The Swiss school holiday calendar is posted well in advance by school authorities, and shows the staggered school breaks by canton. Cross it with the French school holiday calendar to avoid traffic and tourist jams, especially for the February snow weeks and Easter vacation.
Fall, Christmas and summer school holidays all happen at the same time in France. But for the two-week winter and spring breaks France is then divided into three zones, each with different dates, so do check the school holiday calendar. The Jura and Alps areas are located in zone A. In winter and spring, one vacation week is shared by two zones, and roads and slopes can then become very crowded. The school calendar can be printed.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – This report is coming to you a bit later than usual as we waited for the ski news to improve and, happily, it has, but it’s not the perfect weekend for beginners. Sunday promises occasional glimpses of sun.
Yes there is snow, fresh snow, throughout much of the Alps, the depth is excellent everywhere and there is good powder. The snow line has been falling since early morning, to 400 metres in some areas.
The less happy news, for those who like blue skies, is that there aren’t any: gray is the norm. And for less confident skiers, whiteout conditions come and go, especially at relatively low altitudes.
In the news: Vaud is studying the option of a super-region that would connect Gstaad-Diableret-Villars-Gryon. The canton has ordered the “Vision Alpes vaudoises 2020″ study that estimates it would cost CHF160 million to build new lifts to link up the resorts and to recreate others, notably in the Glacier 3000 area. Other runs could be closed.
Note that the Vaud Alps resorts share an information web site, which has useful information in English, but if the links don’t take you anywhere try switching to French.
Keep French and Swiss school holiday dates in mind if you’re planning a ski trip in the near future, as the slopes become much busier at these times. Geneva school break starts 11 February, Vaud and Neuchatel break starts 25 February and French schools break at these times depending on their zones.
This weekend Swiss mountain roads are very icy and chains will be needed in more places than usual, with daytime temperatures just above zero then falling at dusk.
Weather forecast
Temperatures will start to fall, with daytime highs of 2 Sunday in most of Western Switzerland. A mixed snow and sun picture: intermittent snow is expected, with occasional sunshine.
Looking ahead, MeteoSwiss says we could be in for one of the coldest snaps in February in years, with highs next weekend already falling, to -6 and -7.
Special activities, offers in resorts this week
Anzeres has a deal worth considering: reserve before 31 January and you can get 20 percent off on several things including a number of hotels and apartments, ski passes, and equipment rentals.
Gstaad kicks off a winter season of 16 concerts at the beautiful old Rougement church, Sunday 29 January.
Leysin/Les Mosses hosts the start of the beautiful Transalp dog races 30 January. This run that covers 160 km of mountain terrain ends 5 February and is one of the highlights of the Alpine purebred Huskies dog race season.
You can now buy package tickets that combine various fun things like fondue dinners with the Villars Night Show that starts 11 February and is on Saturdays and Wednesdays through March.
Jura report
by Shirley Curran
We have another week before the French holidays begin in earnest and we have been favoured this year by great falls of snow. More is expected at the end of the week. As always, it is a good idea to log in to Monts-jura.com and check the webcams to see our impressive conditions for yourself. Snow depth: 120-155cm, depending on the station.
Ed. note: the site corrected Friday evening’s forecast noting that Saturday morning opened with clear skies, although the web cams show clouding over by noon, so definitely check the site for the latest updates.
Alpine resorts
Holding up against the snow - just
Anzere The snowcross (snowmobile) races as well as the 4x mountain bike on snow races scheduled for Saturday 28 January have been postponed; stay tuned for an update.
Crans-Montana Mostly open, with little wind in the region. Snow conditions superb.
Gstaad 80% of runs are open, but whiteout conditions throughout much of the area
Leysin Slopes open, except superpipe snow park, and hints of sunshine. A highlight this winter, with the great snow, is the village toboggan park that features 8 corridors of 150-200 metres and snow tubing, open from 10-20:00
Verbier Virtually everything open, avalanche risk down to level 2, snow depth at Les Gentianes at 310cm and for the good skiers who love this place, the gray skies won’t matter, although with temperatures at -3 to -10, it’s chillier than it’s been.
Villars Mostly open, 10cm of fresh snow added to the 235cm depth.
Patouch campaign to raise awareness about increased risks of child sexual abuse during the holidays
SION, SWITZERLAND – A canton Valais NGO, Patouch, is getting strong support from local media and the police to get across an important message as the holidays approach, that this is a time when children are particularly at risk for sexual abuse.
The group, which recently adopted a cartoon-style hedgehog for its logo, points out that more than 90 percent of child abuse is carried out by family members, and with family gatherings a large part of holidays, the risk is higher than usual.
Prevention is the best medicine and children should be told how to protect themselves.
Adolescents, too, are at higher risk of psychological and physical abuse during the holidays and need to learn how to say no appropriately, in self-defense.
The group offers courses (Fr), which are approved by the Valais cantonal education department.
Basel’s stinky flower, Geneva’s sexiest fingers study, Cern’s rumoured Higgs particles, US women skate to gold in Zurich
Cern's Alice experiment, particle collisions
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A giant stinky flower in Basel, ring fingers that mean true love, thrilling women’s ice hockey world finals – the international population in the Lake Geneva region disappears during the spring holidays, heading off on travels near and far, but the news doesn’t stop.
Here’s a brief roundup of what you might have missed:
Phew! but beautiful to behold, Basel’s corpse flower
Switzerland was on the world news map, with hundreds of articles about the amophophallus titanium, aka the “corpse flower” that pulled in an estimated 25,000 visitors to Basel. Key facts: it is one of the world’s largest flowers (technically: “largest unbranched inflorescence in the world” according to wikipedia), it smells of rotting flesh, and it grows in the wild only in Sumatra, Indonesia. The first cultivated flowering was at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London in 1889 and since then there have been few sightings of the rarely-blooming flower. Basel’s Botanical Gardens‘ two-metre high plant bloomed this weekend, for the first time in its 17 years, and the first such plant to flower in Switzerland in 75 years.
Check out his length, dear
A man’s ring finger length gives clues to his masculinity, researcher Camille Ferdenzi at the University of Geneva in Switzerland shows in her research on 2D:4D, the name for the ratio comparing second and fourth digits. Her work was published 19 April in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biology Letters. For an easier explanation, LiveScience unravels the mysteries of sex and the ring finger.
God or no god particles, Cern is intense
Walt Disney Co. is set to open a $4.4 billion amusement park in Shanghai in 2016. The ground-breaking ceremony for the new park took place Friday 8 April. This is the company’s first venture onto China’s mainland and it follows the opening of Disneyland Hong Kong in 2005.
However, there are fears that the resort faces a gloomy future: Disneyland Hong Kong still runs at a loss five years after its opening, and faces criticism from tax payers over its drain on government expenditure. China is the only major country without a Disney channel, and so many of the classic Disney images and characters may be harder to sell to the younger Chinese generation.
With China’s population standing at around 1.3 billion, Disneyland is joining the many western businesses attempting to get a hold on the huge consumer economy there. Not all meet with success: an enormous Barbie store that opened with great aplomb just two years ago has recently had to admit defeat and close.
Disneyland also has resorts in Paris and Tokyo, in addition to its US and recent Chinese developments. The New York Times quotes Robert Iger, Disney’s chief executive, as having described its planned Shanghai project as “authentically Disney but distinctly Chinese”.
"If you drink don't drive and if you drive don't drink", cautions Nez Rouge
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Nez Rouge, whose volunteers drive people home during the festive season if they are too drunk or high or tired to get behind the wheel safely, clocked381,157 km over the 2010 holidays.
The group’s 6,979 volunteers delivered 20,895 people between 3 December and 1 January in 9,580 runs.
Bad weather had an impact this year, with the service operating more slowly than usual due to icy, snowy conditions some evenings.
Two people who phoned became impatient and decided to drive home anyway, only to be delivered home in the end by the police after they were stopped and found to be over the limit.
And deliveries home didn’t always go smoothly: one man was dropped off only to find his extremely angry wife standing at the front door waiting to give him a piece of her mind.
To our readers from GenevaLunch.com:
Thank you for sharing a wonderful year with us, and as 2010 draws to a close we wish you a peaceful and happy holiday season.
Expect fresh snow for the holidays in Switzerland, accompanied by icy winds that might make the indoors an appealing option
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Weather in the Swiss Alps turned unseasonably mild 22 and 23 December, with highs of 10C Wednesday and expected to be around 8C Thursday. The Lake Geneva area is also experiencing a warm-up, with highs of 6C forecast for Thursday. The weather should change starting Friday, with temperatures dropping to a high of 0C, snow down to the plain and by Saturday temperatures dropping with an icy bise wind blowing across the plains and around the lake. Sunday: -2C, with snow flurries and the cold wind continuing.
Consider giving warm hats and scarves for Christmas gifts, for immediate use.
Party-time: a reminder from Nez Rouge to call them rather than drinking or taking drugs and driving home over the holidays. Keep in mind that exhaustion can also incapacitate you. Swiss-wide the number is 0800 802 208, but you can also phone locally: numbers and more on the volunteer work by Nez Rouge.
Driving plans: if you’re travelling by car over the holidays, review the list of expected traffic jams in Switzerland published by the Federal Highway Department, with the Swiss road traffic forecast published in English by GenevaLunch. Three good sources of live traffic reports: Highway Department truck information in English, TSR map showing traffic flow (Fre) and TCS (Touring Club Suisse) state of the roads map.
Your guide to a holiday-season weekend in Zurich, an easy train ride from Lake Geneva
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Zurich, December, view over the Limmat, universities above the Niederdorf
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The charm of Zurich is at its brightest in the lead-up to Christmas. Daytime offers plenty of activities for children and adults alike, but the real fun starts in the evening. The entire city appears to spill out of offices and shops to socialize in the snowy streets, tucking into cozy cafes and restaurants when the weather turns too brisk. It’s an easy two hours and 50 minute by train from Geneva, 30 minutes less from Lausanne, making it the perfect mini-vacation for people in the Lake Geneva area who want to leave home without the cost and fatigue of going abroad.
Swarovski crystals cover Zurich main station giant tree
The week before Christmas sees Zurich shoppers filling the stores and boutiques, as they do in any big city. Shops are open Sunday 19 December throughout the city and they are open later than usual in the evenings up to Christmas. The Bahnhof, or main train station, has what is arguably the best Christmas market in Switzerland, with a great selection of gifts, but there are also scores of small Christmas stands sprinkled around the city and small markets that are good fun.
Be sure to go back to the Bahnhof in the evening, when the locals invade it, sipping hot gluwein, the spicy scent of which fills the air. The giant Swarovski Christmas tree is an astonishing site, with over 5,000 crystal decorations. Given that these start at CHF130 in the Swarovski shop on the Bahnhofstrasse, the cost of the tree as well as its beauty are enough to make you pause. The tree itself is a 35-year-old Zurich pine from the forest above the city.
Your best starting point is at the main train station’s tourism office, where you can get excellent maps, brochures and the Zurich City Card (see below). The Bahnhof station can be confusing at the best of times, and renovations don’t make it easier to get your bearings. Do what the locals do and look up: the huge, colourful Guardian Angel (Schutzengel) by artist Niki de St Phalle serves as a good meeting point and reference.
Zurich Bahnhof, travellers' nana, "Guardian Angel"
The popular Nana figure weighs 1.2 tons and is 11 metres high. It was offered to the station in 1997 by Securitas to celebrate the 150th birthday of Swiss railways. The tourism office’s “i” is a few metres away.
Three very special treats during the holidays: extraordinary Picasso retrospective, ice skating, the Singing Tree
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nez Rouge helped 24,000 people make it home safely during the 2009 holiday season after they were unable to drive due to alcohol, drugs and exhaustion.
The group kicks off its volunteer operation for the 2010 holiday season Friday 10 December in most parts of Switzerland and a week later in the rest of the country.
If you can’t drive, don’t: phone Nez Rouge at 0800 802 208.
The group consists of local sections and you can also phone their local numbers directly, so print out the numbers and keep them handy if you plan to party during the holiday season. You can always pick up your car later, as long as you’re alive because you’ve called Nez Rouge.
Geneva – 022 710 27 77: 10 and 12 December, then from 17 December to 31 December
Morges-Lausanne – 021 702 55 10: 10 and 12 December, then from 17 December to 1 January
Eastern Vaud – 021 964 60 68: 10 and 11, 17 and 18, then 23 to 31 December
In France, the night of 31 December only, in Haute-Savoie
Closed for the Swiss holiday 20 September
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Monday is the Jeûne Fédéral holiday, celebrated in much of Switzerland, with Geneva as a major exception.
The extent to which businesses, schools and shops close varies from one canton to another so check locally; Vaud, for example, tends to close everywhere, whereas in Valais many shops remain open.
Geneva and Swiss holidays explained, swissinfo archives (Fre)
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Next year, 2010, expect to work more if you live in Switzerland. The calendar, points out 20 Minutes, is doing workers no favours, with at least four and in some cantons up to six fewer holidays, thanks to several of them falling on weekends. The first non-holiday holiday is 2 January, normally a day off work in French-speaking cantons, but this year it falls on a Saturday.
Switzerland, December 2009
Best wishes for a safe and happy holiday, from the staff and contributors at GenevaLunch, to all our faithful readers.
Thanks to you, our traffic has grown fourfold in 12 months, and we are now the best-read source of news online in the Lake Geneva region in Switzerland.
Ed. note: we will be reducing our regular news coverage for the next two weeks, but running several features to keep you happy.
The threatened British Air cabin crew strike over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday season appears less certain, with the airline saying Wednesday 15 December that it plans to contest the strike vote in court. BA’s argument is that some of those who voted are no longer employed by the airline. The company is meanwhile working out staffing plans should the strike go ahead.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The time has arrived for the annual Christmas party reminder: don’t drive if you plan to drink. The limit in Switzerland is 0.5 per 1,000, which means about one glass of wine. That said, Christmas parties, at the office or elsewhere, often catch people by surprise, and if you have one too many, consider phoning Nez Rouge to have someone come and drive you home in your own car. The Geneva area service also covers neighbouring France.
The holiday season service starts this weekend, with drivers on call 11 and 12 December, and then throughout the holidays but with dates and times varying slightly from one region to another.
Lausanne 2009 - down to Earth and back to the books soon
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Canton Bern has decided to coordinate school vacations so they will in future be the same for children in German-speaking and French-speaking communes: this week the German-speakers started back to school and next week the French-speakers return. The decision about school holidays has until now been the perogative of the communes, rather than the canton. The cantonal education minister says the request for change comes from parents, who sometimes have children in more than one commune and who can’t coordinate family vacations.
That still leaves the problem of coordinating two-canton vacations for families with children in Geneva and Vaud, for example, particularly if they have children in private schools, where residence is less of an issue but cantonal public school calendars are sometimes observed.
A little more time on the beach, anyone?
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The weather was hot, the beaches beckoned and the Swiss Federal Chancellery announced the tempting news: nearly 108,000 people have signed a demand for a popular referendum that would give Swiss workers a minimum of six weeks of vacation, by law. The initiative will now go to the vote, with a date to be set later. The initiative was launched by Travail.Suisse, one of the country’s largest unions, which argues that more holidy time is needed due to increasing pressure on workers and a too-strong focus on productivity.
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The long Pentecost/Whit weekend was marred by a number of deadly accidents in the area. In Neuchatel a 33-year-old Swiss woman drowned in Lake Neuchatel near Colombier 31 May, apparently after getting cramps while swimming. A 52-year-old man from Bex died when his glider crashed, for reasons that are not yet clear, near Gryon. He had left the airfield at Bex shortly before and was heading for the Vaud Alps.
Switzerland, Christmas 2008
Best wishes for wonderful holidays to all our friends and fans, from Ellen Wallace, editor, and the team at GenevaLunch.
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Title: Vacation and sports show
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 23 Jan 2009
End Date: 25 Jan 2009
