Swissmas

After leaving Vienna we arrived in Zurich where we met up with our friends Max and Tash. They had been travelling around the UK and Ireland and met us in Switzerland to go snowboarding and spend Christmas together.

We had just one night in Zurich, where we spent the evening at the Christmas market in the concourse of the main train station. It is one of the largest indoor Christmas markets in Europe. In the centre of the grand concourse stood a magnificent 50 foot tall Christmas tree, decorated with thousands of sparkling Swarovski crystals.

We enjoyed a few cups of glühwein. Unlike the Vienna Christmas markets, these ones were just served in paper cups, and at Swiss prices. Terrified of spending even more money, we enjoyed melted Swiss cheese inside a baguette for dinner and headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we took the train from Zurich to Zermatt where we spent 3 nights. Zermatt is a mountain resort town in southern Switzerland, sitting at 1600m at the foot of the famous Toblerone-shaped Matterhorn.

It is a car-free town and so the only way to arrive is by train. The journey to get there is spectacular — departing from the town of Visp, the dedicated Matterhorn train slowly climbs the mountains in a hour-long ascent, winding along the precipice of the snow-covered mountains. While the village sits at 1600m, there are pistes as high as 4000m, making it the highest ski resort in Europe. At 3883m there are connections to the Italian ski resorts across the border.

We had 2 days of snowboarding and as it was my first time, I took private lessons from 9.00–12.00 both days. I’d meet up with the others for lunch at the end of my lesson and then practised a little more on my own in the afternoon in the beginner area. At times in my lessons we were on fairly advanced runs and I was so far out of my comfort zone, terrified of losing control and falling off the side of the mountain, but it was satisfying to finally learn how to snowboard.

But learning is hard work and agony. After 2 full days I was exhausted and my whole body ached — ankles, shins, back, neck, knees, forearms, and especially my wrists. But I’m excited to keep learning and looking forward to a trip to Queenstown in our winter.

We had a beautiful apartment with a view from the living room of the Matterhorn. We spent the evenings relaxing in our apartment. Tash and I cooked dinners and the boys made glühwein, served in our Christmas market mugs from Vienna. Our apartment came with a fondue kit, so we went all out Swiss and made fondue one night too.

After the 3 days in Zermatt, the four of us took the train to St Gallen, a small city in north-eastern Switzerland, where we would spend 5 days over Christmas. Contrary to the oft-remarked precision of Swiss trains, our train into Bern was running 3 minutes late, which meant we missed our connecting train to St Gallen. It wasn’t so much of a big deal as it was a surprise. Nonetheless, we still arrived in St Gallen before it was dark, and more importantly, before the grocery store closed. Possibly the most annoying thing in Europe is that nearly all shops and supermarkets are closed on Sundays. We arrived on a Saturday evening, which meant we needed to buy all of our food and alcohol for the next 5 days. Added to that, we were staying in a house about 15 minutes outside of town in fairly remote countryside without a car, so once we were there we weren’t leaving.

And once we were there, supplied with food and alcohol, we had no reason to leave. The house had a sauna as well as a hot tub on the deck, overlooking the lush green garden and open fields beyond. Our days were spent relaxing with bubbles and beer in the hot tub, warming up in the sauna, cooking meals together, making fondue and glühwein and watching cheesy Christmas movies on Netflix. On Christmas morning we slept in (with no little people to wake us up), spent a few hours on video calls to our family and friends back home and then had fun taking photos in our matching Christmas outfits. In the afternoon we watched Netflix from the hot tub, cooked up a feast and went to bed full and merry.

After 5 nights together, Max and Tash headed off on the next stage of their European adventure and Dylan and I stayed in a hotel in the centre of St Gallen for another 2 nights. The city has a charming old town, where cobblestoned streets are lined with beautifully restored buildings decorated with oriel windows.

The city’s origins date back to the 7th century when the Irish monk St Gallus settled in the secluded area in 612. By 720, An Abbey and school was founded and the Abbey and its library became one of the most renowned centres for knowledge and art in Medieval Europe as the number of manuscripts in the monastery steadily grew. Today, it is considered one of the most important historical libraries in the world, holding 2100 original manuscripts,1650 incunabula and 170 000 books.

An incunabula is one of the first forms of printed book during the earliest period of typography, specifically, being printed in Europe between the years of 1450 and 1501. They differ therefore from manuscripts, which are hand written texts. It is remarkable that these texts remain largely intact today. In 1983 the cathedral and Abbey Library were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A library hall was built from 1758 to 1767, in a late Baroque style, and is regarded as one of the most beautiful Baroque rooms in Switzerland. It was how I imagined the restricted section of the Hogwarts library to look like — shelves and shelves of old, leather-bound books hidden behind delicate bars, protecting hundreds of years of cultural and religious history. It is not very large, but it is exquisite. The rectangular room has fir wood flooring, spiralling walnut wood staircases to the gallery level and ornate wood carvings decorating the supporting columns that run the length of the room. The gold and silver lettering on the ancient spines, where discernible, shimmers in the soft light that is muted by the thick glass windows set into half-moon shaped window niches. Unfortunately taking photos in the library is prohibited.

After our stay in St Gallen, Dylan and I went back to Zermatt where we had another week of accommodation booked. We only snowboarded on a couple of days, taking the time to relax, and for Dylan to start working again after a two-week break.

We rented a tiny studio through Airbnb that was located at the top of the village. It was an enormous effort to climb the hill to the apartment every day, but well worth it for the views, especially on New Year’s Eve. We made fondue and sat on the balcony enjoying it with a bottle of bubbles while watching the fireworks. Unlike the usual midnight celebration you might expect, there were fireworks being continually let off from 5.00pm onwards throughout the village, some official ones and some unofficial ones that had been purchased in town. It was fun not knowing when the next colourful bang would go off.

After our week in Zermatt, we’re now in Düsseldorf for 4 nights. We took the train here from Zermatt, and again had a less than perfect Swiss experience. Our train from Basel to Düsseldorf was cancelled so we had to join another train and reconnect at a later station, with the announcement informing us that the issue was due to ‘an incident in another country’. Of course, it couldn’t be the Swiss train system… In the end we arrived only 30 minutes late, again just in time to go to the supermarket to get essentials ahead of Sunday closure.

After our supermarket shop we went for dinner in the old town at Uerige brewery and restaurant. Our reason for going was that Anthony Bourdain ate there in the Cologne/Düsseldorf episode of Parts Unknown. Dylan decided to recreate Bourdain’s experience by ordering the same things that he had, which included pickled egg and a sausage salad. The waiter was entirely unimpressed, mocking Dylan for coming to a German restaurant and ordering a pickled egg. I on the other hand ordered the pork knuckle with mashed potato and sauerkraut, which he was very pleased about. And so was I — the pork crackle was quite possibly the best I’ve ever had.

On Wednesday we are leaving Europe and flying to Cancún, Mexico. We’ve been in Europe for 8 months and although we’ve been to 16 different countries, there is still so much more to see. But, it’s time for a change, and we’re looking forward to the warmth and to meeting up with my Uni friends and more of Dylan’s work colleagues in Mexico.