Europe – Globitrotter

New sport

At New Years we bought, with much ambition, snow shoes. The weather was going to be good and we wanted to get out in the mountains. Since I am not very fond of skiing (Yes, it might be annoying for some that I live very close to good ski resorts and do not take advantage of that…) I thought snow shoeing must be the perfect alternative. This way the hiking season does not really have to end and I get to enjoy the mountains in the winter as well. What a bliss! Anyway, last Sunday, two and a half months later, we finally got out to try those snow shoes. So much for that ambition..

We caught the train, bus and cable car and within an hour or so we arrived in Melchsee-Frutt. This is a small ski resort at an elevation of 1920 meters. Not very well known it seems except among the locals. I like it though, easy to reach from Lucerne, it has good hiking, climbing, mountain biking and more in the summer and skiing in the winter.

This day was very warm. The weather started out cloudy but cleared after lunch. When the sun was shining and we were hiking uphill it was hot enough to walk in t-shirt. Andy actually sun burned his arms! The loop we did was around 8-9 km and 500 meters elevation. A nice tour that took us about 2.5 hours.

It was such a nice day and I was walking with a big smile on my face. A bonus was that it was still sunny and warm for a barbecue on the terrace when we got back. 🙂

My suspicion that this would be the winter sport for me was correct. I loved it and this was not the last tour.

On a foggy day in the Alps

What to do on a Sunday when the weather looks like this in Lucerne?

One option is of course to stay in town, drink coffee and accept the foggy weather. Another option is to check the webcams on a mountain, like Pilatus. If you’re lucky the clouds are low, which is often the case in the winter, and you can escape to the sunshine above 1500 meters or so. If you do, this is what it might look like.

Once up there you can walk up to a peak next to the cable car station to get a 360 view of the world above the clouds. Then you can relax in a sun chair for a while and have a piece of warm Apfelstrudel with vanilla sauce before heading back down into the fog.

And that is a great start of the day! 🙂

Advent

Lucerne is a beautiful city at Christmas time with lots of lights, decoration and Christmas markets to drink Glühwein at. One of the larger clothing store presented this very cool Advent calendar. I do like the time before Christmas very much, actually more than Christmas itself.

Chocolate!

I do live in one of the biggest chocolate countries in the world. So last week when I was fortunate enough to be invited to join Andy’s company for an event at Lindt & Sprüngli my introduction to Switzerland was complete. I bet most of you know the Lindt chocolate, you can buy it all over the world. We bought it occasionally during our stay in America and on the trip and our favorite is the chili flavored one.

At the factory in Kilchberg, outside of Zürich, they have a show room which is equipped with marble benches and large pots to keep the chocolate at the right temperature for further refinement. Our group of almost 30 got dressed in baking shirts, apron and hats. The show room was Christmas decorated with Disney perfect trees and golden Lindt chocolate bears.

The chocolatier started to tell us a bit about the company and chocolate but pretty soon we got into the important part of the evening, making chocolates. 🙂

We were shown how to fill champagne ganache in chocolate shells which were later sealed and decorated with powder sugar. We made 28 each and they have to be eaten within a week or so. What a pity! We then got 10 basic chocolates that we could decorate in what ever way we wanted. The chocolatier showed us some tricks and for our creations we could use gold flakes, caramelized nuts and more.

In addition to working with chocolate there were Lindt & Sprüngli chocolate available for us to eat as much as we wanted from. It did not take long until I did not feel like having any more. Such a shame!

A few hours later we went home with our handmade chocolates, slightly sick after having had way too much chocolate but with a big smile on our faces. 🙂

Fürenwand – Via Ferrata

On Friday we finally made it to Engelberg and the Via Ferrata on Fürenwand leading up to Fürenalp. It was about 4 years ago we did this Via Ferrata the first time. Honestly I did not remember it being that steep, it is about 750 meters elevation change and parts of it goes pretty much up straight walls with short overhanging moves and a free hanging ladder. Before Friday I was actually thinking of bringing inexperienced climbers on it but changed my mind once I was on the wall. I think I would like to be positive that people does not have issues with heights before taking on this wall.

Andy is coming up the free hanging ladder.

I am closing in on the ladder which you can see in the top of the image.

I am about to step out on the bars and around the corner on a vertical part of the Via Ferrata.

Our first plan was to go shopping in Zürich. The weather forecast however said it was going to be the only dry day during the weekend so we changed our plans and went climbing instead. Although it was not raining it was partly wet and at some points even a bit slippery.

It was nice to come up on Fürenalp and see the sign for the restaurant. It was definitely time for lunch and a panache (beer mixed with lemon soda). 🙂 There was no wind at all so it was actually ok to even sit outside and enjoy the views.

Rainy weather – not so bad after all

The perfect ending of this season would be to do the Via Ferrata Fürenwand in Engelberg. It is a short but challenging Via Ferrata which ends with a free hanging ladder (it moves a little bit) that is just slightly over hanging as well. Really good fun if you are into this kind of thing.

A few weekends now we have been about to go but the weather has been playing tricks on us. Either the forecast has been bad and we have decided to do other things or the forecast was good but we still woke up to pouring rain. We have one more weekend before they close down the cable car (which is nice to take down once you have had your after climbing beer in the restaurant on the top of the cliff), so I am hoping for nice weather!

Instead of burning some calories we ended up adding some… What is better than some cream tea on a Sunday afternoon just as the sun decided to come out for a few minutes? 🙂