there; it took us 3.

Despite the initial missteps, we really liked Flims-Laax. It had the most modern feel of all the ski resorts we visited. It had a great variety of runs, cool outdoor on-slope bars, and our favorite -- a heated six-person chairlift. Talk about comfort!

We skiied on our first glacier there. Very cool...or in this case, very COLD!

Also, little known fact. Flims-Laax claims to be the home of snowboarding. And indeed, the resort features the largest snowpark for snowboarders -- with a long track of half-pipes and jumps. We watched a number of highly skilled boarders maneuver the course. Todd almost wowed spectators with his 900 grab, but he said he didn't want to appear like a show-off. Maybe next time.