On Thursday 21st March, after dropping off Eileen for her annual check-up and service we walked to the local ‘greasy spoon’ in Hertford. The Rose Café does a fine selection of everything that should be on the menu, at a traditional ‘English Breakfast’ eatery. Eileen came up trumps; though she did need four new tyres and a new tap in the bathroom. However, after the huge and very tasty breakfast (including black pudding for me), we both felt like we now needed a heart check-up and service.
On Monday 25th, with the forecast for Hertford being reported as “dreary”, we flew off to Zurich. Dreary seems such an English word, I can’t say I’ve come across it in Australia. But it is a lovely word that really sounds like what it is describing; I think that makes it an onomatopoeia, another lovely sounding word.
It’s always nice to fly somewhere and have the actual flight take less time than the hanging around at the airport. And I can highly recommend flying with Swiss Air because they give you a small Lindt chocolate after take-off and then feed you a large chocolate croissant just before landing. What more could a chocoholic want!
The bags arrived safely, so at 12pm we dragged them off the carousel and down to the Bahnhof for the train ride in to Zurich. From there we caught a second train which took us to Chur; a pleasant journey that passes Zurichsee and Walensee. At Chur we boarded a third train for the steep and twisting journey up to Arosa. When we stepped off the last train, in the snow-covered town, it was now 4:10pm and we weren’t quite sure where we were staying. We had intended to book a hotel, but our friends Kenn and Pla had insisted we could stay at their apartment. But, while on the last train, we received a text message telling us that their apartment still had builders in and we therefore couldn’t stay there after all. However they had arranged a room for us at a guest house. So with new directions in hand, we wheeled our bags around the frozen Obersee to a zimmer on the other side. Unfortunately, the owner, Dorothe, wasn’t expecting us until the next day, but fortunately she had a room available. And after dinner at the local Italian (no chocolate included) we opted for an early night and slept like logs.
Next morning, we found a café nearby for some breakfast and then collected our boots, skis, helmets and stocks from the lovely folk at Ski Depot. If you ever need gear in this town we really do recommend them as they are right next to the chair lift and store the gear for free overnight, which almost makes it a ski in-ski out set up. Brilliant!
Unfortunately the first day’s skiing was pretty awful. The snow continued to fall all day and the visibility was dreadful. Not knowing the resort, or where we were going, we skied like a couple of novices all day. We finished up early and prayed for better weather the next day. Back at the guest house I was so exhausted and sore that I fell asleep in the bath, only waking because the water was getting rather cool. We couldn’t face sitting in the room all evening, so we ate out for our third meal of the day and then took our aching bodies to bed for another early night.
Joy of joys, we woke up to a beautiful sunny day. When we peered out of the window we could at last see the majestic range of mountains that surround Arosa. The snow conditions were perfect for a good day of skiing, but unfortunately, now that I was able to get some speed up, I found that the hire boots were giving me bruised shins, so we pulled up early and arranged to change the boots the next morning.
Back at Dorothe’s room we packed up all our belongings and went down to tell her that we were going to move over to Kenn & Pla’s apartment as it was now habitable. She then told us that it wasn’t and insisted we stay another night, so we unpacked again. After a bath, we decided to walk over to the supermarket and put some food in the apartment ready for when we could stay there. When we got to the apartment at 6pm the cleaner was just finishing up and the place seemed perfectly fine, so we filled the fridge and cupboard and then walked back to Dorothe’s. We packed up again, said our goodbyes and proceeded to move the rest of our stuff to Kenn & Pla’s. It was all a bit of a palaver, so we took ourselves out to a cheese fondue restaurant, another rather unhealthy meal, but very tasty.
It was lovely to get up on Thursday morning and be able to get our own breakfast while gazing out of the windows at the magnificent view. Sadly we didn’t hang around too much as we wanted to get my boots changed and get up on the first chair lift at 9am. The new boots were really comfy and the snow was good again. We ate a really tasty soup sitting outside a cafe up on the slopes and then unfortunately the clouds came over, the snow lost definition and we decided to give up around 3pm and do a bit more food shopping, cook ourselves a healthy meal and relax on the sofa for the evening……..wonderful.
Good Friday was a good morning of skiing, followed by hot dogs eaten outside a café where a very loud ‘oompah’ band was playing ‘music’. Lots of people had walked up the mountain to listen and sing along, it was really quite hilarious. With our ears ringing and the weather closing in again with heavy snow coming down, we decided to pack up early yet again (this is normally unheard of for us…!).
When we got back to the apartment Kenn and little Casse (7) had arrived without Pla, who was back in Singapore feeling rather sick. Kenn dashed out to meet up with some friends and arrived back in a bit of a drunken state. The four of us then hopped in a taxi to meet his friend Hans Peter at the upper end of Arosa. It was a lovely restaurant and a scrumptious meal of deer in a mushroom sauce with rösti. HP was wonderful company, but Casse was exhausted with jet lag so we laid her out on the bench seat to sleep and spent all evening trying to prevent Kenn from falling asleep in his meal, or knocking over more than one glass of red wine with his forehead. We’ll call his behaviour ‘jet lag’ too……..?
We started day four on the ski slopes with Kenn and Casse. Annoyingly, only an hour into mountain roaming, I lost my balance and fell in a rather nasty way. My left knee tried to do a 180-degree twist while still attached to a stationary ski and my coccyx landed on the upturned edge of the other ski. The pain was really horrible and despite managing to get back on my feet and skis, I knew that I wasn’t going to be skiing any more that day. I managed to side slip down to the nearest chair lift, ride it to the top, shuffle across to the gondola and ride it down to the road at the bottom, catch a bus back to Arosa and then waddle to the apartment using my ski poles as walking stick; poor Rodney had to carry my skis, plus his skis and poles all the way down.
Rodney’s entry for that afternoon:
So, while Laura rested up with ice packs for company until Pla arrived from Singapore, I went back out in to the snow and caught up with Kenn, HP, and Marco for lunch at the Alpenblick restaurant, famous for bar-b-cue chicken and pomme frites, which we washed down with a beer. I then skied the rest of the day with Marco, who was also keen to show me more of the social side of Arosa. He persuaded me to stop at the Munggaloch a lively après ski bar on the slopes. It has its own patented shot drink called ‘Munggapfupf’; a rather ‘more ish’ drink with a dollop of cream on top (google for details). We were soon joined by Kenn and then Rick, Dan, Renco, Eric and his girlfriend; the bar was soon packed and the DJ was cranking up the volume. Before long, people were being encouraged to dance on the tables as the “Munggafupf’ flowed. Strangely the ski patrol turned a blind eye to the patrons in the bar and apparently the antics can continue until well after sunset. The patrons are left to ski down at their own risk; I guess it is a true case of local knowledge going a long way. We took a safer option and departed down the mountain around 5pm, while it was still light and re-convened in the ‘aeroplane bar’ in town, before returning to the apartment for dinner.
The weather on Easter Sunday was again very overcast with snow falling on and off all day, so I wasn’t too bothered about being unable to ski with Rodney. Late in the morning, which was spent waiting in anticipation for the Easter Bunny, I caught a bus up to the far end of town with Kenn, Pla and Casse, where we met up with Rodney for a delicious lunch. The grown-ups with functioning legs, then went off skiing for the afternoon and Casse helped me on to a bus back to the apartment. I spent the afternoon laid up on the sofa and Nurse Casse collected and returned the ice pack and ice cubes from the freezer to put on my sore bits. We searched all over the apartment, but the Easter Bunny still hadn’t arrived, so we assumed that because the train wasn’t running, due to a landslide on Good Friday, that maybe he couldn’t get up here on time. Fortunately he managed to get some eggs on to the balcony overnight and they were discovered before everyone (but me) went skiing on Monday morning.
Sunday evening’s entertainment was closer to home with twelve of us from nine different countries gathered for drinks, nibbles and frivolity in the apartment; a truly international event.
Rodney enjoyed a fabulous day of skiing in the sunshine on our last day in Arosa and ended the day with drinks at the highest point of the resort, at an outside bar on the Weissehorn, before a final run down the mountain. I continued to rest up in the apartment and enjoyed the beautiful view of the mountains opposite. That evening Maxime arrived from the Alsace, just in time for last drinks and our farewells to all of Rodney’s new ski buddies. It was lovely to see Maxime again, but a shame that we were leaving the next morning. Thank you so very much Kenn and Pla for spoiling us again and we hope you continue to enjoy many more years of visits to your lovely ski home in Arosa. We wonder which country we will meet you in next…..?
On Tuesday, the trains still weren’t running so we were put on a bus down to Chur; an interesting ride down the mountain with three-point turns around hair-pin bends and numerous near misses with oncoming vehicles. Then we completed our return journey to Heathrow on two trains and a plane. Andy kindly picked us up, though by then I probably could have managed public transport back to Hertford because the pains in my knee and ‘coccyx’ had thankfully eased substantially. Now we just have to get re-organised and start preparing for our next journey in Eileen…….
