We left Monday morning for Switzerland amid snow flurries. We stopped in Zurich, just because Sharayah wanted to visit yet another of the European settings of the Jason Bourne adventures.
There were lots of these little gulls and swans, and I think the two in the middle are having an interesting conversation...
Marty was surprised by how modern things are in Zurich, but here's a part of the historical district with interesting architecture.
We came upon this cool... I mean, cold... fountain. It continued to pour water out over the frozen sculpture God was constantly forming in different designs.
And all these statues and sculptures inspired Marty, Kendra, and Sharayah to create their own living artwork.
We drove on to our little Swiss village of Engelberg (Angel Town), nestled in a valley surrounded by alps. A narrow road, hairpin turns, snow piled high on each side, didn't thwart us from our destination. It met my expectations of what a little Swiss ski town would be.
After an interesting episode of a couple of Texans trying to figure out how to put chains on car tires for the first time ever, we attempted to drive up the very narrow, snow covered road to our hotel up on the mountainside. It appeared to be more treacherous than we were prepared for. We called them to find out if there was a better way, and discovered that this place had Texans in mind with their design.
They told us we could park at the bottom of the mountain and take a tunnel and elevator system to get up to the hotel. This was cool. We spotted their little entrance...
Which lead to the first tunnel...
Then we took a lift to the second parking lot, walked across the snow to the second "cave" which lead to another lift that took us up into the hotel lobby. Cool... cool... cool. If you ever make it to Engelberg, Switzerland, I highly recommend you stay at the Terrace Hotel. By the way, they call it the Calimera in the travel brochures, but no one in town knows where the Calimera hotel is... "it must be new"... so just look for the big hotel with the word "Terrace" over it. You can barely make it out in the center of this pic that I took when we wandered the streets below.
And here's the view of the town from our balcony...
One of the best hotel views I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying (see Cozumel Mexico blog entry for another).
"Thanks Lord for the blessings of Your best laid vacation plans."
And just for those unfamiliar with the song... here's the lyrics for posterity.
It's a marshmallow world in the winter,
when the snow comes to cover the ground.
It's time for play. It's a whipped cream day.
I wait for it the whole year round.
Those are marshmallow clouds being friendly,
in the arms of the evergreen trees.
And the sun is red, like a pumpkin head.
It's shining so your nose won't freeze.
The world is your snowball, see how it grows,
That's how it goes, whenever it snows,
The world is your snowball just for a song,
Get out and roll it along.
It's a yum-yummy world made for sweethearts.
Take a walk with your favorite girl.
It's a sugar date. What if spring is late?
In winter, it's a marshmallow world.
I post this because of the discussion that had ensued here over my possible misspelling of marshmellow. Marty asked, "Do you know the difference between marshmallow and marshmellow?"
Sharayah's classic answer: "Attitude."
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