Text: Sergey Tokarev CLOCK, CHEESE, MOUNTAINS, SNOW TOPS, ARMENIAN KNIFE - AND WHAT ELSE DO YOU ASSOCIATE THE WORD “SWITZERLAND”? When in the spring 2015 DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM ski resort of St. Moritz offer us paid a study tour this small town in the Swiss Alps, imagination starts to draw a bright sunny day and dazzling the sun shining on the white snow THIS AS bedspreads UKRYVSHY surroundings.
BOBSLEY - WINTER OLYMPIC SPORT -
HIGH-SPEED DESCENT FROM THE MOUNTAINS ON SPECIALLY EQUIPPED ICE TRAILS ON THE MANAGED Sled - BEANS
The bobsleigh track is an ice trench on a reinforced concrete base, having turns and bends of various steepness. The track must have at least one straight section and a labyrinth. The only natural track is in St. Moritz. The length of the route is 1500-2000 meters with 15 turns of a minimum radius of 8 meters and a vertical drop of 130 to 150 meters
We had already been to Switzerland a few months earlier, just in the winter, and found just such a fabulous Christmas weather, as if descended from New Year's cards. But since the program has already been formed for the dates of Christmas and New Year holidays, we asked for any other dates. Our request was treated as constructively as possible, and during the short negotiations an unexpected and therefore original thought was born - to visit Switzerland in the summer when, as it seemed to us, there was no influx of tourists. Looking ahead, I’ll say that our expectations were only partially true - we naturally didn’t notice people with skis and skates on the streets of the city, but the city didn’t look empty without them!
According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, the population of St. Moritz, dating back to 1137, has a little more than five thousand people, but according to the sensations that developed after walking through the amazingly clean and well-groomed streets of the town, we thought that we still had a rest less than ten to fifteen thousand tourists.
However, first things first. Having agreed on the dates of the trip with the receiving party and having booked the hotel, we, as usual, thought about logistics. We immediately decided that we would rent a car - the five-star hotel, of course, offered the widest range of entertainment, but I also wanted to see the surroundings of the alpine resort. Quite a few airlines fly from the United Arab Emirates to Switzerland, but after a little reflection, we added three days to the trip and flew to Milan, where we rented a car with an automatic transmission with some problems. As it turned out, we in Dubai are too spoiled for assortment, quality and availability of cars for rent. In Europe, everything is different - not only are cars with an automatic transmission more expensive and less choice, there is still no way to pre-order a specific model (brand) of a car, only a class.
Anyway, we managed to find a very decent Audi, and after spending the night in Milan, we hit the road. The road to St. Moritz along the shore of Lake Como was much shorter, but we had nowhere to hurry, and we chose a long route, through Varese and Lugano, leaving a quick way to the return trip. The roads of Italy were not remembered by anything special, the only thing we immediately felt when Switzerland started was not at the border post, which they passed without stopping, namely, the quality of the road. If you describe this as briefly as possible, we realized that Switzerland is a non-poor country, and they do not spare money on roads there.
Having made a couple of stops along the way (including in Varez, where they hoped to buy the shoes he is famous for), just five hours later, following the signs, we drove to St. Moritz and parked at the luxurious Kempinski Grand Hôtel des Bains, which became ours home for the next five days. By their long-standing habit, they examined several rooms (all very worthy) and chose for themselves, perhaps, the best apartments in the hotel - with a large hall, a gigantic bedroom and a balcony, offering breathtaking views of the lake, a huge green lawn and mountains surrounding St. Moritz. I would like to tell you more about the hotel - it is considered the best in the city, and there are no free rooms in the season. The hotel management zealously keeps the secrets of its guests, but at lunch or dinner in restaurants, the waiters no, no, but they will name a few big names from among the star guests who have visited them in recent years. By the way, according to the staff, during the winter ski season at least half of the hotel guests are our compatriots from Russia and other CIS countries.
After unpacking our things and taking a shower, we went down to the hotel lobby, where Stephanie Elmer, representative of the tourism department of St. Moritz, was a pleasant and very talkative girl who detailed the plan for our short and therefore extremely busy stay in the heart of the Swiss Alps. It turned out that, despite the small territory, the city has something to see. Well and, of course, mountains! No wonder St. Moritz is one of the few cities that hosted the Winter Olympic Games for two whole times. True, this happened a long time ago - in 1928 and 1948, but in 1934, 1974 and 2003, the World Ski Championships were also held in St. Moritz.
Apparently, in order to immediately consolidate in our heads the status of St. Moritz as the best ski resort in Switzerland, on the first day we were given a completely stunning guide - a professional ski instructor, cyclist, only on the eve of returning from a multi-day bike ride in Italy, a man who was born and lived all his life in St. Moritz and therefore knows absolutely everything about the city and its surroundings! The guide looked 55 years old, but when he said that he was already 65, and he met the New Year with his girlfriend on the top of one of the local mountains, so that together with her early in the morning, with the first rays of the sun on skiing down from a height of 3000 meters directly to the threshold of his house (1800 meters above sea level), our admiration knew no bounds!
The guide first put us on special sports electric bikes, which we rented in a yacht club on the shore of Lake St. Moritz and on which we had to make a heroic run around the whole lake. Since almost half of our route went uphill, the motors of our bicycles could not cope, and we tried our best not to lose face and tore the last strands so as not to lag behind our guide, who managed to not only pedal, but also not ceasing to pour interesting facts about Switzerland, about the city and, of course, about mountains and skiing. It was from him that we learned that St. Moritz has the unofficial title of the homeland of bobsled.
Having traveled half way, we turned off the road and went down to the very shore of the lake, where the guide once again offered to swim. The first time he suggested this even before leaving the hotel, saying that the swimming season was already closing (end of July - beginning of August), but the water was still “warm enough, 18 degrees”. For us, over 16 years of life in the United Arab Emirates accustomed to water at a temperature of 30-40 degrees, the proposal did not seem so tempting, but we still took bathing accessories with us. And, having thoroughly worked with the pedals, I agreed to take a swim, especially since our guide was the first to set an example by going into the water and expressing in every possible way the delight of swimming in the "almost warm" water of a real mountain lake. I followed his example, diving headlong from wooden walkways 10-15 meters deep into the water. The fact that the water temperature in the lake is much lower than the guide’s declared 18 degrees, I immediately felt, at the same time understanding why there was no one else in the water besides me and our guide - all the native Swiss people caught the sun's rays on the shore, looking with curiosity at the two freaks floundering in ice water.
As it turned out later, the water temperature this year was already low all summer, and by the end of the season it had generally dropped to eight degrees! At the same time, the guide with the most serious face said that he apparently was mistaken in naming the temperature, - he mixed up the English “AIT” with “Eiting”.
After refreshing water procedures, we again mounted our bicycles and quickly closed the ring of our route, returning to the yacht club, where we decided to have lunch before climbing to the mountains. As I already wrote, St. Moritz is located at an altitude of 1800 meters above sea level, and the mountains that surround it have a height of up to 3300 meters. Almost on all mountain slopes, ski slopes are equipped with all their associated infrastructure - lifts, mini-hotels, restaurants, observation platforms, and sports equipment rental stations. Naturally, in summer the slopes are closed, but the lifts are working properly, raising many tourists to the very clouds, and sometimes even higher. In order to fully feel the skiing spirit of St. Moritz, you definitely need to come there again, of course in the winter, so now in my story I will not write anything about skiing, leaving this for later. And now I’ll just say that we still saw the snow - it lay on the very tops of the mountains, from their northern side, and also on the ski slopes, under the gigantic blankets that last year’s Swiss were covering with snow blankets.
The next morning, new adventures awaited us - a horse-drawn cart ride from the city center along the bed of a mountain river to a family mini-hotel sandwiched between the mountains, on the very edge of a green highland pasture. The pasture itself (or rather, a meadow) spreads around a small lake formed by a river, blocked a bit downstream by a stone dam. Our journey took a little more than an hour, and to the stables of the hotel, in which, as we understood, the horses harnessed to the carts sleep, we got closer to dinner, which was very helpful. The owner of the hotel, who is also the manager of a small restaurant, was very welcoming, sat us down at the best table on the open veranda of his restaurant, from where a really fantastic view of the meadow opened, grazing two or three cows with bells and, of course, mountains with snow-capped peaks. Impressions are unforgettable, especially when you consider that they were backed up with a bottle of good wine, carefully cut into the thinnest slices of jamon and other dried meat, but already wild animals. As the hotel owner told us, the main flow of tourists falls on the hunting season - there are many wild birds and animals in the vicinity, as evidenced by the stuffed animals that adorned the walls of the restaurant.
Unfortunately, the limited volume of the article does not allow us to describe in detail the entire program of our trip to summer Switzerland, therefore, in conclusion, I will briefly discuss the city of St. Moritz itself. We were in Germany and Austria, in Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, in many other countries, but it was in the Swiss town that we personally saw perfected cleanliness, grooming and order. Perfectly even alleys, perfectly even curb stones, perfectly trimmed grass, trimmed bushes - everything is as it should be in our idea of Europe. And also prosperity. There are no exact statistics, but, according to rumors, the number of millionaires living in St. Moritz or having their own house here is just going through the roof. Among these rich, first of all, the Swiss themselves are listed, followed by the Italians, who are fashionable to have a summer house in Switzerland. Well, other European millionaires are not far behind, which is clearly visible on private light-engine aircraft, which land every five minutes at a local small airport.
