Coucou! (hiya) I have been travelling a bit during the last two years and suddenly I thought - hey, you should come with me!
So, this series will be about sharing the beauty and fun of the journeys I've taken. So... Faites Vos Valises, mes amis! (Pack your bags, my friends!) And since I live in the sunniest, warmest part of France... why not go somewhere cold?
"Non!" is what my French neighbors said when I told them I was going to snowy Switzerland just as spring arrived in our sunny village. "Mais si! Je veux faire du ski!" I replied meaning that I wanted to go skiing. Well, they thought I was nuts. I'd just spent nearly every Saturday for the last three months skiing in the Pyrenees just two hours inland. But when I explained that there was also a five day Festival of music, they understood a little better. Actually, it poured in Perpignan the whole week I was gone, so I had to laugh!
It was November when I saw Jack Savoretti post that he'd been invited to perform at the 11th annual Zermatt Unplugged festival. My first thought was, nice, but too far for a concert. After all, I'm closer to Barcelona than Marseilles. But then I started thinking... Next thing I knew, I was planning! And so, you and I jump on the train, then a plane from Barcelona, then another train out of Geneva, make a couple of changes, and Voila! Zermatt.
The thing you notice right away is that it really is alpine! And it's a good thing we are wearing our thermals and cold-weather gear, after all it's April... yeah, the high is going to be... maybe 6 degrees Celsius. And the low? -13 tonight. Well at least the skiing is going to be great!
Our hotel proprietor is the 1984 Giant Slalom Olympic Gold Medal champion, Max Julen. He and his wife, Karin, are so friendly and have arranged a vegetarian meal for me in the hotel restaurant. They also arrange for us to rent our skis from his brother's ski shop. You and I have rooms under the eaves. What a view! We can see out over the village and down the river Visp. And gee... that pointy mountain looks familiar!
Zermatt is beautiful. The festival takes over the whole village for six days every April and 2018 was the 11th. The streets are filled with happy people, wandering musicians, acoustic bands, and in the center of it all is the Taste Village. Wearing our hi-tech concert/festival wristband chips, we can enter all the general venues.
Everywhere we go, there are casual musical performances, some on stages, others in clubs and bars, and many impromptu on the streets. It is a whole village party! Our wristbands are also programmed to let us into the big name concerts because we bought tickets.
Tonight, we're going to see... Brett Dennen but he is just one of the many acts performing. We are treated to a ride in the train up to the ski lodge where we are fed a four course meal that begins with champagne and ends with dessert and coffee.
Then we move to the next room and in the intimate setting, if feels as if we are all friends hanging out and that Brett is the cool kid in our class who is singing just for us. In fact he teases us and says we are only here because we couldn't get into the Nora Jones concert. I pipe up, "No, we got free food!" That gets a laugh from nearly everyone.
We stay out late afterwards and it's snowing, but nobody minds as we are all wrapped up just right for it. Besides, in the Taste Village, you and I buy a nice hot mug of "Glu Wein" (mulled wine, though if you'd rather you can always have hot chocolate, tea, or coffee!) Around two in the morning we decide that we are heading to bed as we want to go sking in the morning. We walk home smiling, the snow adding to the beauty and the magical quality of this picture-book village.
And ski, we do! The whole day is spent on the slopes. We ride up after breakfast on the same train that took us to see the concert last night but this time we have our skis and helmets. The sun has come out and all that lovely new snow makes it a joy to be out there. We have lunch at one of the numerous restaurants and, of course, there is a Swiss rock band playing Phil Collins music, as well as a lot of other songs we all recognize.
We wear ourselves out skiing throughout the afternoon and then, finally, we return to the village on the train. The best part about it being a ski village is that a bus arrives every ten minutes to carry folks with skis to all the hotels. It is the end of the school day and we also have a lot of children riding home with us. They are obviously very used to doing this. Showers, naps, and dinner revives us. Time for tonight's concert, Jack Savoretti!
The two hour show seems much shorter and afterwards, there is a huge indoor nightclub for the concert goers that has such an elegant ambiance, I wish I'd worn something sparkly! It's our last night in Zermatt, so we dance, wander, eat, and drink until three in the morning. There will be plenty of time to sleep on the 4 hour train ride back to Geneva.
Ce que c'est drole! (How fun!) I have loved having your company on this, my first visit to the Zermatt Unplugged Festival. Shall we save up for next year's concerts and stay the whole week? We look at each other and grin.
Merci, mes amis, for your company.
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