The best time to visit the mountain villages near our home is between the tourist seasons, when many hotels are closed and the valleys, cable cars and mountain cableways are much quieter. We drove up to Grindelwald shortly before Christmas, to visit the mountain restaurant at Schreckfeld, where deep snow and temperatures as low as -12°C greeted us.
I was half an hour early for an appointment at the Spiez council offices this morning, so I went for a brief stroll through the woods to the top of the vineyards while I was waiting. It was so peaceful, with fresh powdered snow slipping silently from the trees and only two or three other people there walking their dogs. A lovely…
Views from home across the lake to the Niederhorn on a winter Sunday.
A hair-raising sledge run - our first of this season - in the awe-inspiring Schilttal valley above Mürren.
Low water levels in Lake Thun in winter reveal large expanses of foreshore.
A winter drive along a ten-mile single-track road in northern Scotland led to a remote church and a still, wet, beautiful landscape.
At the end of a long afternoon’s drive from home, via Kandersteg, Brig, the Simplon Pass and a very narrow and windy road through the Ticinese mountains, we arrived at Locarno, on the shores of Lago Maggiore, just in time to catch the last sun of the winter day.
The mountain slopes near the world-famous Eiger are a destination for thousands of skiers and snowboarders in winter. On the Männlichen plateau, above Grindelwald and Wengen, the best time of day for photography is shortly before sunset, when the sports people have left for the day and only cable-car staff and a few sunset-hunting visitors are still on the mountain.
Low cloud drifts through the Lauterbrunnen Valley, below the level of the cable car station on the Männlichen plateau.
The mountain station and restaurant at Winteregg, halfway between Grütschalp and Mürren, is a great place to enjoy a sunny lunch on the large terrace and enjoy the terrific, panoramic views of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.
The alpine passes in early or late season offer a reminder to the untamed nature of the mountains.
Local lake shipping company BLS now runs a daily ship service in the winter months.
The new, re-designed website is now online and is automatically optimized for visitors with iPads and smartphones. One of the aspects of the design is an improvement to how images in vertical format are displayed.
