A bucket list trip to the Swiss Alps

If you know anything about Josh, you know he’s a diehard snowboarder. When I gave him the option of going anywhere in the world to celebrate his 40th, he chose to snowboard in the Swiss Alps. So that’s what we did. We left the kiddos and dogs behind and spent his bday week in the most expensive country I’ve ever visited! Here is my trip report.

Day 1 We arrived in Zermatt. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!!!! A few highlights and tips. Grab a SIM card for your phone at the airport. Only $35 a week of unlimited data and local calls. Or the Service Center reserves hotspots online for phones that won’t accept their SIM. (Sprint customers) When they says it’s expensive, it’s like REALLY expensive. The rail tix are so confusing. We bought the Half Fare Card. First class train isn’t worth the extra cost unless you are traveling Easter weekend IMHO. Train to Zermatt was super relaxing and beautiful. Our hotel @coeurdesalpeszermatt has gone so far out of the way on service. Greeted us with a birthday cake, made last minute dinner reservations at a hot fully booked restaurant and picked us up from the train. The spa is to die for. We squeezed that in.  Dinner was all about lamb from the local farm of @traditionjulen at Restaurant Schäferstube. Oh and our hotel is basically carved into a mountain. We enter through a tunnel into the mountain. It’s crazy. And absolutely breathtaking. Last tip. If you are going to travel to Zermatt over Easter weekend, book way ahead. We are changing hotels twice and had to take the baller loft tonight because we procrastinated. Did you see the glass floors in our room? We also have a wood fired fireplace and massive tub that looks out onto that view.

Day 2: Lots of randomness. When we woke up we looked outside and saw about a foot of new snow. We had no idea it was going to snow and neither did the locals. As usual we ate our share of the free buffet - so good. They even had Chia seeds and gluten free options. We decided that Josh would ride solo today. The chances of me being able to ride two days in a row were slim. I haven’t ridden in 5 years... it was a bit overcast today and the locals said tomorrow should have some sunshine. So Josh rode and I wandered the town. Found a hole in the wall antique store to take Josh back to and stumbled into a tiny art shop. Interesting note: Most locals don’t seem to be crazy about Americans. Nothing blatant but they definitely seem annoyed at first. We are quickly able to get them to come around but it has happened many times so far. After he was back from riding we relocated to our next hotel The Backstage and headed out for rotisserie chicken at Wilde Hilde. A hole in the wall place and probably the best deal in town. The price of our whole meal was less than an entree at the restaurants. Found a cowbell at the antique store, because it seemed like an appropriate souvenir, and then tried out the spa at the hotel. Strangest spa experience ever. Projections and sound effects and gems and we did a floatation tub. It was definitely entertaining. The hotel includes free admission to the movie theatre slash nightclub  in the basement so we ended the night with Red Sparrow. Oh and then we realized we never had dinner and finally managed to find the only kitchen still open at 11pm - Grampi’s Pizza.

Day 3 Switzerland: Today was basically filled with epic snowboarding and staring at the Matterhorn. We later heard that it was supposedly the best day to ride the entire season because of the sun, warmer temp and great powder. We realized I hadn’t ridden in 5 years but was pretty proud of my riding. Found the igloo hotel in the middle of a slope. Stopped in to peek at rooms and my boot got stuck under one of the wooden steps catapulting me face first to the wooden ground. Spent all day riding one section of the mountain that was the size of a full US resort. We could have ridden a week and never made the full mountain. We had to take a train just to get to the higher part of the mountain and never rode below 1/2 way. Dinner: changed our fancy reservations to Du Pont the oldest restaurant in Zermatt and finally got fondue. Tip: Menu says price per person but that is merely size of portion. 1 portion feeds 2, and saves money. We stayed back at Couer des Alpes in a regular room. Cozy but we loved it. Hotels: if you want intimate, homey and relaxed CDA. To be in the middle of town and hipster do The Backstage. CDA hands down for us. Best service we have had at any hotel around the world.

Day 4 in Switzerland: Time to leave Zermatt and head to Mürren. Any snowboarders who go to Zermatt - get your rentals from Julen Sport in town. It is the only Josh approved place. Slightly worrisome that most of the locals have never heard of Mürren... Before heading out I took a walk to snap photos and then I had to visit the pharmacy (bc every trip involves some problem) to get remedies for water in my ear. Those darn floatation baths got me. International Pharmacy hooked me up. To get to Mürren it took 5 trains and a cable car. I’m serious. Luckily trains are super easy, reliable and comfortable here. It was a quick 3.5 hrs to Mürren. A tiny remote mountain village on the top/side of a mountain. Worth the journey. The entire town is basically ride-in/ride-out. There is pure water flowing out of the mountain all through town that you can fill up with. Josh had to demonstrate. Dinner was at the coziest stone restaurant I could find. Our hotel, Hotel Eiger is home to the main town lounge and dance hall.

Day 5 in Switzerland: Exploring Mürren. We opted to spend the day exploring, rather than riding. We got cable car passes up to Schilthorn which is most famously known for the filming of an early James Bond film. 007 everywhere. Two extreme cable car rides get you there and the weather goes from sunny to no visibility in a couple of minutes. As we were waiting to head down to the next stop for the Thrill Walk we were told they were evacuating the top of the mountain and that we had to go down now. We think the wind was causing avalanche risk. Josh was terrified as our cable car came extremely close to hitting the tower. Instead, we used the afternoon to take a winter walk to Gimmelwald - a tiny mountain town. It took us through the alpine forest and signage along the way explained all the avalanche prevention tools. Oh my. Nothing was open so we opted for the cable car back instead of a vertical hike. Lunch at Cafe Liv - one sandwich choice and one soup choice but really good. For dinner we couldn’t help but return to the same place, Le Grotta at Hotel Blumental. We never do that, so we must have really like the place.

Day 6 in Switzerland: I’m sure Josh will forever remember this day as the day I mortified him by repeatedly falling off the rope tow and forcing us to walk up the slope. Today we decided to snowboard. Went out early because we heard conditions get dicey at lunch. Josh took some runs without me on skis because the snowboard rentals leave a lot to be desired. And then he realized he can’t really ski and got a snowboard. I wish I could have seen that. In order to get to the section I could ride we had to go through some obstacles. Mainly 6ft wide ice paths where I had no prayer of making it through. I wasn’t in a good mood by the time we reached the rope tow. I’ve ridden one maybe when I was 18? This is just stupid. They are made for skiers. How am I supposed to put that thing between my legs while I’m sideways? First attempt no one told me not to sit on it. It completely catapulted me backwards where I managed to hit a knee-high wall. I continued over the wall while my board stayed put. I was lying backwards in the snow with my legs and board hanging over this wall. All the time the snow attendant just stood there while metal bars came rushing at our heads and Josh tried to pull me up. Never helped. Second attempt I got further but this time my board turned forwards and I was thrown forward the other way landing face first in the snow with the metal bar slamming into my lady parts. That was enough for me. We got down and Josh took some runs before we turned the boards in for sleds. Much more dangerous than I would have guessed. Almost didn’t go because staff said the slush would make it slow and boring. (I wasn’t taping the fast parts for fear of running off the mountain) They had shut down part of the mountain for avalanches which took us off the bob sled run path and onto the steep ski slopes. Super fun and terrifying. For dinner we went to the very Swiss Chinese restaurant for a food break. It was now dumping snow again.

Day 7 (our last day) in Switzerland: Spent in Zurich. We contemplated whether to stop in Interlaken on the way to Zurich or just go straight through and explore Zurich for the day. We opted for the latter as exploring a new city on our last day of the trip has become a tradition (Reykjavik, Paris, Athens). I had gotten the train stuff down and got us to our Zurich hotel near the central station. To say we loved this hotel would be an understatement. It’s a chain called 25Hours. I love Ace Hotels in the US and it was like that but much more over the top and playful. We dropped our stuff and started our own walking tour. I used an app called GPSMyCity to create our own custom tour. The map function was a pain but the tour creation was great. We found the infamous chocolate store but when we saw that a truffle the size of a quarter was $15, we hit up the grocery store for our chocolate stock up. We found the official Swiss Army store for some custom knives to take home and ate our way through downtown and Old Town. Either these people make a LOT of money or our dollar is really weak in Switzerland. Perfect end to a great trip. The next morning we headed to the airport for our journey home.