Davos Klosters Ski Resort

Sundays can be quite difficult to deal with in continental Europe. Unlike back in the UK, almost all grocery shops and supermarkets are closed on Sundays (excluding those found in major train stations). This can make forgetting to go food shopping on the Saturday before a punishing mistake. Sundays are often very quiet, even the centre of Zurich seems to become a sleepy town. One often finds himself planning how best to spend such days. Many Swiss take this opportunity to head into the Alps to enjoy the mountains.

The alpine ski resort of Davos, Graubünden.

I did the same, this Sunday. A small group of us went skiing and snowboarding in Davos Klosters. Davos lies in the canton of Graubünden in South East Switzerland and is the venue of the World Economic Forum. The ski resort itself attracts a range of public figures, including members of the British royal family for example.

We did the ski trip in a day, it's do-able as the train ride takes less than 2 hours. I wouldn't however recommend it for a day's skiing. The Davos ski resort is quite big, having around 300 kilometres of pistes, but it's spread over a large area and a number of different peaks. This means that if you want to try and ski down most of the resort, you will spend a lot of time in shuttle buses between gondula stations in the valley. No, instead, the resort is best visited over a number of days so that you can concentrate on one mountain at a time and thus minimizing time spent in shuttle buses.

The ski resort is quite large, covering the valley from Klosters to Davos.

Unfortunately the visibility on the peaks was really poor due to fog, making identifying piste boundaries almost impossible in the white out; (we even ended up finding and guiding a lost Ukrainian woman, stuck in deep snow between two pistes, less than 20 metres away from the piste she was looking for!).

That being said, despite only spending one day in the area and the poor weather, the day was really enjoyable - the snow conditions were perfect. I just couldn't see the snow I was skiing on, that's all...

Bellinzona Carnival

The winter break has finally come to an end. On the last weekend, I took the train down to Tecino, the Italian speaking Canton in the South of Switzerland. A friend of mine in the picturesque town of Bellinzona had told me about the crazy carnival going on there, called RaBaDaN 2012, so I went and checked it out.

The Guggenmusik parade on Saturday afternoon.

I arrived on the Friday night and the small town was animated by the spirit of the carnival. Thousands of people donning the most interesting costumes I have ever seen – including Lego people, human sofas and the YMCA village people – danced and drunk over a wild 5 days of partying. Many of whom, on the trot. Sadly I was only there for one night of partying, but that was alright. My recent travels, partying and lack of sleep were slowly catching up on me anyway.

There were many bizarre costumes to be seen.

This time of year is the carnival season, not just for Bellinzona, but also for Germany (where the infamous Cologne carnival attracts tens of thousands) and the rest of Switzerland. Bellinzona may only be a small town, but they sure know how to throw a party. The centre of the town was full of brass bands, beer tents, club tents and drunk Swiss / Italians.

One of Bellinzona's numerous castles also seen to be in the carnival spirit.

It was really cool and now I'm looking forward to Zurich's carnival (Fasnacht) from 24^th – 26^th February. Although this time, it would be pretty cool to come up with an interesting costume of my own to wear!

Warsaw & Berlin

Last weekend I met up with a friend in Berlin and we went to Warsaw. I had always wanted to visit Poland, and since I was already in the area, I thought why not head over there? It's only a 5 hour train ride away.....

The iconic palace of culture in the heart of the city.

I don't really know what I was expecting, but Warsaw certainly exceeded any expectations I had. The old town part of the city is beautiful and, although the rest of the city isn't conventionally pretty, I really liked it. There was plenty to see and do there. I'd like to go back one day, but maybe not during the harsh temperatures (-15c) of winter.

ACTA protest (against strict copyright and censor regulations) in the old town.

Whilst in Warsaw, we stumbled upon a peaceful ACTA protest. Also, in the evening, we saw huge convoys of police vans, armoured trucks and cars racing towards the area where loud bangs could be heard. It turns out it wasn't about the protest, but rather a football match had been cancelled, unleashing the wrath of the fans.

Upon returning, I then checked out what Berlin has to offer.

The infamous Brandenburger Tor of Berlin.

Berlin is unlike any city I've ever been to. Not only geographically - it has no clear centre – understandable considering the rich history of the city, but also in the feel of the place. There always seems to be something going on – probably why the night life there is raved about – justly in my opinion.

The memorial for the Jews who lost their lives during the holocaust.

Of course, there is also plenty to do in Berlin, not just for tourists but also if you live there I imagine, and that's before you even consider all of the obligatory sights that one must see (the Berlin wall, Bundestag and Fernsehturm to name just a few). Again, I can envisage coming back some day.

Meanwhile in Hungary...

It's my penultimate week of the winter break, so more travelling has been squeezed in. The last 3 days were just spent in Budapest, the Hungarian capital. My first Eastern European experience of many more to hopefully come!

Bridge of chains spanning across the icey Danube.

Budapest is completely unlike any other city I've ever visited. Its architecture is very grand and imposing and the city seems refreshingly real. By that, I mean, its streets have a distinct character, and whilst some well known high street names like Starbucks are to be found, the city undoubtedly feels Hungarian.

Signs of the old soviet times still exist.

Not only that, but random people tend to only speak broken English, which is quite a challenge when you're needing directions or wanting to order food. Unlike French or Italian for example, which you might have a decent chance of being able to guess what a given word means, Hungarian is very different. Indeed the language has few relations (just Finnish and Estonian). Even the currency poses a challenge. The exchange rate of 1 Swiss Franc for 230 Hungarian Forints isn't terribly easy to work out in your head. It's a cool novelty though to have a wallet holding 35,000 HUF, misleadingly it gives the illusion of being wealthy...

The beautiful city by night: Hero's Square

A city I would wholeheartedly recommend visiting, a lot to see and do. First and foremost the '3^rd best bar in the world' (according to Lonely Planet) Szimpla Kert has an awesome atmosphere, it's an apartment block that has been converted into a huge bar complex. And if you stay at the HomemadeHostel, you're bound to meet an interesting bunch of folk too! The outside thermal baths are also something you shouldn't miss, bathing in 38*C of water whilst the air around you is -8*C, is quite an experience!

An Alternative to Constance

In a blog post I made last year, I mentioned that many Swiss head to the German border town of Constance (Konstanz) in order to do some cheap grocery shopping. Well, a closer alternative has been found, fellow grocery refugees! Waldshut, an other German border town, is 20 mins closer to Zurich than Constance and features 3 huge supermarkets. All of which are open until 10pm during the week. Crucially, this means you can get to Waldshut and back in the evening without paying a single Rappen if you have a Gleis7 travel card.

A vast bounty of treasure awaits those who make the journey over the border!

It's certainly worth making the occasional trip, particularly as German alcohol and meat can be around three times cheaper than their Swiss counterparts! Keep hold of your receipts and fill in the relevant Custom forms and I believe you can even claim back the tax paid. However unlike Constance, Waldshut isn't a terribly nice place to visit. Cheap grocery shopping for the Swiss appears to be the sole purpose of the small town, to which it may well owe it's existence. Or so it seems.

Outside the main train station in Zurich.

In the meantime, Siberian weather has achieved a tight grip of the majority of Europe. Zurich is no exception, temperatures have been as low as -15 and the snow looks set to stay. If things carry on like this for a while, it might be possible to go and ice skate on the Katzenseen in Affoltern.

Bergholz forest in Affoltern.

The temperatures are much worse in Eastern Europe though. Great, that's exactly where I'm heading next week and the week after!