Beautiful fall

Life's been very busy the last few weeks. Ever since school started I had a lot of parent teacher meetings and I'm in the middle of the teacher evaluation we have every four years, which means a few visits in the class room and quite a lot of nerve racking while preparing the perfect lesson that will also work ;-)

So I was very happy to get an extra free day today. All our students were off to have a look at a profession, most went with either their mother or their father, but there were also other possibilites to spend this Zukunftstag (future day). This gave us a whole day of freedom.

I decided to go for a walk through the woods before heading to school (there is always enough stuff to be done even without students) It was such a great way to spend a bit of time, the colours were amazing and the sun was out. There were quite a few other walkers, mostly older people with dogs. I wished I could do that more often...

Snowshoe hike in Amden

After all I did get a little bit of winter magic right before the winter holidays are over. Yesterday I went to the mountains together with my brother, his girlfriend and my dad.

We started out in foggy and cold Zürich but once we got closer to the alps, we could see bits of blue peeking through the grey. The further up we got, the better the view was and once we had reached our starting point in Arvenbühl above Amden we were out in the most glorious sunshine and deep blue sky. Fortunatly it didn't take long to rent a pair of snowshoes and then we were ready to go.

  

The path started easy enough but after only a few minutes we'd reached a little brook that we crossed and from there on it was only uphill. Like really steep uphill and of course I made my usual mistake: I started too fast which made my lungs burn. Luckily we weren't in any kind of a rush so we just dialed down the tempo and it got a bit easier. Taking lots of photos helped because of the many baby stops.

After about 1.5 hours we reached the highest part of our hike which was also the most beautiful. Stunning views in two directions, deep soft snow everywhere and the trees all covered with cristalized ice. It didn't even feel very cold because of all the heat we'd generated while walking up.

We took more photos and then we slowly made our way back down again. In the end we were hiking for about 3.5 hours including lots of breaks and we all felt our legs and arms in the best way possible.

To regain a bit of strength we went for prune pie and coffee Arvenbühl (coffee spiked with spirit and whipped cream). The whole excursion took only a few hours but it was such an amazing day to spend outside with my family.

First sunshine of the year

After a few days of intense fog, sunshine and blue sky is always extra special. I went for a traditional first of January walk with Tobi and Alex on the Üetliberg today and even though there were lots of people up there it was so worth going. The view was stunning, the sunshine so very welcome and the icy temperatures helped to drive away all the bad left overs of 2016. I am very grateful for friendship and for living in such a nice place and I had a lot of fun taking these photos (sorry for the overkill of f.22, I just couldn't resist ... ;-)

Hiking from Arosa to Tschiertschen

Two weeks ago we finally did a hike I'd been wanting to do for a long time. Every time we stayed in Tschiertschen, either in the summer or in the winter, I thought about walking there from Arosa. This year we actually got around to it.

We had to leave Zürich early with the 7:13am tram because to get to Arosa it takes time. After the train to Chur we went on the smaller train to Arosa and already it felt like such a different world. We passed our later goal Tschiertschen on the other side of the valley and then we dove into the needle trees around Arosa.

Shortly after 10 we were ready to hike. At first we had to walk up for a little while. Then there were two different possibilites, one over a little pass the other one around. The adults and Yannick went for the steeper one, the girls decided to take it slowly. We all met again at Ochsenalp where we had a lovely lunch.

We could already see Tschiertschen but it still took a while to get there because we had to cross a valley which meant to go all the way back and then forward again. It was also quite hot by this time so we were very happy to finally reach the village.

We had a well deserved ice cream break at Restaurant Edelweiss and then we took the postauto back to Chur. It was weird not to stop at Hotel Gürgaletsch, but I know we will be back soon, definitely in the winter but maybe even earlier.

Hiking in Elm

I went hiking today with one of my oldest friends. I met Annette in gymnasium, when we were both 14 years old and we have been friends ever since. We were really close while going to school for 4.5 years, then we spent a lot of weekends together and travelled all over Europe. After school we met occasionally until I started working at the same school and we'd see each other twice every week again. I only stayed at that school for about half a year and then we didn't see each other that much anymore, but we always knew what we were up to thanks to facebook and the occasional email or even letter (we used to write soo many letters to each other when we were teenagers ;-). We started hanging out again last winter and now we go dancing or as you can see hiking. I am really proud that we are still friends after all this time.

We took the postauto from Elm to Obererbs and then walked back on the Höhenweg. It's an easy hike with a great view, perfect to talk, take pictures and just enjoy the mountains.

We didn't feel like walking down (it was quite hot and muggy today) nor did we want to talk a cable car to the bottom of the valley, especially because there was a much more interesting way to get back down. It was fast (kind of, we braked a lot) and lots of fun ;-)

Weekend in Tschiertschen

Sometimes life is stressy and sometimes all the pieces just fall into place. This happened to me last week. I was really tired from a great start at school. (It's really going well but it's soo intense at the same time that I often feel close to empty batteries)

Then last Tuesday I liked (again) some lovely sunrise photos taken from my favourite hotel in the Swiss mountains on facebook. I think I wrote that I wished I were there and it only took a few moments before I'd been offered a room, made up my mind and booked a bed for two nights.

On Friday it all seemed like a very ambitious idea, not ideal when I was really tired from a day at school. Nevertheless I packed my backpack (it was actually almost empty ;-), took the train to Chur and then the postauto to Tschiertschen and there it was so obvious that this had been exactly the right thing to do.

I didn't do a lot on Friday evening apart from eating dinner and some knitting but I made hiking plans for Saturday. The weather forecast was neither too good nor too bad but once I woke up and saw the sun rise over the mountains it looked much better than I expected.

 At first I'd wanted to go all by myself, but then I started out with another guest which worked out really well. We kind of started far too quickly and were out of breath and close to collapsing (at least me) after about 20 minutes, but after a break and a hot tea we paced ourselves and found a comfortable rhythmn. We met a lot of bikers, a couple of cows and found lots of blueberries and a few enzian. We went all the way up to the Churer Joch at 2020 m. a. S. which meant that we'd done a bit more than 600 meters of altitude. It was beautiful at the top, quite windy but still nice to be outside.

The way down took longer than expected, especially because we had to go back up again, but everything was fine. It was great to wash off the sweat back at the hotel and enjoy more time on the balcony of the Gürgaletsch. And in the evening I tried to understand as much Dutch as possible (I was the only Swiss guest all weekend) and I finished my Atlas (FO entry coming soon ;-) before I fell into bed.

This morning was already my last one. I was up for the sunrise again (seen from the bath ;-) and I had a bit of time left before I had to head back to the lowland. I only spent about 36 hours in the mountains, but I feel all refreshed and ready for school again.

A hike to Schloss Heidegg

At the beginning of the weekend I told the kids that I wanted to do at least one little hike with them before school started again. Too often we spend too much time at home, mostly on the sofa looking into some device getting on each others' nerves.

Good thing that we had a little leaflet from Nivea in the mailbox that same day with family friendly hikes all over Switzerland. Yannick chose route Hitzkirch to Baldegg for us. Today the weather forecast wasn't very good, rain and thunderstorms were expected and we were close to calling it off. But fortunately we went anyway. We spent a lovely few hours outside, walking and talking and laughing. And just as we sat down in the train back home it started to rain ;-)