Snowshoeing, Walking and Food - What We Enjoy In Switzerland
Swiss towns are so beautiful. We'd start our day tanking up at the ArtHaus Hotel's typical Swiss buffet breakfast. Four different kinds of cereal, ham, cheese, jams, butter, croissants, hard rolls, wheat breads, two kinds of yoghurt, juice, fruit and coffee. That would see us through the day...easily. Relax a little bit (Europeans are fairly laid back about waiting until around 10am to set out for whatever they plan to do that day). Catch one of the free buses that ran every 20 minutes throughout the valley to wherever we wanted to snowshoe.
Other suggestions for food - look for a COOP, SPAR or MIGROS, the main grocery chains in Europe to buy almost anything. A perfectly adequate bottle of wine there is $3. They even had some for $1 but I was a little leary... a dollar... don't know... Bakery goods, cold cuts, and once again almost everyone speaks English. If they don't, just gesture, use charades and you'll have no problem. I loved the COOP in Davos - two floors and the escalators even had a separate escalator for the shopping baskets. Just push the basket on this dedicated escalator and it rode up or down with you. Very clever idea.
Another important bit of information - toilet facilities (folks, this can be very important). There are always toilets at the bottom of cable cars and at the top of each lift. If not, go into a nearby restaurant or hotel. They are very obliging and won't turn you away. We also carry Nalgene filled water bottles with us. Davos is at an altitude of 5,000+ feet and you will get very thirty and dehydrated.
Davos is considered the highest town in Europe and consists of several mountains: Parsenn (Davos and Klosters); Jacobshorn; Rinerhorn; Pischa and Madrisa with over 160 miles of slopes and 20 miles of winter hiking trails.
It was time to head up the Jacobshorn on our snowshoes. We use Atlas and ex-Marine's pair weighs over 4 pounds. The more you weigh the bigger your snowshoes have to be for adequate float. Snowshoes come in three standard types: for recreational hiking; aerobics/fitness; and hiking/backpacking. If you hike up a mountain with snowshoes on it becomes winter hiking. Add the weight of your ordinary boots (ours are Columbia Bugaboo - they last forever) and it's easy to see how a person can burn over 600 calories an hour, 45% more than walking or running at the same pace and lots of fun. Pick a ski trail, stay way to the side and head on up, with skiers and gorgeous mountain scenery as a distraction....
...and even this woman who was riding a little sledge/sled down the mountain pulled by her two dogs!
Switzerland is where (and how) I can think of "exercise" as "fun"...
