MM : Swiss Vapeur Park

One of our family goals during my paternity leave is to explore some of the local gems and destinations that we haven’t made our way to yet over the last four years in Switzerland. One of these is the kid and family favorite alike: Swiss Vapeur Park. Located on the eastern end of Lac Leman, between Villeneuve and the French border, the steam-engine-model-train-world is a site to behold. The park, which traces its origins nearly a hundred years back to a local group of train enthusiasts, has been maintained, expanded, and refined over the years to include multiple train lines, iconic locales of Switzerland, and various noteworthy trains (including the Golden Pass and Glacier Express trains).

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It was truly a visual overload. Everywhere you looked were small details that made the miniature world feel real. One track drives on a suspension bridge, through tunnels, and under a gondola taking skiers atop Leysin Ski Resort. Cora had an absolute blast riding the various trains and admiring the Swiss scenes. We spent a couple hours at the park and had brought a picnic lunch. After exploring most of the park via rail, we enjoyed a relaxed lunch at the covered picnic tables adjacent to a tranquil, koi pond.

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Change is the only constant. Before leaving to head home, I rode the newest line which was just completed in the last year. The park’s brochure lays out their 5-year growth plan on new tracks, lines, and scapes to be built out for the next generation of train lovers to enjoy. What started out as a hobbyist’s passion shortly after the turn of the 20th century has become a 21st century must-see for local and tourist families alike. Choo choo!

Cora the Explorer : Gstaad, Switzerland

We did it.  We left the apartment and had a little adventure, albeit, not too far from home.  When all of our summer travel plans were cancelled due to Covid, we decided that this was the summer to explore a little of our host country.  I booked a few trips to mountain towns that we had yet to visit and Gstaad was the first.

Gstaad is a small, yet incredibly swanky, ski town about 1.5 hours drive from where we live.  We left right before Cora’s nap time, which really saved us from her car sickness, and arrived in early afternoon.  We found the town pretty sleepy, as most ski towns in summer are, but exacerbated this time because of Covid.  Even so, Gstaad is hard to beat for picture perfect quaintness and alpine charm.

Earlier in the week, Switzerland had passed through phase 3 of reopening.  Social distancing is still encouraged, and we are still being very careful, but most places are now open.  At the time of this trip, all our borders were still closed, so we enjoyed the relative safety of Switzerland’s top spot on the Covid safety list.

–Since this trip, borders have opened only to EU countries, and we are seeing a small spike in cases.  Our daily new case numbers used to be in the single digits or teens, and have been up in the 40s this week countrywide.

We found just a few changes at the hotel due to the virus.  There were plastic shields up at the front desk, as there are in many of the stores now, to keep a barrier between the employees and the guests.  There was hand sanitizer at the doors, which I think is actually a nice practice and we should keep around during flu season.  We also had to leave a sign on our door when we were out so housekeeping could come in and clean.

We had five days in Gstaad and kept things pretty low key.  Only one of the gondolas was running so we went up for the views one day.  We did a little shopping and enjoyed some nice takeout.  We did a lot of walking around town and letting Cora explore at her own pace.  We also did plenty of enjoying the mountain air and spectacular views from our balcony.

All in all, it was a relaxing trip and a nice change of pace from home.  I think we were all in desperate need of a change of scenery.

Surviving Long Hauls With a Baby

We had an unexpected trip back to the U.S. last week for a funeral.  While the circumstances were extremely sad, it was nice to see friends and family that we hadn’t seen in a while.  This also marked the first long haul trip that Cora and I did by ourselves as Mark had to stay in Switzerland to work.  And it was also the 3rd of 5 trips we are making back to the U.S. this year alone.  To top that off, Cora is arguably at the most difficult age to travel with.  She is crawling everywhere and on the verge of walking.  She does not want to sit still and is too young to be reasoned with.

Every child is different, and this trip was still not easy, but these are my tricks that helped us get through it.

1. Pack early.  I start packing days before we leave.  Not necessarily having everything in a suitcase packed, but setting things aside that I don’t want to forget.  Life is hectic and it’s easy to forget stuff. I use the spare bedroom as a staging area so it’s very easy to just throw things in there that I want to be sure to take.  I don’t want to take too much, but I want to be sure to have stuff that we will need.
2. Pack light.  I needed to be able to get all our stuff from one place to the next by myself.  We checked one suitcase and the car seat. The car seat is one we use exclusively for travel.  It has zero bells and zero whistles, but it is extremely lightweight and I put it in a travel bag with backpack straps and used the straps to attach it on top of the rolling suitcase.  I carried on a backpack and my purse.  I didn’t bring a stroller this time because I knew we wouldn’t need it in Denver and Cora is only about 20 lbs, so still manageable in the Ergobaby.  We will need it on the next trip, though, so we have a small, lightweight travel stroller that fits in the overhead bin since her everyday stroller is the size of a bus.
3. Snacks.  Snacks for hunger and snacks for activity.  I had tons of snacks including a number of things that Cora had never had before as well as old favorites.
4. Screens.  Cora is just over one year old and screen time is not recommended until at least two years.  On a normal day at home we don’t watch any TV, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I bought an Amazon Fire Kids Edition when Cora was only 6 months old in anticipation of using it for travel.  It doesn’t really captivate her attention yet (chewing on the protective case is actually her preferred method of using it), but she will settle down to watch downloaded episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Baby Einstein if she is really tired.  Since she’s pretty bad at napping on the go (too much distraction!), using it to get her over the hump to settle down and actually get to a point where she can take a nap really does help.
5. Other activities.  Since watching a movie just isn’t going to work yet, we had other things to do on the plane.  I bought several sheets of stickers and a blank notebook.  I had her favorite books since she really likes to turn the pages.  I had a felt activity board since she’s pretty obsessed with velcro.
6. Pick your battles.  Stuff that normally wouldn’t happen at home can happen on the road if it doesn’t hurt anyone and makes life easier.  I let her crawl around an empty area of the terminal and get filthy.  At least she burned off some energy and we just washed up in the bathroom.  She ate cereal instead of her meal on the plane. Fine – at least something went in her belly and it’s better than cookies.  And I stick that pacifier in lightning quick on the road when at home they are mainly used for going to sleep.
7. Extra clothes, for the baby and for you.  I had two spare outfits for Cora and an extra shirt for myself.  And sure enough, once we got to Denver and were on the rental car shuttle bus, Cora threw up all over both of us.  We were at the end of our journey at that point, so technically I didn’t need the change of clothes, but you just never know.
8. Downgrade your seats.  This is the first time that I actually asked to be downgraded, but hear me out.  Airlines will give away upgrades to fill up those premium seats in the front of the cabin to keep their status holders happy.  I’ve been a status holder for many years and you are not going to sit next to an empty seat up there.  I gave up some extra legroom, but moving back allowed us to get a whole row to ourselves since the flight was not full.  Cora slept much better stretched out across the seats than she would have on my lap and I even got to lay down with her for a while.
9. Letter of consent.  This is one that I had luckily heard about from one of the various expat mom groups that I’m part of on Facebook.  If you are traveling abroad with your child without the other parent, have a letter of consent ready.  Of course this is not always possible for everyone, so check online to see what you need if your circumstances are different.  I did have a letter that Mark signed and I had a copy of his passport just in case.  And I was actually asked for it when I went through customs in the U.S.  The border officers will do this to prevent child abduction.  I have heard that they scrutinize people with babies more since they are easier to abduct, but I didn’t mind being questioned because I was prepared.

So there you go.  We survived.  Tired, yes, but happy to have gone.