Last week I went on a little excursion with my sewing class to Zurich, where we were given a behind the scenes tour of our teacher’s other workplace – the costume department at the opera house! I was blown away by the amount of work that goes into a production. Each costume is designed and sketched by hand, then patterns are drawn up from scratch and sewn, fitted, adjusted and sewn again. The sewing is almost all done by hand. Amazing. I had expected that the actual sewing would be done as quickly as possible to make sure the garments look good from a distance, but that isn’t the case at all. Every garment is painstakingly made to ensure it will survive numerous costume changes, as well as look good in film footage or close up photos. The variety of different costumes and the care with which they had been sewn was incredible.

Another thing that surprised me was the number of people it takes to put a show together. There are separate teams for mens clothes, womens clothes and ballet costumes. There’s  an art department where they design and make accesories, or transform clothes to fit the particular storyline and a hat/wig/mask department.  Last, but definitely not least impressive, is the costume storage area for all the shows that are currently being played. There are another 3 or 4 staff who work full time just to make sure that the costumes are properly organised and that everything is clean and in perfect order ready for the next evening’s numerous costume changes. When you start thinking about the set design, musicians, choreography, actors, etc etc it is not really surprising that the opera house employs 600 people!

The view was incredible – and the people-watching was almost as much fun! Like in all alpine resorts, there was no shortage of wealth on display. There were some ‘interesting’ alpine-themed fashions about and plenty of very posh women doing their best to negotiate the icy streets in their high heels.

As well as the amazing outlook, Leukerbad is also blessed with natural thermal springs. Apparently the town’s first baths were built in 1510 and tourists from all over Europe have been visiting ever since.  It was quite surreal sitting in the outdoor hot pools while the snow fell, taking in the view and listening to the crashes of not so distant avalanches echoing around the valley.

We didn’t quite manage to work up the courage to try out the sauna this time. We just can’t get used to the idea of mixed nude saunas, even though everyone else finds it completely normal. Hmm……maybe next time….

And yet, we still felt there was something missing. There was no pav!

We’d never made a pavlova before. People told us it wasn’t possible without an electric beater, but we were Kiwis posessed! We enjoyed a lovely roast chicken with friends and finished the meal with the pav. As you can see it didn’t turn out too bad!

After falling in love with Danish cafes in Copenhagen, we were very excited to discover that one would be opening only 5 mins from home. We tried it out today and it was great! It’s hard to beat an afternoon spent sitting in front of the fire in a cosy cafe, enjoying delicious cake and good coffee while snow falls outside. Don’t believe us? Come and check it out for yourselves!

Every year an enormous Christmas tree is air lifted by helicopter into the centre of St Gallen to take pride of place beside the city’s famous cathedral.

Not to be outdone, this year we had some friends around to help erect our beautiful 6.5ft imitation Housten Fir with integrated multi-coloured lights (thanks Charles!) It’s a thing of true beauty.

The number of bikes on the streets of Copenhagen is astonishing. We had read the staggering statistics before our visit;

• 9 out of 10 residents own a bike
• Every day 1.3 million km are cycled in Copenhagen
• 36% of all citizens commute to work, school or university by bicycle (and municpal policy is that this number should rise to 50% by 2015)

but the utter dominance of cycling on the streetscape of Copenhagen was still overwhelming to see in the flesh. One evening we passed the digital sign in the photo above, which shows in red the number of cyclists that had passed by the sign that day and,  in blue, how many had passed this point so far this year. Incredible!

As is normal all over Europe, the cyclists are not not just the lycra clad, serious lot you see in New Zealand, but all types. Nobody seems to dress with cycling in mind – think high heels, dresses and buisness suits. Like their riders, the bikes are of all ages and styles. We saw many peculiar looking bikes designed for carrying an extra load, whether it be luggage, shopping bags or the whole family!

The infrastructure in place for cycling is superb, with interaction between cyclists and other traffic kept to a minimum. Cars seemed to be very courteous towards cyclists, as you would expect. What was more surprising was the respect the cyclists showed towards other road users. The cyclists used very clear hand signals, we never saw a cyclist run a red light and whenever a cyclist wanted to turn across oncoming traffic, they pulled over, stopped and used the pedestrian markings at intersections.

All in all it was a sight to behold. We hope that one day Chirstchurch will be the Copenhagen of the south!

The Stelvio Pass in northern Italy, at 2757 m, is the highest mountain pass in the Eastern Alps, and the second highest in the Alps. The orginal road was built in 1820-25!

Every year the road is closed to motorised traffic for a day, leaving this amazing pass free for thousands and thousands of cyclists to torture themselves with the climb of their lives.

A friend and I chose to ride up from the northern side, a route made famous by its inclusion in several Giro d’Italia’s in the past. The climb is 25km long, includes 48 hairpin turns (which are numbered with signposts) and rises over 1800m from the valley floor. The decent down the other side was fun too!

The number of cyclists on the road was pheonomenal and made for a great atmosphere which, along with the breathtaking views, was enough to distract me from my screaming legs! It was one of the most brilliant experiences of my life. Can’t wait for next year! Who’s coming along?

Interested cyclists can see our route here.

Inspired by the recent success of Cadel Evans in the Tour de France, we decided to spend a weekend cycling in France. If an Australian could succeed in taking away the prized yellow jersey, we thought that we could at least succeed in taking away a few pastries.

Stage 1 – Colmar – Colmar. 30km

Starting and finishing in the picturesque old town of Colmar, in the lovely Alsace region just north of the Swiss border, the first stage of our tour consisted of 30 odd kilometers of moderate terrain, including two category 5 climbs. Routed mostly through vineyards, the course passed through a number of beautiful old villages. There was one pit stop at the halfway point of the stage. Here we dined on fine French cuisine in a rather posh-for-bike-clothing restaurant (as it was a Sunday, our choices were limited). We enjoyed a goat cheese and honey entrée followed by roast salmon and finished with a sampler of local deserts and espresso. Feeling rather sleepy after the combination of exercise and food, we made our way back to the finish-cafe in Colmar rather slowly. It was a group finish.

Stage 2 (final stage) – Colmar to Basel (Switzerland). 92km

The stage started, once again, in Colmar. Headed across the border into neighbouring Switzerland, at 90km, this was the longest of the tour. Apart from a small stretch along a motorway (due to poor navigation) the day was spent almost entirely on purpose-built cycle paths without a car in sight. The path ran for the most part alongside the magnificent Rhein river, weaving in and out of vineyards, cornfields and a patch of forest. It was very pretty. We took 2 pit stops along the way, the first in a little medieval walled village named Neuf-Brisach, where we refueled on pastries, while second was a picnic of fresh French bread and cheese in the countryside. After several glorious hours in the saddle we rode into Basel tired but happy. A detailed map of the second stage is available here.

It was a great tour. The respect the French have for cyclists is humbling. The infrastructure in place is amazing and the little traffic we did have to deal with was so courteous. The food there is also pretty good. The tour was a great success!