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It was a chilly minus 9 when we got up this morning, but the sun will soon be out so it’s up the hill for us. We cram onto the train with lots of military people who are taking equipment up for the races. Very quiet ski runs.

Occasionally a group of skiers appears, but they’re soon gone, leaving us with the mountain to ourselves.

Val on the Lauberhorn. This is the first place to get the sun in the morning at this time of year, so it’s a popular spot.

Colin is playing in the Anonym bar tonight, so we’ll have a wander up for the music.

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It finally stopped snowing this morning, so after we’d watched the ski racing on TV we went down to the cellar and found our snow shoes. Fresh snow means it’ll be a busy Sunday on the ski runs, but with snow shoes you can get away from the crowds.

These things make climbing steep hills surprisingly easy.

Nearer the village, snow cannons mean we get a bit wet as we pass them.

A rare shot of me.

So hopefully that’s the end of the bad weather for a while. It’s very cold, but the right clothing will deal with that.

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It’s been a truly awful week of weather. We’ve had high winds which closed the ski lifts, and for the past couple of days we’ve had fog, snow or both. Yesterday evening we trudged up to the village and enjoyed a curry with Lesley, Dave and Colin. The weather is so unpleasant that we actually started making plans for another holiday to Corfu in the spring.

Today there’s been a lot of ski racing to watch on TV, and later this afternoon Val made a start on her latest jigsaw puzzle, which is a nice view of Heidelberg.

Guess I’d better make a start on dinner.

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Lovely tapas at the Pickel bar last night.

At this time of year we expect to get a few days when it’s too stormy to run the ski lifts. This week though, we’ve had three in a row. Yet again there was very little skiing on offer in the region. Val had her German class this morning and I went shopping. We’re expecting snow tonight, but Colin is playing at the Victoria Lauberhorn, so I guess we’ll be heading up to the village later.

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Today we’ve had rain and high winds, with most ski lifts out of action. Plenty of action in the village however, as building is in full swing. A mini-village will be created for the World Cup races next weekend, with bars, entertainment and catering.

These civil defence guys are here to help out. They’ve been for a ski in their lunch hour.

Later on there’s ski racing on TV which we can watch in Rocks, followed by tapas at the Pickel bar.

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One of our favourite venues in Wengen has always been the bar in the Sunstar hotel. They regularly have live music, and the staff are really good. Last season the hotel changed hands, and was rebranded as the Alpine hotel, though there were no other discernible changes. Then, at the end of the last winter season, it closed for a major refurbishment. Last night it reopened with a new name – Braunbaer. We went along to take a look. The bar is very nice.

There are video games for the kids.

Apparently there’ll be a regular programme of live music after the Lauberhorn races later this month. It looks very promising.

Val had a lesson at Scheidegg this morning, so I thought I’d go up for a ski. Towards lunchtime a strong wind began to blow, filling the air with spindrift.

It was nice to get back to the calmer weather in the village.

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A long time ago, in a country far, far away, three kings arrived in Bethlehem. This event is celebrated in parts of Europe with ‘Dreikönigstag’ or Three Kings Day. Here in Switzerland a special bread is baked.

In times gone by the ingredients for this bread – butter, eggs & wheat flour were luxury commodities, so the bread was only baked on special days. One of the buns will contain a surprise, perhaps a miniature figure of a king. If you get the bun containing the surprise, you can be king for the day.

It looks like the ticket lady on our train found the surprise!

There’s been a big storm here today, so everything was closed up at Scheidegg. It was a good excuse to pop down to Interlaken for shopping.