Spring Arrives - Bike Time

Yet another year when Spring gets here early and with a bang. Today it was 15 degsC and lovely with it expected to be warmer tomorrow (but thankfully cooling down with more snow at weekend as we're off to Saas Fee in 10 days time). So time for a bike ride...

Lauterbrunnen 2012

It has become a little bit of an annual ritual now to go for a weekend skiing trip to the Jungfrau region staying in Lauterbrunnen. No exception this year but we are skiing for 3 days instead of 2. Today we visited Wengen-Männlichen and despite a poor ish forecast it was a pretty good day. Excellent snow, quiet pistes and decent visibility. Over to mürren tomorrow to ski with friends staying there.

A Day at Klewenalp

After the beautiful two days in Chamonix last week the sight if similar blue skies this week has been so tempting. Seeing that the weather is turning tomorrow meant that I had to get another day of skiing in!

We first discovered Klewenalp thanks to our friends Brigitte and Peter who have a house in Emmetten. Emmetten connects via a gondola to the ski resort (and if there's a lot of snow you can ski down but that is rare as the town is only at 799m).

The best thing is that it's just over an hour's drive away from us.

Fresh Parsnips...

After a couple of days of really good frost it was time to dig up the Parsnips from our garden. As always one or two were rather mutated and some were huge too. Claire can't wait to start eating them.... :-)

Skiing Chamonix Day 2

Second day of beautiful weather and empty slopes here in Chamonix. This time I drove up to Le Tour on my own (Michael had his hands full with his two boys) and skied down to Vallorcine for this wonderful Tartiflette (probably best I've ever had) in a restaurant by the gondola station. Must come back - it is only three hours away!

A Short Trip to Chamonix

Back when I lived in England it was always a bit of an effort (but always worth it) to organise short 2 day ski trips. Even though Easyjet and co made it cheaper and sometimes easier it was still often difficult.

Living out here in Switzerland has changed that and the wonderful ability to just jump in a car and go skiing still amazes me. Even a bit of a longer drive to Chamonix so not that hard at just over 3 hours.

So when Claire is in San Francisco and there is a lot of fresh snow, blue skies and empty slopes what else can a guy do!

Swiss Band 77 Bombay Street - Great Gig

With Claire flying off very early this morning (we left the house at 05.45!) I was beginning to tire a little when going to a gig very close to home tonight (in Pratteln). The band was a local band (apparently from Basel originally but now in the mountains via Sydney, Australia - their address in Oz is the band's name), 77 Bombay Street and they are very good. Not sure if they are known at all in UK but they have the sound that could work there too.....