SLUMBER PARTY
Sleep in style at these alpine gems
VICTORIA JUNGFRAU GRAND HOTEL AND SPA
This hotel offers mountain views overlooking the Höhematte. Interiors – Art Nouveau windows, clubby billiard rooms, winter terraces, painted ballrooms – deliver heaps of alpine glamour. The 5,500-square-metre Spa Nescen is a warren of saunas, thermal baths, and sun decks. victoria-jungfrau.ch
ROMANTIK HOTEL SCHWEIZERHOF
The weathered window boxes overflowing with geraniums at this hotel are a cheery sight after a day in the alps. A sprawling spa is built into the lower level, while an excellent gift shop sells local souvenirs like arven wood pillows, Swiss caviar, and oodles of chocolates. hotel-schweizerhof.com
with snow dust and spied cat’s perfectly stamped paw tracks zigzagging from field to barn. On a typical summer day, it would be tempting to jump off the train at any of the smaller whistlestop stations and hike the rest of the way down. But for once, I’m enjoying this sedentary sensation of descending back in time and space.
Back in Grindelwald, we took advantage of the sunny window and jumped back on a gondola to First, a mountain top on the opposite valley. While Jungfrau is more about indoors and snow, First is a hiking and adventure sports playground, including 40+ kilometres of walking trails, vertiginous mountain trails for go-kart trails and Trottibike scooters, high-speed ziplines, and a unique four-person zipline glider shaped like an eagle that soars an 800-metre route with speeds up to 83 km/h. All of it was closed due to the morning’s weather.
Fortunately, the Tissot-sponsored Cliff Walk is open. The precipitous steel pedestrian bridge skirts a jagged cliff edge. From there, Nik and I watch clouds torque and spin over the surrounding 4,000-metre peaks and marvel at the orange-billed chough birds. After an hour, we head down when Nik, who turns out to be as much of an accurate weatherman as he was an accomplished guide, gave his final prediction: “Where there’s sunshine and rain, there’s always a rainbow.” We had the ultimate vantage point from the gondola with a perfectly clear 360-degree panoramic view, but we couldn’t find a rainbow anywhere.
“Two out of three ain’t bad, Nik,” I say while he continued scanning the horizon with the fixed gaze of a pilot.
Coming down to the valley from the alps is a bit like surfacing after snorkelling. The colours, sounds, and movements below are duller and less vivid. Back in bustling Grindelwald, the sounds of the cars and people filled the air again. I bid Nik goodbye and headed to the Romantik Hotel Schweizerhof, a weathered wood chalet overflowing with geranium window boxes, and where I’ll bunk for my final night.
The sky is divided now, with one-half inky and wet, and the other sunny and clear. During check-in, the receptionist brings me a glass of flinty Petite Arvine wine, another unique Swiss grape varietal. I settle into my room to catch up on my emails and decompress after all the altitude changes. Thinking my scenic views are done for the day, I fling open the balcony window and behold a gigantic double rainbow in front of my room. Like a postcard, it’s arcing over a snow-capped massif where a sparkling waterfall gushes. Cowbells gently clang and the wooden chalets peppering the steep hillsides glowed with delicate golden hour light.
“The scenery is exhausting!” I think to myself while searching for my back-up camera battery.
While warming up over a bowl of creamy white wine soup at the hotel restaurant, I think about Switzerland, its 451 mountains, four languages, and kaleidoscopic skies and weather. I ponder how lucky I am to live here. Sure, there have been things over the ten years that I disliked. But if you don’t like something here, wait a minute – it will probably change.