Danny and I had so much fun skiiing in Grindelwald last year, that we decided for our last Swiss trip, we’d go skiing. We researched resorts and ultimately decided on Flims. Flims is a village in the Alps near Austria, about 2.5 hours from Basel. The resort villages of Flims, Laax and Falera make up the Alpenarena, so basically you can ski in any of the resorts for one price.
We left in the early afternoon (thankfully, Danny’s coworker let us borrow her car while she was in the US, so it made getting to Flims really easy). About 20-minutes from Flims, Danny had me look at his phone to see how we could pick up our lift tickets. As I was scrolling through emails, I realized that our hotel/ski reservations did not start until the next day. Uh oh. Thankfully, when I called the hotel to explain, they were understanding and said they had a room available so we didn’t need to drive back to Basel (for a steep price, might I add). Okay, crisis averted.
(Drive to Flims)
After checking into our hotel, we picked up our lift tickets and walked around Flims a bit. Since our lift tickets and ski lessons weren’t valid until two days later, we thought about what we could do the following day (because staying in a ski village and not skiing is pretty boring). Since we were only 40 minutes from the Liechtenstein border, I suggested going to Vaduz for the day. Danny thought it was a great idea.
The next morning, after breakfast, we drove to Vaduz. Liechtenstein, formally called the Principality of Liechtenstein, is a tiny country nestled in the Alps, and is just 62 square miles, with about 37,000 residents. It’s one of only two double landlocked countries in the world (Liechtenstein itself is landlocked and the two countries that surround it, Switzerland and Austria, are both landlocked). Our drive to the capital city, Vaduz, was easy and beautiful.
Our first stop was the Visitor Center, where the employees couldn’t have been nicer. They gave us maps and told us the top sites to see. Our first stop was the Alte Rheinbrücke, a covered bridge over the Rhine that connects Liechtenstein to Switzerland.
Our next stop was walking up to Vaduz Castle. Visitors can walk to the castle, but are not allowed to go in because the Prince and his family currently lives there. It was an exhausting walk there since the castle sits atop a hill, but honestly, the views were completely worth the walk.
On our walk down, we saw some of Liechtenstein’s vineyards (we had no idea Liechtenstein even made wine) and saw the Red House, which is just a famous house in the Mitteldorf area of Vaduz.
We then stopped for lunch and made our way back to Flims. All in all, we spent about four hours in Vaduz, which I think was the perfect amount of time.
The next day, Danny and I woke up early, had breakfast and headed to the mountain to meet our ski instructor. After a few rounds on the beginner slope, our instructor said we were ready to go down the blue run.
It was a picture-perfect day which made skiing even more enjoyable. We went on a few more smaller runs and stopped for water. During our break, our instructor told us that we only had about 45 minutes left in our 4-hour lesson so he recommended that we go down the blue run again. Perfect—we’re in!
I think I really underestimated how tired I would be after 4 hours of skiing, using muscles I haven’t used in a while. I fell once, then again, then again—I fell so many times, I lost track. My body was tired, my mind was tired, but I ultimately made it down. Danny, on the other hand, made it down pretty gracefully and didn’t fall at all!
The rest of the day, we hung out at the resort, nursing our sore muscles and enjoyed some après ski drinks (hands down, my favorite part of skiing).
The next morning, we donned our ski equipment, went to the base of the mountain and rode the chairlift up to the blue run we had done the day prior. As we were riding up, we noticed that the fog was getting thicker and thicker and visibility was getting less and less.
When we got to the top, visibility was almost zero. We looked at each other and made the executive decision to take the chairlift down—we’re not good enough skiers (yet!) to ski in these conditions.
We skied near the beginner area and once we learned that fog was not going to let up all day, we returned our skis.
We’re not ready for the 2022 Olympics, but we still had fun.
Hudson to Helvetica 