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It’s been a pretty awful week of weather. Lots of rain saturated the snow that fell last week, turning the village into a sea of slush. Last night however, just after dinner, temperatures plunged and the rain turned to snow. Val had an appointment in Interlaken this morning, so she was out early. I followed her down a couple of hours later, and we had a long, lazy lunch with Emily at the Cafe de Paris. The snow had even reached Interlaken, which is quite unusual. It was vaguely amusing to see office workers in their suits and smart shoes negotiating the piles of snow that the ploughs had left behind. Usually we feel like country bumpkins when we visit a town wearing our mountain gear, but today we were the ones appropriately dressed.

We dragged ourselves away from the warmth of the restaurant and headed back towards Wengen. Not long after we got off the train the sun came out, giving us a tantalising glimpse of the winter wonderland that we are lucky enough to call home.

The sunshine lasted for half an hour or so before the clouds returned to obscure the view, but it was very nice while it lasted. The forecast for the weekend is bright but extremely cold, so we won’t be going far.

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Lauberhorn is over, and the village can return to normal. Angela shared this lovely picture taken by train driver Stefan at Wengernalp.

A sunny day is forecast tomorrow, maybe time for a ski?

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It’s the big day. In Switzerland the Lauberhorn downhill race is the equivalent of the FA Cup soccer final in the U.K. or the Super Bowl in the USA. Thousands of fans make their way to Wengen to see the race, and millions more watch on TV. Needless to say, our noisy neighbours were back this morning.

In previous seasons we have been offered cheap tickets for the grandstand, but alas this seems to be a thing of the past. We opted to watch the race on TV in the Crystal bar, where we can enjoy beer and hotdogs whilst keeping warm. To the delight of the ever-patriotic Swiss, the race was won by Marco Odermatt. Here he is with the President of Switzerland, Viola Amherd.

Tonight there’ll be a huge party in the village. From our house we can hear the music playing and smell the bratwursts cooking. The celebrations will continue well into the small hours of tomorrow morning, and the trains will run all night to take weary revellers back to the valley.

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Another air show. Today we got pictures from our balcony.

Another good race this afternoon, won by Frenchman Cyprien Sarrazin. Here he is.

The big race takes place tomorrow, and Wengen is getting busy. The World Cup village is complete, and is ready for spectators.

Lauberhorn weekend is almost the only time we see the police in Wengen. I doubt they have much to do.

There’s a lot of free stuff. This girl is cruising around the village giving away iced coffee.

Eventually the cold got the better of us, and we met Michael in the Crystal bar for a drink.

There’s lots of street food available, but we popped home for dinner. We’ll go back up to the village later this evening.

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The Lauberhorn races begin today. I popped up to the Crystal bar for coffee while Val did her German class, and afterwards wandered up to the church which is a good vantage point for seeing the air show. As ever, the show was really good.

While I was having my coffee Sammy, one of the owners of the bar, presented me with 2 valuable wristbands.

These will ensure that despite the presence of 30,000 race fans over the weekend, we can always get a seat in the Crystal for a beer or a coffee. Nice. Anyhow, the race was very good, and the winner was a Swiss skier called Marco Odermatt, so all the locals are happy. The organisers invited 1500 local schoolchildren free of charge, so there was a great atmosphere at the finish. Just like most big sporting events, you get the best view by watching on TV, which is exactly what we did.

More racing and another air show tomorrow.

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The hospitality venues for the races this weekend are almost finished. There’s a whole new pub outside the Eiger.

The tennis courts are turning into a mini village.

it’s amazing to think that all this effort goes into an event that lasts not much longer than a weekend. The races start tomorrow, and the village is already filling up with fans. Our usual Wednesday evening in the Alpine hotel was much busier than usual tonight. We can see the race course from our balcony, though it’s quite tricky to spot the skiers as they speed down to the village at 85 miles per hour. The weather forecast is good, so hopefully everyone will have a great weekend.

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Training runs for the World Cup ski races begin tomorrow, so the racers arrived today. Here’s James Crawford from Canada, getting onto the train at Lauterbrunnen.

Needless to say, the race teams bring masses of equipment. This pile of stuff belongs to the Austrians.

It’s quite nice to see that these international superstars have to load all their gear onto the train, just like we do. Here’s Swiss star Niels Hintermann returning his luggage trolley. He probably wants to get his 2 francs deposit back.

What with the national teams and the world’s press, there won’t be a spare bed to be found anywhere in Wengen for the next week or so. We usually get around 30,000 spectators over the race weekend, so things will get a little bit crazy over the next few days.