March 27th, 2011, Relaxing and Skiing in Switzerland again ...
After returning from Melbourne on March 14th, the exhaustion hit us both hard ... obviously the physical and psychological strain of the last months asked for recharging our batteries ...
So we booked on short notice a week in the Engadin, Switzerland, on 1800 metres, just to relax a bit ...
After a 5 hour drive (for Aussies: down the road and around the corner), we arrived safely ... and as we just unpacked our stuff, someone knocked on the door: room service! A wonderful surprise from Eveline (in Zurich) arrived, a bottle of champagne ... thank you Eveline! So we were forced to empty the first bottle already at 16:00 hrs on the first day ... ;-)
Here at our first dinner in the Hotel Waldhaus, every night fantastic food and good grape juice ... the "usual" sommelier, Mr. Ermler, introduced us to many new wines ...
The first full day, we acclimatised by having a long (3,5 hours) walk into the Fex Valley ... wonderful weather and snow ... here some impressions ...
... not because we were tired (we're fit!), just for the photo we had a break here and there ... ;-)
Tuesday, first day of skiing: perfect weather and snow!!! Here a view of the valley from approx. 2.700 metres ...
... and us on our way down ... it has to be mentioned, that Cynthia started off great again after a year ... seems it's like riding a bike for her now ...
... some areas of improvement are still there however ... here the result of trying to carry a latte machiato with ski shoes ;-))) and that's still the cleaner part of her!!!!!!
As you see here, we were basically only eating and drinking during our holiday ...
Wednesday night, it was "kitchen dinner" time again: Just 12 people having dinner in the kitchen, while staff are preparing the meals for the whole hotel ...
Before sitting in the kitchen, the tour started in the wine cellar ... and the selection of the wines for the evening ...
This is the Chef, preparing a special local vegetable for us ...
... and here the sommelier at the end of the dinner: fantastic Swiss cheese!
That was Thomas' selection ... we think it was course No. 7 or so ... of course a different wine with each ...
... and as you can see on this photo, we enjoyed it quite a bit!!!!
Another ski day on Friday ... this time all the way up to the mountain "Corvatsch", 3303 metres above sea level ... here you can see Sils Maria and our hotel (arrow) ...
... us on top of the world ...
... and on the way down the glacier ... again fantastic weather and snow conditions ...
Saturday, we had a lazy day again and drove to St. Moritz for a walk ... here enjoying a coffee in the sunshine ...
Last evening, Thomas had a little surprise for Cynthia at 5pm in the bar: as we didn't have a birthday dinner on 25. December, we decanted a perfect bottle of Penfolds Grange 1997 ... which we drank in Jared's honour for dinner two hours later ...So to summarise: we actually had a really good and restful week in Switzerland ... so "normal" life can start again tomorrow!