Hotel – ASPEN ALPIN LIFESTYLE HOTEL GRINDELWALD Property Type – 4 Star Property Category – Luxury, Romantic Address –Aspen 1, Grindelwald CH-3818 , Switzerland Room Type we stayed in – Junior Suite. (Range between £195-220.00 per night for Standard Double room & junior suite mountain view - £330.00 approx.) Experience – We drove from Zurich to Grindelwald and the drive was one of the most scenic drives we have been to. We booked Aspen hotel in Grindelwald and stayed there for just 1 night, loved our junior suite and beautiful Mountain View room. Aspen is a beautiful Hotel with a backdrop of alpine meadows and the Eiger. There is no transportation next to the hotel so all you hear is sound of ‘Swiss Cow bells’ which makes whole experience more divine (of course only from the balcony and you dont hear it in the room). Junior suite will give you two massive porch/balconies. Location is perfect as long as you have car otherwise be prepared for long walks or taxi (20 CHF roughly) till Grindelwald station. This is the nearest station to the Hotel and this is where you get trains to Interlaken or Jungfrau region. Schilthorn (Piz Gloria) is also 30 mins drive. Piz Gloria is revolving restaurant and this is where James Bond movie ‘On her Majesty’s secret service’ was set. This restaurant revolves full 360 degrees. We drove to this restaurant as we really wanted to go to the top but at the ticket counter the nice lady showed us the live feed of top view and it was way too cloudy to see anything hence we cancelled our plan and decided to stick to Jungfrau next day as weather was supposed to be 20 degrees and much clearer. Coming back to the hotel, Aspen in-house Amenities are amazing. They have quiet modern interior and excellent spa. The breakfast is plentiful and they have huge selection of local meats, cheeses and breads. Not very good for vegetarian though! View from Hotel entrance:

IMPORTANT NOTE IF YOU ARE DRIVING:- Something worth keeping in mind. As we were driving towards Hotel from Zurich, we followed our Sat-Nav and nearly 1km before Hotel we realised we have started driving uphill. When I say uphill, it’s actually very steep with roughly 45degrees incline. We were half way and it started getting even worse. It’s a very very small road and can only accommodate one car. You actually start to pray hoping there is no car coming from the front as there is no chance you can reverse back. Side road has deep ditches- If you go slightly right or left, there is no chance of survival. Now as we are driving a Range Rover, tyres of our car are touching the edges of the road. Bearing in mind our car itself is 2.8 tonnes and then we had roughly 300 kilos stuff loaded with both of us sitting in the car too. I almost had flashback and started praying to gods of all religion I could think of. Akhil was driving very patiently and well done to my man who drove so well. Seriously you need extreme patience and skill to negotiate such challenging roads. We finally reached safe car parking zone and we were out of that dangerous steep hill.. <phew> Now as we entered the reception, first thing we said – is that the only way to commute? She laughed and said! Oh you got the wrong way. We have more safe and decent road which leads to the Hotel. We took a deep breath and were happy souls. Guess what! Here comes another family while I was reading magazine in the lounge. She said same thing as soon as she approached reception and was too unhappy with the drive uphill. She had 1 year old daughter and her husband drove same uphill road. Ofcourse same answer from receptionist to the family who took the wrong road as well. I wonder why???? Next day I observed that there was no sign pointing towards the right way to the Hotel and Sat-Nav will always take you to the same uphill road which is extremely dangerous, if you have selected "Shortest Route" option in your GPS. One of the worst and dangerous roads I have been. I did complain about this to the Hotel and told them they should post signs for Aspen near the Hotel or in Grindelwald town. You can see every other Hotel has posted signs. Response was – Yes, we are thinking the same! :-| Near By Attractions – Hotel Grindelwald offers ski-in/ski-out access and is close to Mannlichen and winter activities such as cross-country skiing and skiing lessons. Other attractions in the area include Eiger and Jungfraujoch Applause Moment – WI FI was very good. I must say we had best WI FI experience in Switzerland. Would you believe we hiked few mountains and we had 4G network on top of the mountains and in cable cars. How awesome is that!!! P.S. Don't miss out reading on our experience in and around Grindelwald, Switzerland during our London 2 Jammu road trip.

#Grindelwald

Aspen Alpin Lifestyle Hotel, Grindelwald