Saturday, December 31, 2011

Christmas in Switzerland

So, turns out I'm total crap about keeping this up-to-date. Since I've last posted, I've hit up Ireland with my girlfriends, Croatia and Slovenia with my hubby, Amsterdam with my parents and made repeat visits to Paris, London and Italy. Yeah.... I totally should have told you about all those trips. Bah. BUT I'm thinking I might make my 2012 New Years Resolution to be better about blogging on a regular basis. We'll see. :p

Anyway, we just got back from spending Christmas break in Switzerland. How cool is that?! We stayed at a studio rental in Bonegin just at the base of the Jungfrau mountain region. The views were awesome. I sent the hubs up the mountain for some snowboarding one day. He seemed to enjoy it enough that he's already planning future snowboarding trips back!

We did a day up at Jungfraujoch - the Top of Europe and highest train station in the world. It's spendy for sure but since I don't snowboard or ski I figure it's my best "top of fabulous mountain" experience. The ice cave is pretty cool - carved out in a slow moving glacier. When was the last time you walked through a slow moving glacier?! That's what I thought. *nod, nod* The look out point was certainly spectacular but for 160 Euros and over 12,000 feet high it should be.

Now let's get to the important part - fondue! We arrived in Switzerland Monday evening and left Friday morning. That means I ate cheese fondue Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday! Yes indeed - I was a champion. Now I will admit to being physically ill after finishing my 4th meal in as many days of just cheese fondue. But it was awesome - especially for someone like me who loves fondue outside of Switzerland just as much as I love it in Switzerland!

Did you know that no two fondues are a like? I certainly didn't. But I had four fondues in and around Interlaken and not a single one tasted like any of the others. For the most part, the significant difference was the alcohol content. The fondue up at Jungfraujoch tasted the most like white wine (though the taste of alcohol did burn off some towards the end) and was surprisingly the hub's favorite. The last night we went to a great little local specialties restaurant and they included loads of sliced garlic in their fondue. Now, I love me some garlic so I loved slices of garlic covered in fondue! But the winner for me was Bebbi's. It seems like a total tourist trap (right down to being the only place we found that serves chocolate fondue) but it was really really solid. Cheesy with just the right amount of white wine flavor. Yum and yum. Nuts - now I want fondue again!