A Very Swiss Weekend: Fondue and Skiing in the Alps

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February 25th, 2009

For our first weekend in Zurich (it is hard to believe we have only been here 1 week), Emily and I had fondue twice and went skiing in the Swiss Alps.  On Saturday night, a group of us went out to dinner at Adler’s Swiss Chuchi, one of the popular fondue restaurants in downtown Zurich.  As soon as you step foot in the restaurant, the smell of cheese hits you.  Although they have meat and chocolate fondues, the cheese fondue is king in Switzerland;  I don’t think I saw anyone in the restaurant get anything else.  Our table of 9 ordered 9 of the same dish – Adler’s Special Fondue.  It came out in three big, bubbling pots with bread and potatoes for dipping.  And that’s the whole meal – bread and cheese (and some beer/wine of course).  The food was good and it was a very fun meal.

On Sunday, Emily and I had fondue again with some other friends at Raclette Stube.  Yes, that’s right, we had fondue on two back-to-back nights, and it was delicious…again.  I actually preferred the fondue here (but both were very good), and I liked the smaller, more intimate setting of Raclette Stube too.

During the day on Sunday, we took a 1:15 train ride to the closest ski resort from Zurich, Flumserberg.  There is a gondola that takes you from the train station up to the ski resort which was pretty cool (this was my first time in a gondola). Unfortunately, the conditions were not ideal.  It was snowing and hard to see, almost a white-out but not that bad.  In the afternoon, the top of the mountain cleared up and it was really beautiful.  You could see the cloud still hovering over the lower part of the ski resort.  I found the skiing to be rather difficult, probably because I am not used to skiing in fresh powder.  It looks pretty, but I prefer the packed snow for skiing.  Also, the way the runs were laid out seemed strange to me.  They never seemed to just be continuous downhill; each run kept alternating between a short, steep section followed by a flat section.  But regardless, we had a great time skiing and are looking forward to going again.

I’ve added pictures from the weekend to Flickr.