Switzerland!

Christmas 2007 was one for the record books for me. It was the first Christmas I didn't spend with at least some family. What did I do you ask? Well if you read the title of this entry you probably have a pretty good idea! Marina and I spent a week skiing in Saas-Fee and Zermatt Switzerland. Here is a picture of the mountains in the village where we stayed.

This is a sign from the metro alpin in Saas-Fee- the worlds highest (altitude wise) underground trainline. To get to the top of some of the ski runs you would ride a gondola and then change to the train which took you up most of the rest of the way!

Here is a photo of Marina at the top ready for her first run of the trip.

Here is me... I didn't spend all of my time in this position!

We got a little bored of skiing/ snowboarding after a while so we spent one day sledging. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. There was a designated lift and a very long zig zag run specialy for the sledging. I was run off the trail by some young-uns but it was a blast!

Here is a view of our village from the window of our hotel. It was a car free village which made it much more enjoyable I think. The nicer hotels would run golf-cart like vehicles to take people fom the bus station and or car park to the hotel and lifts.

We took a day trip from Saas-Fee to ski in Zermatt. It was a much bigger and busier village and we only were able to ski half a day. Getting there and back invloved a 2 hour bus and train trip each way. In case you didn't know, Zermatt is where the Matterhorn is... and there it is pictured below.

One of the mountains in Zermatt had an overground train instead of a gondola lift. There were some chair and pull lifts to get you the last bit up the mountian but the train did most of the work. In order to keep the trains from sliding on the tracks there is a third rail that is geared!

One afternoon we took a gondola up the mountain without our ski's so that we could explore the ice caves near the top. They were very... cold? yes. strange? yes. I really didn't know what to make of it. Nonetheless here are a couple of photo's.

Here is an actual picture of us together - imagine that!

We scheduled a half day's worth of time into our trip back so we could wander around Geneva a bit. I didn't take many pictures but here they are: