Spring in Switzerland

Spring in Switzerland is beautiful, full of rejuvenation of life and spirit. We love seeing the new growth and flowers appearing around our village and on the trails at this time of year.

Spring flowers near the bus station

Sunrise over our spring garden

Winter in Aubonne

Each year when the snow arrives, it's cause to celebrate. This year, Daniel woke me up early one Saturday to show me the soft, quiet snow that had fallen over night and transformed our village.

Aubonne winter wonderland

We forged the first fresh tracks in the snow
through the old village gate.

Snow on our regular trail

When there's snow, we have to build a snowman!
Meet Bobby Bonhomme.

Things didn't end so well for him, à la Calvin's house of horror!

Ice on the Aubonne River

Merry Swiss Christmas

Our village knows how to celebrate Christmas. Each year, the villagers adorn their front doors with an array of beautiful Christmas wreaths. Ours is third row down, third from the left, handmade by me!

Joyeux Noël!

Zurich Parcoursvita

The Zurich Insurance Company started an initiative called Parcoursvita in 1968 to encourage outdoor recreational sports and promote a healthy lifestyle, quality family time and contact with nature. Today there are 500 trails all over Switzerland, sponsored by Zurich and maintained by the local communes. These trails 'borrow' 2-3km of forest trails with an easy, medium or difficult rating, and each course has 15 stations for stretching and strength work.

Map of Switzerland with the Parcoursvita routes marked
Blue = easy; red = medium; black = difficult

AUBONNE
We first learnt about these trails at the welcome dinner for new residents in Aubonne as our village maintains a Parcoursvita near the Arboretum. The course is 2.1km and has a medium ranking, and the whole trail is in the shade of the forest, next to the Aubonne River.

MONTRICHER
We love this trail so much we decided to explore some of the other routes in our area. We went back to Montricher (which is an access point for Mont Tendre) to test out the 2.6km course there. It is a difficult course and there is a lot more climbing and less shade than Aubonne.

APPLES
We also checked out the Parcoursvita in Apples, which is more similar to Aubonne -  2.2km and medium. It was a very nice shady course and we'll definitely go back to keep fit.

RAVOIRE
I checked out the Parcoursivita at Ravoire while Daniel did a training session in the Alps. This one was 2.4km and had a black rating - lots of climbs! Unfortunately it wasn't very well sign-posted and I got pretty lost. This meant I had more climbing to do than anticipated, but I got to enjoy some pretty great views while I was out.

The route coincided with parts of a trail called 'Les fours à pains de Ravoire' which goes past the 13 communal bread ovens which were built in the 1850s to serve the 20 hamlets in the area and were still used into the 1950s. According to the website, "Ravoire has the largest concentration of bread ovens in Valais, and possibly in Switzerland. An association for safeguarding this heritage is being formed." How's that for a claim to fame?

LES DIABLERETS
While Daniel completed a 55km race in the mountains around Les Diablerets, I completed the 2.5km parcoursvita. This is the best one I've seen so far - lots of green mossy rocks and trees along the wood chip trail, magic toadstools popping up here and there, and the beautiful Grande Eau river on the side. This one is a moderate difficulty route.

Showcasing Switzerland

My uncle and aunt visited us from Newcastle and they chose a perfect weekend to see the sights of Switzerland. We drove to Martigny and caught the Mont Blanc Express up to Les Marecottes.  The train uses a clever blend of tracks, third rail power and cogs to get up the steep mountainside - a delight for my railway engineer uncle!

A spot of map reading on the train up

The quaint station of Les Marecottes

We walked down a little trail to the village of Salvan, also in the Trient Valley, where we stopped for a spot of lunch at Cafe des Alpes.

A tranquil Alpine trail

Salvan, nestled in the Alps

The town square

Some more map reading!

On our drive home we stopped at the Cailler chocolate factory for a bit of chocolate tasting and photo taking :)

Me with my Unkie and Ankie

On Sunday we made the most of the lovely weather to show off our beautiful part of Switzerland. We went on a village tour then headed to the Arboretum for a picnic lunch.

At the end of Aubonne, overlooking Lake Geneva and the French Alps

Picnic in the park

Summer greens in the Arboretum

It was so lovely to spend some time with Kevin and Val and to show them around our new home.