Hello there!  How was your weekend? Are you losing track of time? I am!  It’s a beautiful and warm (almost 70 degrees) day here in Madrid and the streets are empty and there is a mild police presence outside- so strange isn’t it?  I am on the phone with Wix trying to make some changes for my websites, so if nothing else, this has been a wonderfully productive time to get stuff done!  Now my customers will be able to place orders online and pay for them! Imagine that!

More on all that later or tomorrow- for now, I want to share a recap of our time in Crans-Montana!  It has been a hot minute since I have done a trip recap here, which isn’t to say I haven’t traveled…  I actually have (to Paris in October wth my Mom and to Rome in December with Luis), but I never wrote about those trips.  Hey- maybe I will now… better late than never, right?

So, are you wondering how we afforded to go to Crans Montana for a luxurious ski vacation?  It’s because we are actually drug lords laundering money through a bagel business!  Joking, joking…. it’s because it was a gift (a very, very, very nice gift) from Luis’ job.  The trip included 3 nights, 4 days in the luxurious Chetzeron hotel that is located on top of a mountain, two 4-course dinners with wine, a 45 minute massage (my favorite part), ski rentals, and more.  We are very lucky because it was incredible and I will probably never experience a trip like this ever again!

Instead of doing a normal, play-by-play recap, I am going to break the trip into parts.

Getting There

Getting to the Chetzeron hotel is no easy feat.  We had to take a plain (to Geneva), a train (to Sion, Switzerland), a car (to Crans-Montana), and a snow cat (to the top of the mountain)- very scary and very nauseating for me because it was snowing so much that I couldn’t see outside, but I COULD see that we were on the edge of a mountain.

Skiing

Skiing is something that I have done a handful of times in my life, but has never been something that I have really, really loved doing. So why did we decide to go skiing in Switzerland?  Because when someone gives you a trip like that, you take it!  And I thought “maybe skiing on a real mountain will be better than other times”.  And it WAS better in many ways!  The views!  The fresh air! The views! But also it was scary af and I cannot say I am someone that really enjoys skiing. 

While we had skiis included in our trip, we did decide to hire a private teacher for 2 classes (3 hours each) and it was a great decision.  Our teacher, David, showed us the basics and took us up the easiest slope (which happened to be right next to our hotel) to help us get the hang of it.  As someone who fears flying off the mountain and dying, I don’t think I ever really got the hang of it because I felt like my main goal the entire time was to go as slow as possible, which isn’t usually the goal when skiing.  Luis, on the other hand, was actually pretty good (and more reckless than I am).  Our first day of ski lessons were difficult physically because it was SO SNOWY and so cloudy that we couldn’t see very far in front of us.  Our goggles were fogging up and it was really difficult to see what was sky and what was snow and to see what was flat and what was a hill.  It’s hard to explain, but imagine when you’re sitting in traffic on the highway and a big truck pulls up next to you and you get the sensation that you’re moving, but you’re not- they’re moving and it makes you a little nauseated.  That is exactly how the first day of skiing felt.  We learned the basics, but I was very happy to be back in the warm hotel.  I did, unfortunately, feel slightly “off” for the rest of the day.  It’s like getting off a ferris wheel after it made you feel sick…it takes awhile to feel ok again.  Oh, and Luis getting lost on a snowy mountain ALONE didn’t help me feel better.  I thank my lucky stars that he is/ was ok.

The second day of skiing was the “aaaaha” day when I realized why people love skiing- the views!  The fresh air! It was incredible.  It did change the texture of the snow, which I wasn’t a fan of (the first day was light and powdery (good for going nice and slow, bad if you sink into fresh snow), and the second day was wet and icy which made me go much faster than I wanted to go, but I survived!  I didn’t want to try any slopes except for the easy blue slope, which felt incredibly steep to me, but when I look at videos… it’s not that steep haha.  

Our Hotel:

The Chetzeron used to be a ski lodge and was redesigned to be a fancy schmancy hotel while back.  They have maintained much of the structure, but have created an elegant, cozy hotel on the top of the mountain (2112 m high!).  There was literally nothing else up there- just us, the fireplaces, comforting food, stars, and beautiful landscapes.

The Other Parts

Hands down, my favorite part of our ski vacation was the not skiing part.  The incredible massage with views of the sun setting over the mountains!  This AMAZING heated outdoor pool!

Fun Fact: we went into this pool the first day when there was basically a blizzard and we were so cold that we ran in after 2 minutes and could not understand WHY you would go in this pool in the winter… but then we realized it’s because you should go in when it’s NOT snowing 🙂 The hotel staff (politely and discreetly, because that’s what you do when you work in a 5 star hotel) laughed at us.

The views from our room where also insane:

The walks:

On the last day, we had to walk 30 minutes from the hotel to the ski lift station to be able to ride to the bottom of the moutain to be picked up to go to the train station, and that walk was my favorite thing we did.  To walk in snow, but feel warm and toasty with the sun on my face and completely clean, fresh air and no noise pollution was incredible.

Another fun fact: the company that organizes the trip  says that when arriving/ leaving, you can either use the snow cat, or take the ski lift and walk about 15 minutes “in the snow, but it’s easy and flat”!  We opted for the snow cat on the first day since it was our first day and Swiss people seem to underestimate how far things really are, but we walked on the last day and OMG if we had decided to walk on the first day, we would have died/ gotten very lost.  This “flat” path was a MOUNTAIN and was no 10-15 minutes like we were told.  It was 30 minutes going down, so I can only imagine what it would have been going up!  I am sure glad we decided to walk down though, those views were amazing!

View from the terrace at the hotel:

and last, but not least:

The food:

I knew that one of my favorite parts of this trip was going to be the food, and I was right.  From the breakfast buffet with freshly made eggs and pancakes and chia seed pudding and views!

To our 4 course meals that were included for a couple nights: 

On our second night, we opted out of having the four course meal and instead had a couple cheese plates to share with a mini bottle of wine by the fire. I wasn’t feeling great, so this smaller meal was perfect (I think I felt a little sick from the goggles being fogged up earlier and having my sense of balance messed with).

And on our last night, the food was wonderful.  They told us that we could either have the raclette menu (basically melted cheese!), or the regular 4 course menu.  We asked if we could have one of each (expecting them to say no), but they said yes!  So we shared lots of plates and lots of cheese and I was VERY full.

And dessert was some sort of ice cream.  I forgot to take a photo!

Having a Business and Being Away

While our trip was amazing, being away from Mazál was admittedly very difficult.  I think had it been a normal week, as in a week that the world isn’t falling apart and a pandemic isn’t spreading like wildfire, it would have been ok.  But we were away when that was happening and despite a pandemic happening, Mazál was busier than it’s ever been and I wasn’t there.  Our employees handled everything like champs and we are so grateful for them, but being away was stressful to say the least.  One thing that was pretty cool was that when I was skiing down this beautiful mountain in Switzerland, in between my thoughts of how I might die if I ski off this mountain, I was thinking “how cool is it that I am earning money, and not working!”.  😉