(travelin' light for the train trip - but of course we cannot leave without quelques baguettes)
Now I am certainly not complaining. And I know there are those among you who are already saying “A-duh. Traveling with three children is my idea of H-E- double-hockey-stick (as my kids say, which is really charming, as you can imagine).”
But nevertheless, we decided to follow in the footsteps of many brave Europeans we have met with children and go to the mountains for the 2-week February vacation. We did extensive research and decided to see a bit of Switzerland. We had been told that Zermatt is one of the most amazing mountain spots, so we booked a week there, and decided to split the second week between a small town called Villars-sur-Ollon (where college friends lived for 2 years) and Lausanne.
We had a circuitous arrival sequence, as we missed the window for booking the weekend trains out of Paris but were expected at our rental unit in Zermatt on Sunday. We grabbed a reservation on a Friday afternoon train (leaving us with the need to apologize profusely to the school for taking the kids out a half-day early), and after a 6-hour train ride ended up in a little town called Visp.
2 nights in Visp would not typically be on anyone’s travel itinerary, but we made the most of it just resting up and adjusting to the cold weather and giving the kids a chance to run around and drive each other crazy a little bit. We were hoping that by getting that out of their system, the kids would be begging us for ski school.
(Goofing around in Visp)
Sunday morning we hopped on a train to Zermatt, and were we in for a treat. The approach from Visp to Zermatt is stunning, and was just a hint of the amazing alpine landscape that awaited us in Zermatt. Frozen waterfalls, precipitous drops, spectacular mountain views, and a loony Swiss guy with a leather vest and a Jew’s-harp made the hour ride fly by for all of us.
We were met by the apartment agent at the train station who helped us get our luggage and whole family up the hill to the apartment and then up about 4 flights of rickety metal stairs to our little nest. One of the charming aspects of the village of Zermatt is that there are no cars – only electric taxis and free shuttle buses. The apartment was beyond perfect; full kitchen, cozy beds, and views of the mountains from the living room. Once we landed in the apartment, however, my freaking out began.
The ski area of Zermatt is HUGE. And our apartment, which boasted a truly epic view of the Matterhorn, could not have been farther from the ski school area which would by default be our base of operations for any skiing we wanted to accomplish. And frankly, I was scared. Scared of the scale of the mountain and intimidated by the effort required to get up onto it (convince kids to go to ski school, get kids dressed and fed by 8 am, walk down stairs and hill, take shuttle bus, retrieve skis from depot downstairs from gondola, drop kids at ski school meeting point, take gondola, try to sneak in a run or two before it was time to pick the kids up from ski school at noon.).
And, maybe because I started to have qualms about it myself, the kids started out freak out, too. Especially Jonah. He was really losing it, and behaving, as Maya said, like he was reliving his terrible-twos. He did not want to go to ski school (he was signed up for a half day of beginner “kinder-ski”, so it wasn’t like we were throwing him to the wolves, but still, he was NOT having it). And then Maya and Loki started to say they didn’t want to go to ski school, and amidst a sea of anxiety about the mountain, the kids, the pressure (should we push or not, and how much?), I finally confessed to Chris, “I don’t want to go out there, either – it looks scary!”
(Like your typical Italian beauty, say, Sophia Loren - beautiful, but intimidating)
We pulled the plug on Jonah going to ski school, which instantly made things a little better. We managed to keep Maya and Loki open to the idea of at least TRYING ski school even though they were not so sure, and we came up with a plan for Chris and me to each get some time to get up on the mountain and check it out. We wouldn’t be sipping vino over a two-hour lunch on the Italy-side of the mountain, but we could at least make it down a few runs each. (And in one of those “ah-ha” kind of marital moments, Chris and I later revealed to one another that we actually liked skiing alone, though the 2-hr lunch would’ve been fun).
(Regan at the top of the mountain. Sign says "Attenzione! Attention! Warning! Achtung!" because one wrong turn here and you end up in a different country.)
(Chris at the actual border. See, you would almost think we had actually spent time on the slopes together!)
So we had a plan and it was starting to come together, but I was still nervous. Really, this mountain would be a great place to accomplish the final lap of a desensitization experience confronting any number of classic phobias (surviving the giant gondolas that dangle you hundreds of meters above mountain cliffs would deem anyone cured of claustrophobia or acrophobia, and then of course there is kindercrevassophobia, or, fear of having your child fall into a crevasse while being supervised by a ski instructor). And the conditions are at times extreme. At various times during our week here, I found myself channeling alpine and arctic super-stars like Tensing Norgay and Ernest Shackleton (I mean if they could brave the elements without the benefit of GoreTex, surely I should not be whining about ice-wind and white-out conditions, right?).
So, all of that is prelude to the real moment of truth. When kids were stashed (either with dad or ski instructors) and I had confronted my fears and made it to the upper reaches of this seemingly endless string of mountains, and found myself face to face with the Matterhorn, all distractions vanished and all that was left was awe. I experienced complete and utter humility before the grandeur of the landscape. Really it defies description. I tried to capture it with words, pictures, poetry (see haiku at end of post). Impossible.
In addition to the staggering scenery, Zermatt is also a techie’s dream come true. The particular Swiss genius that centuries ago made them the early wizards with watches here has been scaled-up to a mastery of alpine lift technology. One glimpse of the massive cogs that power the chair lifts and gondolas and you can’t miss the time-piece connection. To access the ski runs, many of which are surprisingly not-steep, more like hiking trails experienced with the benefit of gravity, you have your choice of a cog-train that will take you to 3089 meters “über meer” (above sea level), two-person tow-ropes, chair lifts of all sizes, regular gondolas (technically, “gondola lifts”), and these terrifying über-gondolas (“aerial tramways”) which I mentioned previously. They just can’t seem to stop themselves. At the very apex of the mountain, someone decided to excavate the gneiss and install an elevator up to a vista point. I want to ask this Swiss engineer, “Why did you decide to build an elevator at 3883 meters über meer?” But I know the answer would be something like, “To show that I could.”
(The view back down the mountain from the top of the tramway. I scored the clear day, but it was somewhat wasted on me since I was basically having a panic attack and only paused long enough to hurriedly snap this photo)
The kids were real troopers, Maya and Loki rallying for ski lessons in pretty extreme conditions, and though ski school was not in the cards for Jonah, he definitely got on board in his own way and let us drag him all over the mountain to various rendez-vous points to facilitate the ski trade-off that Chris and I had devised. So all in all, they all three deserve huge kudos for being team-players. Well, most of the time :)
I have already written more about Zermatt than I planned. It was a truly moving experience, and, as I said, I have struggled to represent it adequately.
Here is my parting thought:
Snow-capped mountain peaks
Once slumbered in earthly depths
Humble wee mortals
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