Having arrived too early in the morning to go straight to the Hotel Alpenblick, I parked by a snowdrift and ate leftovers for breakfast.
I had the same room as in 2007, with a small balcony (and a view similar to the webcam, from slightly uphill) and a window facing the mountain south of Ernen. In a way it was a shame not to spend more time there, but the Music comes first, and exploring the area second, (or possibly third: see section on Dinner). The hotel was closed for the Imboden family's holiday, but they let us stay and provided a buffet breakfast every morning. Plenty of towels but no room-cleaning: and for 3 days, who needs it? No evening meals or bar. This year there were no scurrying sounds in the walls, so they must have got rid of the mice.
The St Georg restaurant took a block booking for the three dinners, so each evening we gathered in their upstairs room. I'd only had coffee and a strawberry pastry there before, so was unprepared for the food. Amazing. Four courses: salad, soup, main, and pudding; each one announced by the waitress, in Swiss Deutsch and English. Apparently the St Georg is famous for its soups, and quite rightly. All the meals included an array of lesser-known vegetables, some of which I don't even know the names for in English, and beautifully presented (the carrot sticks were tied up in little bundles with strands of leek-leaf). Not once did we have off-white potatoes. The second dinner was served with a potato mash coloured by spinach to a beautiful green, and the third dinner had a dollop of purple mash. It tasted like a very good potato, but I couldn't work out what the colouring was, so I asked. They were Real[0] Peruvian Potatoes! The most royal thing I've ever eaten. Friday's pudding was their classic strawberry tart with proper wholemeal pastry and an edible decoration of evening primrose flowers.
It's such a pity they don't have the menus online.
On the last night, the Music Festival organiser gave us a brief talk on the history of the Festival, and his partner who was born and brought up in the town told us some of its history, including the tale of the big wooden carvings of St Georg killing the dragon which hang in the church and outside the restaurant. The carving had belonged to the church (dedicated to St George), and sometime in the sixteenth century (presumably during the Reformation) the church fathers had decided to get rid of it and sold it to the owner of the inn. It hung under the eaves for a long time, while the fortunes and reputation of the inn went from reputable to dire. Eventually, decorated churches came back into fashion; the carving was bought back and a replica made for the inn. On the subject of decorated churches, Ernen church is still the most gaudy I've seen, but even all that gold loses one's attention when the big west doors are opened onto the view sweeping down the valley.
The story of the Festival is mostly on its website. The story of Ernen probably isn't online. After being an important centre in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it had dwindled to a de-populating mountain village. The music festival made even more contribution than the ski-ing industry to the rehabilitation of the Ernen's buildings and its development into a established tourist venue. It remains small, remote and "unspoilt", but it now has a bus service, bank, post office, and Coop-Migro mini-supermarket, as well as three restaurants.
Because we were singing mass at dreadfully-early-o'clock on Sunday, Monica and Corinna asked what time we would have to check out. It's so inconvenient to have to get ready for something as well as pack, and find somewhere to leave luggage. No problem, Heidi said - they didn't need the rooms until Thursday, so anytime before then! On Sunday morning they left out snacks and drinks (meals before singing are bad) and then we all went back after mass for a proper breakfast, and gradually took leave of each other and Ernen.
No comments:
Post a Comment