Switzerland & Germany 2022 Day 8 - Frankfurt

 It is our final day and I'm so SAD!

I don't want this holiday to end just yet!

Today our flight is almost 10pm at night, so we have as good as a full day in Frankfurt city.

Well, Frankfurt has its city charm and a few interesting sights (Romer old town), but it has a seedy taste which I couldn't get rid of even with an additional day to explore the more touristy sights.

That said, I felt like we made the best of what we had left of this trip and saw most of the sights we aimed to see in Frankfurt (not much). In fact, we lamented that it was a good thing we didn't choose to spend all 8 days in Frankfurt, which was the original holiday plan (with built-in day trips).

What a splendid and memorable holiday its really been for me and the family, after two years of hardly any travels.

I departed for Singapore feeling so very blessed, yet yearning for more of such holidays in the near future.

To more family holidays!!!

Switzerland & Germany 2022 Day 7 - Frankfurt

 For the entire trip being planned, this day would be the most dreaded (apart from leaving of course!).

That's because it was time to leave Switzerland, and head back to Frankfurt, Germany.

We had anticipated that we needed a night's stay to prepare for the PCR tests that all four of us had to do in Germany 48hrs before our flight back to Singapore.

This turned to be a waste opportunity because we discovered that taking the PCR was so easy over there, with test centres in all the train stations and even in the airport. Moreover, halfway through the trip, we read news that the PCR test requirement was downgraded to just an ART test requirement. Surely had we known all this, we would have spent one more night in either Grindelwald or Zermatt. 

Oh well, hindsight in 20/20 eh?

So today we left Zermatt for Frankfurt. 

It was also a 7hr journey with 4 transits in between, before we got to Frankfurt Main train station. We left Zermatt early (8+am?) and managed to reach Frankfurt around (3+pm)

Then we ended up taking longer than expected to find our hotel because there was actually some sort of internet outage worldwide that day, so much so we had to go to a store to 'borrow' their wifi. We also took a wrong, insidious turn out of Frankfurt Main train station, and ended up in the seediest part of Frankfurt, walking into areas which were really dodgy, had prostitutes, drug addicts and dodgy immigrants. 

It took us a while to find our hotel, the Marriott Frankfurt. Which turned out to be a very recognizable standalone building in the heart of Frankfurt. 

In any case, Frankfurt city in the late afternoon gave off really seedy and dodgy vibes unfortunately, which was really a damper considering what a great time we have had in Switzerland. What a contrast.

Well we did get our negative Covid ART tests sorted really easy because there was a mobile test van outside our hotel.

Dinner was at the Marriott Members' lounge which was top notch, and we drank champagne till we got drunk (me and wifey).

Switzerland & Germany 2022 Day 6 - Zermatt

 We're still in Zermatt and it is really growing on me. 

Resort and commercial as it may be, Zermatt has this very welcoming charm, especially for the rich. Amenities are abundant, beautiful scenery everywhere, everything so picturesque, people are polite and proper in this small town.

Today we were heading up to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, which is actually called Klein Matterhorn (literally means Little Matterhorn), which is a ridge at 3,883m above sea level, and houses the highest cable car station in all of Europe. 

We met friendly tourists from different countries (Netherlands, Switzerland, US etc) who all told us how beautiful Zermatt (or the Swiss Alps in general) was and how much better it's ski slopes were compared to anywhere else in the world. 

We also happened to trek to the huge glacier on Klein Matterhorn while up at the top and that became one of our most memorable experiences. From standing in the middle of a glacial field, to playing with fresh snow, sulky kids turned happy funny kids, and for me, almost falling into a deep glacial cavern when the snow below my feet gave way to nothingness. This trek had it all, all the drama which we could not fully capture in pictures and videos.

Finally we had pizza for dinner and went sleighing outside our hotel in the evening again.

So much adrenaline for a single day!

And then by night time, I did the most Singaporean thing ever, which was to cook a nice hot cup of cup noodles, and slurped it all up in the freezing balcony of our room!

Switzerland & Germany 2022 Day 5 - Zermatt

 Day 5 was about getting to Switzerland's most famous alpine ski resort, Zermatt. 

It was where you could see the most famous mountain in Switzerland, the Matterhorn.

The trip there was fairly smooth, leaving the beautiful Grindelwald, only about 2hrs by train, with lots of snowy mountain scenes to entertain throughout. 

Zermatt came across like an ultra-commercialized tourist attraction. Of course we would later fall in love with it, but as far as first impression go, it felt like a tourist trap type of town, where everything was built with the tourist's dollar in mind. From an overwhelming abundance of hotels, branded retail stores and restaurants, to even a Mcdonald's there. 

In fact we had Mcdonald's for lunch there. 

It was the type of place which one would go to ski in the day, and then party in the night kinda places (gives me the Bali vibes).

And with good reason of course, with the famous Matterhorn  as the backdrop, and snow blanketing the whole town, this was such a dreamy place especially for snow experiences. Zermatt is so high up in the mountains that even though it hadn't snowed for a few days already, thick snow caked across the town and on most rooftops.

In fact right outside our hotel, was a snow-filled slope which we ended up having so much fun just sleighing around during our stay there. The boy really loved it.

We stay at Hotel Capricorn, which had good reviews, and an even better room than we had in Grindelwald, which had an attic for a kids room. Just so amazing. It as a little far from the train station, so that was a little journey to drag our luggage, but still well worth the trek.

We arrived into Zermatt early, so we checked in and then got to go up to Gornergrat, a rocky ridge allowing us to see 29 peaks around the entire alpine region, really felt like we were on top of the world (different from Top Of Europe).

Then we again came back to let the kids play in the snow with some sleighs. Some other tourists had probably bought these cheap sleighs from the Decathlon there (15CHF) and left them on the snow slopes because they were such a hassle to bring home.

And finally, we ended up with a cost Italian dinner with wine and I got drunk haha.

Switzerland & Germany 2022 Day 4 - Grindelwald

 Today we make our way to the highlight of our trip - Jungfraujoch, top Of Europe (that's actually the actual location name).

The morning started with a distinctive yellow tint all around us thanks to a huge gust of sand dust coming in from the Sahara desert, brought in by the northerly winds across Europe. 

We also had one groggy kid (mild altitude sickness) and one hungry kid in tow, both of whom thankfully recovered after a very cosy lunch at the main restaurant at the Top Of Europe station.

Top Of Europe was just one really amazing experience with the great feeling of being at the top of a snow mountain, the observatory, the ice palace, and most particularly because we got caught in some serious snowy winds thanks to the cloudy weather. There were areas which we could go out and enjoy the peak snow, which was fresh and fluffy (like bingsu!), and then getting caught in what appeared like a mild blizzard.

Guess it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that happen.

Glad we utilized all our snow gear that we packed heavily for. 

What fun! We even had a quick sauna and swim later at our hotel indoor pool!