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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.

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Last night we had our traditional Christmas event with our buddies the Zwickys. We met them at the Chinese restaurant in Mürren. We got there in plenty of time and managed to squeeze in a beer at the Eiger pub before going for dinner. The meal was really good, but the main event comes afterwards – Christmas presents for the kids. Larina is easy to please; anything Harry Potter themed will do nicely.

Aliena is older and a bit harder to buy for, but Val managed to find some nice stuff in the shops back in the UK.

I got a homemade jar of brownie mixture, along with a recipe, so I’ll have fun baking those on a bad weather day. Super night out.

While we were opening presents it started raining. This turned the already slippery street into something resembling a wet ice rink. We just about made it to the cable car station in time for the ride back to the valley. The paths in Wengen were no better, so our walk down the hill was somewhat entertaining. On the positive side, I’ve been meaning to change the soles on my ski boots for ages, and the slippery conditions prompted me to finally get it done this afternoon. I now have the latest ‘grip-walk’ soles, which will hopefully help to keep me upright.

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Colin played at the Victoria Lauberhorn last night. There was a good crowd.

While we were enjoying the music it was snowing outside. The walk home was quite challenging.

Oskar is the son of Andy and Jana, who were our neighbours for a few years. He was 8 years old last month. He’s been out on the mountain with ski school all day, so we waited for him at the Figeller bar at the bottom of the nursery slope. It was absolutely freezing, and seats around the fire pit were in great demand.

And here he comes.

Time to open some presents.

Temperatures were well below zero, so it wasn’t long before we headed to Rocks to thaw out.

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In years gone by, all the hotels used to serve a gala dinner on New Year’s Eve. Sadly this tradition seemed to die out after Covid, but this winter normal service is resumed, and we had a wide choice of venues for our slap-up meal. We chose the Hotel Jungfraublick. Lesley and Dave joined us. Marshmallows cooking on the fire pit.

The hotel is just above the village, so the views are nice.

We started with canapés and champagne, followed by a nice starter of roast duck. The main course was the star of the show, with fillet of beef and lobster.

Tradition demands that the bell ringers ring out the old year and ring in the new. It’s noisy. Press play.

Afterwards we stopped off at the Tanne bar for cocktails, and we saw in the new year in the Anonym bar.

This morning Val was off to work in the sunshine. The ski area is looking very good.

The whole place is still overrun with brightly dressed kids, but they’ll soon be going back to school.

Tonight we’re looking forward to a quiet night in.