Skiing with the Indians

With snow all about, our Indian colleagues were very excited about a day out in the mountains and a few lessons in the art of skiing on snow....but first...

..."How do my trousers work?"...

Venkat, Sandesh, Shamveel and Andy stood around
waiting for something to happen in Bellinzona

Fast Forward to Splugen Sport in Splugen
Andy with Shamveel getting used to the first time in ski boots

Andy, Cristian and Venkat.
In order for Cristian to get his passout stamped for
the day, he had to agree to a visit from his mother in law.
Dedication that.

Shamveel and Cristian

Venkat and Sandesh on the slopes waiting
for their turn to crash into the pretty instructor



..."How do these things work exactly"...
..."Dunno, maybe the pretty Swiss lady will tell us"...
..." Maybe, but stopped crashing into her, I think she's getting annoyed"...



...THUMP...
..."Oh hello, the names Shamveel, do you come here often?"...

..."Now lets try this again, standing up"...

Shamveel celebrates reaching the bottom
without crashing into anything pretty and Swiss

Meanwhile on the other side of the mountain Cristian looses
both his "white" skis after crashing in deep "white" snow.

For these guys, lunch took 2.5 hours

Restaurant with a view

After a failry rough start to the day, by
11.00am the cloud lifted and showed us the view.

Paolos stopping needs a little more practice,
relying on the landscape to do it for you is not the way to go

Beer then home

Ah chocolate, thanks

Splugen Valley just before sunset

Homeward bound

Snow !

Last night, it started to snow gently, and this morning we woke up to a winter wonderland. Here are a few pictures taken on a nice walk to "castle 3" (aka Castello Di Sasso Corbaro) to give you an impression:

Walkin' in a winter wonderland... lalalaaah lala lalah...

I think it has a certain Scottish feel with the snow ... or is it the grey sky ? 

View towards the North

Vinyard

Christmas and New Year 2011

Christmas 2011

Spluegen for Christmas

The battle to reach 22nd December (our last day at work) was won and finally we were on holiday. For some time we had been worried about the apparent lack of snow in Spluegen (and in Switzerland generally), but our fears were unfounded as a week before we arrived there was massive snow fall.....sadly all the ski runs would be shut on our arrival due to avalanche risk.

Nevertheless we made good use of our time.

23rd December 2011

Our room at Hotel Bodenhaus

Spluegen Day 1 and still snowing

Afternoon ramble down by the river Hinterhein

Say cheeese... but freeeze would do too ...

As cold as it looks

Wood store or work of art?

Splugen church with festive covering

Surely, this is impossible....

Once a post house and our digs for a few days. Beautiful inside too.
Hotel Bodenhaus

 24th December 2011

With the threat of sunshine and the end of the snow fall it was with a sense of trepidation that we checked if the slopes were open....They weren't....But, the cross country skiing routes in the valley were open, so we went a did that instead :-)

Good Morning Graubuenden

Cross country skiing is great fun and here's Meike having great fun...Its also very hard work

Highway A13. Despite all the snow, still open for business...
Oh and Meike skimming along on her cross country skis

The wing nut cometh. There is a machine that combs the route every day and puts down these grooves. Handy. What we were doing was traditional cross crountry skiing but there's also skating cross country skiing and those guys use the rest of the piste.

25th December 2011

Christmas day finally saw the skies clearing and the lifts open. Brilliant.

And having had the foresight to pre-hire the skis it was a quick breakfast and then off to the cable car.

Smile if you are having a good Christmas day :-)

Another busy day then....but it really was very windy and more than a little cold on the face

:-)

At the top.

Meike on the T bar lift

Boxing Day, and more of the same :-)

And the other big runs are open today too.

How to stay warm on a chair lift....Wear everything you own :-)

Freiburg Nov 11

Just before we are off on our xmas holidays, a couple of pics from our pre-christmas trip to Freiburg...

Black Forest - with eco windmills in the background

Freiburg has a lovely market ! I dream of being able to buy veg at an open air market like this....

... and seasonal decorations...

The market is on the square outside the Muenster, which I did not take any pictures of, due to it being wrapped in scaffolding.  So instead, here is a link to some info about it:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Freiburg-Minster/135801913118802

I did, however, take pictures on the inside...

I liked this very modern stained glass window in the Münster

Entrance to the Münster (Cathedral) with nice artwork ! I liked the skulls.

Inside the Münster

Later on, we went up a hill and up a viewtower to see the black forest (see picture one)

Vertigo

Cold up here !

A tourist lady