Cross Country Skiing in Switzerland

Cross Country Skiing in Switzerland – 12th – 19th February

We arrived in Zernez for our skiing trip in the freezing cold and dark and walked from the station to our hotel, wondering when we would get there. Suddenly, around the corner, there it was: so prettily floodlit with lights in the trees, a very welcoming sight and typical of the place that would be our home for a week. Delicious food, lovely rooms and extremely friendly people would make our stay so enjoyable.

The next day, in brilliant sun, we set off to Zuoz on the train to begin learning how to stay upright and move elegantly along the loipen tracks laid down in the valley by the large tractors with special rakes. We fell down a lot but made enough progress to set out the following day for Morterasch, further up the valley where we were also able to walk further up into the mountains to see the glacier. It was so beautiful.

This set the pattern of our days: a trip on the smooth and regular Swiss trains to a suitable destination, a ski run of about four hours through a valley, with lunch at one of the cafes, and then the return home to our warm and comfortable hotel for a pleasant evening in the company of our new friends with an excellent four-course dinner.

One day it snowed very hard, providing a complete contrast to the piercing blue skies and bright sun of the other days; it felt like a real adventure. One day we spent in Livigno which is in Italy, though not accessible from it in the winter, where food and drink was considerably cheaper. So much noisier and more vibrant than Switzerland and I was glad to get back to Zernez at the end of the day.

Our last day was spent near St. Moritz. It happened to be my birthday and our wedding anniversary, and it was a magical day, perfect in every way and finished off with a very special evening in the hotel. How lucky was I!

It really was a very special holiday, though maybe learning to cross-country ski at our age was slightly ambitious in spite of the help of our lovely, patient leader, Bill. The landscape and the snow are so gorgeous and I wouldn’t have missed it, but maybe we shall stick to walking in the future!