Crans-Montana, Switzerland

FYI, we love Switzerland! We love it so much that we are blogging for four days on all the wonderful places and travels we have experienced. Today will be about the trip to Crans-Montana, tomorrow will be about Zermatt, Switzerland and the Matterhorn, Wednesday will be all about snowboarding, and Thursday will be our trip home.
So we start out with the mess I had in the guest room getting all of the snowboarding gear ready to go. If you look really closely at the picture of my mess, you might be able to see a tiny basenji in the midst of it! Our gear includes exo-skeletons, helmets, wrist guards, super socks, base layers, and a lot of fleece to name a few. We did okay with traffic for a Friday, but we could have had a catastrophic event going through the border as someone (Me) forgot her passport! Luckily we did not get stopped...but Americans please remember that your DL/photo ID will get you nowhere as Switzerland is not a member of the EU and are as neutral as Jedd Moore! Sorry Jedd...couldn't resist :)
We were about an hour and a half away from our resort when we came around a hill and discovered this little gem in Chillon. It is a lake surrounded by the Alps on one side and a beautful city on the other. We actually stopped and took pictures on the way back so you can see more on Thursday.

We got to the hotel after it was dark, so we were unsure of our surroundings until we woke up the next morning. And we were happy to see this beautiful view from our giant window and balcony.

And this was to the right of our balcony...

Tut found himself loving the scenery as well! He loved looking out our huge window to the Alps and wildlife scents below! (Yes, we took our dog, and if you don't like it...I don't care.)

Here are some more views of Crans-Montana...

And then we had a sunrise! It was beautiful!

No matter where you look, you can see for miles...

Now that you have seen where we stayed this weekend, let me tell you about it. First, we thought we would be set in Switzerland with the language...not so much! In Crans-Montana French is the language as are the people, and they are not so great with English. The only person at our hotel that spoke English was the guest-hostess. Everyone else spoke French...not a lick of German! Thank goodness I had TJ as he knows a little and could at least get us through dinner. Dinner was good except for the smoke. There is no such thing as a non-smoking anything in Switzerland. People smoke freely where ever they fancy and there are tons of smokers. We ate at the hotel both nights as there wasn't much around where we were and we were exhausted. We quickly found out during the first meal that a little French town wasn't bad when considering the steak, cheese (OMG the cheese was unreal), and of course the local wine. I should mention that not all the towns are French. There are German ones as well...like Zermatt, but all the signs travel signs are in French, German, English, and some are even in Italian. We were all excited to snowboard at Crans when we were told that there was none, because there wasn't any snow! Apparently the website we were on was still reporting from last season!!! With this in mind we finished our wine and headed to bed to get up early to drive to the tiny and extremely charming town of Zermatt. Zermatt is best known for the Matterhorn as it is right there and can be seen from anywhere in the town. Crans-Montana is beautiful and the people are wonderful, but you will see tomorow why Zermatt is where its at!
Auf Wiedersehen