Fasnacht? Nah Thanks!

Life needn't be an endless tunnel! Mind you, they are good at those in Switzerland:Two half days back in the office followed by three full days off....that's work-life balance eh? This Monday was the beginning of Fasnacht in Basel so the company gave us the day off (not an official public holiday, but they know it would be useless to be open when most of the employees are pissed).

Suprisingly it felt quite good to be back in the office and it was encouraging that my colleagues were pleased to see me. OK, in four hours a day there isn't much you can get done but I did get through most of the couple of hundred e-mails and three meetings that were scheduled. Tomorrow I'll start earning my money again and do some proper work (but only four hours mind).

Fi and I decided to avoid the Fasnacht parades in Basel as all of that standing around in the cold at 4AM can be so tedious.... or so we have heard! To be honest, it's just too bloody early in the morning for me...... and pipes and drum cliques are not so inspiring. I prefer the gugge parades which are later in the week. So, instead, we decided to head out for the mountains, specifically the Rigi which is undoubtedly the most beautiful place in Switzerland despite being a meager 1700m in altitude. Things didn't go entirely to plan as we arrived on the shores of Vierwaldstattersee (Lake Luzerne) in a fog that didn't look too much like it was going to clear any time soon.

We decided to have lunch while we waited for the weather to make up it's mind. Found a great restaurant on the lakeside (http://www.luetzelau-seerestaurant.ch/) which had unusually good service and an italian menu. I expect the view would be good if we could have seen it!

The fog didn't clear so we decided to head for the proper mountains and drove to Andermatt which, I'm pleased to say was bathed in sunshine and deep in snow, although not as deep in snow as it used to be when I was a kid and we used to sledge on this slope:

Since the Gotthard, Furka, and Oberalp passes were all ski pistes at this time of the year we decided to drive to the end of the road in Realp (1600m) where we gave "Tommy" a rest and drank a coffee whilst soaking up the rays....

There was more than enough snow to bring anywhere in Britain to a grinding halt up there but in Switerland, even the trains still run on time and we even got a chance to race the "Glacier Express"........

.....and marvel at the Swiss rail engineering. All this and less than two hours drive from home! Mind you I did have tunnel vision by the time we arrived back in Hellikon ;-))