Winter joys: 3 ideas to enjoy winter to your heart’s content!

Ski touring in Switzerland: You can’t go any further

For author Stefana Häberle, winter is a welcome challenge: on her ski tours in Switzerland, she goes to her own limit.

I follow the lonely trail of my friend Sebastian. We’re on this one together Ski tour in the Appenzell Alps, first up to the Risipass and from there onto the steep final slope of the Stockberg, 1781 meters high. Like a caterpillar, I work my way up piece by piece. Tiny ice needles fall out of the fog, burning your face. Sweat trickles under my jacket, and at the same time, despite thick gloves, I can barely feel my fingers from the cold. Walking on touring skis is tiring. The strength is decreasing, my legs are shaking, and I have to concentrate on every movement. I just want one more thing: go on. Every meter of altitude that I overcome makes me stronger. Give me inner peace.

The winter landscape wears delicate veils. Snow-covered pastures and wide corridors are enveloped in mist and silence. Mighty mountains on both sides of the valley head remind you that you are entering another world here. You can hear the soft rustling of the wind in the tops of the firs and pines, the call of the golden eagle, which circles in the rocky heights. A place far removed from everyday life.

At the summit: glistening light, view over snow-covered mountain peaks to the horizon. I cry with happiness. Because I am where everyday life cannot. Because this view is so incredibly beautiful. None of us talk this precious silence to death. A low “fantastic!” is enough to share this magical moment with each other.

I am always drawn to the Appenzellerland. Here in the Swiss idyll south of Lake Constance. A picture-book landscape: rolling hills, lovingly draped with light forests, rise from the twilight of the afternoon. Pasture fences stick out of the snow as dark lines. Crossing abandoned cross-country trails. Here a village with colorful houses around the market square, there a secluded homestead.

We have stayed in a 200 year old farmhouse, the magic of which touches us so deeply that we keep coming back to spend the winter holidays here. The farmhouse has two rooms downstairs in addition to a kitchen and two bedrooms under the roof as well as a small garden and an apple tree in the middle of the cow pasture. Sebastian heats up the tiled stove, which spreads cozy warmth. We eat small baked potatoes with melted cheese, and for dessert there are baked apples with cinnamon. Later we listen to the crackling fire and whispers of flames that sound like music to our ears. The muscles slowly relax. Images of the day appear, a landscape barren and vast. Never more lonely than in winter. The longer I am here, the more I distance myself from the things that seem to be important to us. The simple life grounds me again. For the next few months at least.

Travel tips: Winter in Appenzell

Mountain houses and holiday apartments in mountain houses that are rented out in winter are getting up www.appenzell.info. Here you will also find mountain inns that offer rustic double rooms, e.g. B. the mountain inn “Kronberg”, www.kronberg.ch, or the forest inn “Lehmen”, www.lehmen.ch.

Tip: If you don’t know your way around the mountains, you should definitely not go alone in winter. Guided snowshoe / ski tours are better. Further information https://appenzellerland.ch or www.myswitzerland.com.

Stefana Häberle

Sylt: soul landscape made of ice

Beguiling, enchanting, magical – the words are worn out. It is not the reality. For Karin Weber-Duve, a walk on the wintery sea on the North Sea island of Sylt is one of the most beautiful experiences of the whole year.

One step, one breath. One step, one breath, one step, one breath. The frozen edge of the beach crunches under my feet. I’m at the elbow, the northernmost part of the island – light years away from the Kampen whiskey and champagne mile. The walk is like a meditation: The head becomes free of disturbing thoughts, ruminations, worries. Dirt is pulled from the soul, and I only have eyes for this winter wonderland, which I look forward to 360 days a year: the wild foaming North Sea, the pale blue sky, large and overpowering. The snow-covered dune landscape – like a miniature Alpine panorama -, the filigree beach grasses covered with a thin layer of ice, which look like artistic Japanese ink drawings in the backlight. My breath is steaming, and I wonder if seagulls actually breathe differently than we do – nothing steams there, although they are always screeching.

As always when I’m at the sea, the term “ordered chaos” occurs to me. The beach near the sea is full of undulating patterns and imprints, but no two lines are alike. Every shell is unique, every dune has its own shape and so does every grain of sand. Nature is unique – the perfect counter-program to the world of information technology with its aliasing, copying and duplicating functions. Something like a rock crystal glitters here, of all places, at the northernmost point of Germany! If you look closely, the white-gray jagged semi-precious stone turns out to be talmi: a huge lump of wax.

The Hamburg author Fritz J. Raddatz once wrote that everyone has a landscape to which they say “You”. Raddatz and I don’t have much in common – except that our two “you” are on the North Sea island of Sylt. With him all year round, with me a few December days “between the years”.

Restlessness, anticipation, longing. When I balance from the parking lot on an icy wooden plank path across the dunes towards the beach, my heart pounds with excitement. Although I’ve long since heard the sound of the waves, there is this blink of an eye moment of childish doubt: is it really there? After all, I was gone. And then it is before me, the sea. It was there millions of years before me and will be there for millions of years after me and reliably bite off some cliff scraps piece by piece in a storm.

I’m cold, ice-cold, despite the wool on my head, fur in my boots and down in my coat. How many animals and species have helped keep me warm? But now it’s time to stop. This is also a ritual and, as the Chancellor would say, there is no alternative: the “beach hall” in the direction of List with (Austrian!) Specialties. A Wiener Schnitzel that generously lapses outside the box – as a look forward to a summer holiday in the mountains.

Beautiful winter hotels on Sylt

A-Rosa Sylt. Embedded in a dune landscape on the Wadden side of List, with a very nice spa area and large pool (www.a-rosa-resorts.de).

Ferry house Sylt The enchanting house in Munkmarsch is known for its good cuisine (www.faehrhaus-sylt.de).

Wherever there are mountains: Feel like a child while tobogganing

Tobogganing until the lanterns come on, just like when she was a child – that’s the best thing about winter for Andrea Hacke.

As soon as the first snow is outside, the transformation happens in me: It starts in my stomach with this joyful feeling, then the lightness reaches the chest, and I feel energies in me that an adult no longer has at all.

I am happy when the speed increases, when I fly through the air and sometimes scream for a moment when a sudden bump in the ground suddenly snatches control from me. But just wait, I’ll have you back in a moment! Sometimes we just fall off the sled, let ourselves roll through the snow, and I’m happy to have children with whom I can experience the joy of winter so exuberantly.

When the world around me becomes white, I feel like a child again, I jump into waterproof clothes, I hardly have time to put on a hat, scarf and gloves, because the mountain is waiting out there. “Children, off to the slopes!” is now the battle cry, then my two sons and I each grab a sledge, and our faces beam as we walk outside next to each other towards the climax. We’ll be there in a moment, sledding, rushing downhill through the falling snowflakes. What then also counts are the track, the self-made ski jumps and the other tobogganers that we naturally want to overtake. My head is clear of conferences and unfinished business. Now my existence consists of starting up, scurrying down, pulling up the sled. And all over again.

We only go home when the sky turns out the light for us. And then comes the next highlight: At home, when our cheeks and ears are glowing after the change from the cold to the warm, we plaster our after-toboggan meal – Kaiserschmarrn with cinnamon plums or baked apples with vanilla sauce. Even when we’re eating, we still talk eagerly about tobogganing, about the toughest case and the best evasive maneuver. We are one unit. And secretly I hope it won’t thaw for weeks.

Three wonderful toboggan runs in Germany

Kranzberg / Upper Bavaria 1.6 km long route from Kranzberg to Mittenwald im Karwendel (www.alpenwelt-karwendel.de).

At Wallberg / Upper Bavaria At 6.5 kilometers the longest natural toboggan run in Germany, from 1620 meters it goes downhill (www.wallbergbahn.de).

Midday summit / Allgäu 5.1 km long route to Immenstadt (www. Mittagbahn.de). The sledges can be rented at the respective valley stations.

BRIGITTE WOMAN