Story of My Life in Geneva: Holiday in the Mountains

This week Adalyn was on holiday, so we decided to take advantage of the days off and plan a little get-away. When we started talking about where we wanted to go, there were of course many ideas, but we decided for our first European trip we would go somewhere we could drive, so we chose Grachen. Grachen is a village located in Switzerland at an altitude of 5, 310 ft. I had read that it was a very family-friendly village with many activities for kids, unfortunately, we went during their mid-season, so many of the activities were closed. That definitely didn't affect us though, we still found many things to do to keep us entertained- just looking outside our window was amazing! We arrived Thursday afternoon and just spent time in the chalet and roaming around the village. We basically were the only tourists there!

Inside of the chalet we rented-

Girls enjoyed having sleep-overs every night-

super fun to listen to them sing and talk before they fell asleep and in the morning-

View from the balcony-

On Friday, it was a gorgeous sunny day perfect for hiking, so we went on a hike exploring the forest area in Grachen. There are so many hiking trails and we also found a playground in the forest that the girls loved!

Eliza loved hiking in the backpack!

Swinging in the forest-

After a lunch and nap break back at the chalet, we went to Zermatt. Zermatt is the world's most famous car-free alpine village. We had read about Zermatt before we moved and knew that it was a place we wanted to visit. It was only a thirty minute drive from Grachen to the train station where we took a train into Zermatt. Zermatt is home to one of the most famous mountains in the World, The Matterhorn. It is the 10th highest mountain in Switzerland, 14, 692 ft., and known as the "Mountain of Mountains." It truly is an unbelievably amazing site, we probably spent an hour just admiring its natural beauty. We were very fortunate to visit on a clear, sunny day, so we were able to clearly see the mountain. We spent the afternoon taking in the lively atmosphere of Zermatt, many people are already skiing and snowboarding in the mountains there, so it was much busier than Grachen.

The Matterhorn

We also ate dinner in Zermatt at a pub that had very tasty hamburgers, which are hard to find in Switzerland. Eliza ate so much of her meal that the waitress actually commented at the end of our dinner, "She is the best eater I have ever seen." It was pretty funny- of all the customers she waits on, Eliza impressed her with her eating ability!!

Hiking made her hungry- or was it the ketchup???

After dinner, we headed back to Grachen- all of us were exhausted- according to my phone, we had walked five miles that day, which is a lot for their little legs!

Saturday, Eliza woke us all up at 6:45, eager to start the day. We went on another two hour morning hike, which of course included a trip back to the playground. We also had a somewhat scary discovery- as we were hiking, we saw a man carrying a hunting rifle below, we were a little concerned, but decided if we were on a trail, we should be fine. During nap, Chris went back out to hike, and saw another man with his hunting rifle, but also carrying a deer behind him... apparently we were there during hunting season!

After lunch and nap, we decided to visit another nearby village, Saas Fee, which is another car free ski resort. The road to get there was crazy- very windy roads up and down the mountainside with not a lot of shoulder space. Chris was white knuckled the entire ride there- thankfully we got there and back safely! Many of the people in town were skiing that day- so not many were along the trails. The views once again were amazing in every direction- it is really fascinating to think about how these villages are formed, the effort and engineering to create the roads, tunnels, and everything involved when working around continuous mountains.

View in Saas-Fee

They also have a a toboggan run, called "The Feeblitz." On the run, you take the steepest toboggan lift in the Alps to the start point, and then you go back down the hill through a 360 degree loop, steep curves, and jumps all at speeds of up to 25mph. At first, we were really pumping Adalyn up to go, but she seemed a bit scared- so, Chris went first by himself to let her know how it was- he came back and didn't look super confident about her going, but she had decided she wanted to go, so we couldn't say no! So, Adalyn faced her fear and road on the toboggan- we were so proud, but still a little shocked she actually did it.

There they go!

Mission Complete!

Of course Eliza wanted to ride too-

We had another day of walking over 5 miles, so we were all exhausted and slept very well!

On Sunday, we were all sad to leave Grachen, it was such a fun trip- we were able to enjoy the outdoors and explore a different part of Switzerland.

This week, we look forward to Adalyn and Eliza going back to school and Halloween. Halloween is not a Swiss holiday, but since so much of the community is made up of expats, it is celebrated in some ways. I was actually very surprised to see that Adalyn is having a Halloween party on Friday at school- most of the schools in Minnesota have to now call it a "Harvest Party." We also plan on doing some trick-or-treating with some of the other American families we have met. You can find pumpkins here, but they are expensive- a typical size pumpkin costs about $16 dollars.

Other pictures from the week-