St. Moritz

This past weekend, we traveled to St. Moritz for John's work team's ski weekend. We stayed in Celerina, which is one town past St. Moritz, and the hometown of the team member who organized the trip. We stayed at the Hotel Saluver, which is both a restaurant and a small hotel. We ended up with a "suite" of 3 hotel rooms -- 1 double, and 2 singles (with an extra cot in 1 single). There was a door blocking the hallway to all 3 rooms, so we were able to close and lock that door while leaving all the hotel room doors open. It worked out really well! The nice thing about Celerina is that you get the same gorgeous views of the Alps, but since it is a smaller town, the hotel prices are less than half price. If you're going to the region just to enjoy some hiking and skiing, it's a great place to stay. You miss the bigger town atmosphere of St. Moritz, but it's only a 10 minute bus ride away.

Even though it was only a 2.5 hour drive, we got a late start on Friday, so we didn't have enough time to ski in the afternoon. Instead, we took a scenic hike.
After awhile, we reached an outdoor bar/cafe where we stopped for some hot chocolate, beer, and tea. They had chairs and tables positioned to admire the view. They even provided wool blankets!
We were right next to the Engadin Ski Marathon course -- the second largest cross country race in the world. Last weekend, over 10,000 people participated in the race, including both Martin, the "local" on the team, and Cologna, the Swiss man who won gold in the 15K race in the Whistler Olympics. (He won this race as well.) We hadn't realized that they actually groom the cross country race and carve tracks for the skis.
We ended up staying out for a couple of hours. The downside was that Abbie wore Keds instead of her snow boots, so her feet were soaking wet and frozen solid. Towards the end of the walk, I spied a pole and lifted her up. John thought I was going to rub her feet to try to warm them up, but no, I was actually just trying to get another picture of the view! You can see that she isn't the happiest of campers in this photo. Something tells me she'll remember to wear boots the next time we go for a winter hike!
We skied on Saturday at Corviglia. John's team member used to teach skiing here and knows the resort better than most kids know their own backyard. He was an excellent guide! The views were breathtaking. We were skiing on top of the mountains and had panorama views of the Alps. Well, at least for a few hours in the morning. Around lunch time, we had white out conditions and could only see from one pole to the next. Abbie said that we were "treasure hunting" again. We stopped for lunch at a great little restaurant -- John and I had fondue, and the kids all had Rosti. All the expats had Swiss specialty dishes, while the Swiss team members had hamburgers! Go figure! We're lucky we didn't lose a kid on the final run of the day. We had about 10 feet of visibility. To give you an idea, at the end of the run, we were about 30 feet from a restaurant/bar. Other than hearing the music, it was impossible to make out its existence. We had skied off course a few times on the way down and had a really hard time spotting the course markers. Regardless, we loved the resort and can't wait to go back! We're planning to book it for John's birthday weekend next year. Hopefully, we'll get some better weather! That's the upside of being here for a few years -- instead of being upset that we had bad weather for our "one" weekend in St. Moritz, we can just plan to return!

Here's a team photo with the people who work with John -- and our kids, who, for some odd reason, think they work for him as well. The spouses chose not to participate in the group photo. We aren't even at the top of the mountain in this picture!
Today, we drove through St. Moritz to explore the town a bit. Along the way, we spied the Olympic Bob Sled course! They re-make it every year. We saw a group of boys walking along the course and taking a team picture, so we pulled over and walked along it a bit -- figuring if they were on it, it must be safe enough to walk.
This picture gives you some perspective of the size of the curves:
It was a little bit icy. Okay, a lot icy, since it's basically carved out of ice! By the time we slipped and fell through the "Devils Dyke" turn, we decided to exit the course.
Further down the road, they had a bobsled on display. The kids had fun exploring it.
Of course, now they are all clamoring to take a ride on a bobsled when we return!