June
2008
An Eclectic Day (Day 13)0
Day Thirteen gave us a taste of what a motorcoach tour is like (although instead of the usual coach we were split into a school minivan and a private minivan) because we did not use public transportation once! For each stop, we had group assembly times, and traveled in the vans to and from every location on the itinerary.
We began with a group assembly at 9am, and split into the vans to travel to the Heidi House and Museum outside of Maienfeld. I have very mixed feelings about the place. On the one hand, it’s a worthy model: an attraction built for the sole purpose of attracting tourists and tourist money, which does net lots of visitors. On the other hand, it was built for the sole purpose of making money and the attraction is not any more true to the book than most movie “adaptations” are to their original source material. There is an admission fee, and the admission is good for a self-guided walk through “Heidi’s House” – an old house donated by a wealthy farmer (and far more well-to-do than what the characters of Heidi and her Grandfather “would” have lived in) set up with furniture, clothing, and figures of Heidi, her grampa, and Peter.
After Dr. Garely and Professor Blake-Neis spoke with the lady at the museum’s admission desk, she walked our class (in two groups) through the house, explaining why the rooms were designed and filled as they were, and stressing how different life was before modern technology. (Yes, no tv, no radio, no thermostats… …but also wood heat when wood had to be chopped and carried – so ovens would be built in between rooms so that more space would be warmed, and the attic was mostly for storage because in winter it was too cold to be lived in, and food had to be grown or made and stored over the long winter because it was too hard to walk all the way down to the village and back with anything to cook or eat.)
After our tour we piled into the vans and returned to SSTH for lunch. Then we traveled by van to the (five-star) Grand Hotel Quellenhof (aka the Grand Resort at Bad Ragaz – bit of a strange name for a town since there’s nothing so “bad” about the place in English). We were ushered into a lovely conference room (comfortable rolling chairs, marble table, fancy coffee machine, fresh fruit, still and sparkling water at each place, pen and paper and pad of sticky-notes at each place, projection screen, and very welcoming hosts), and treated to a presentation about the resort’s current setup, the major renovations and additions underway, and also the philosophy that guides each aspect of their services and offerings.
The Hotel Quellenhof is a five-star property with its own casino, 18-hole golf course (they’re building a second 9-hole course at the moment), and thermal water from the famous hot spring (Pfäfers) on tap and in the bottle for everyone who crosses the threshold. They have a fantastic spa complex which also features water piped in from the spring in Pfäfers (and everything is in duplicate, so locals and guests staying in the hotel each have their own areas to visit), and a medical center offering everything from plastic surgery (some people want work done, but don’t want their neighbors to see the bandages after – doing it while on vacation solves this neatly) to fitness and nutrition and wellness counseling to group and individual therapy for cases of burn-out, stress, and the like.
The hotel prides itself on its medical, spa/wellness, and business offerings. It also has a philosophy of catering to both the physical and emotional needs of its guests. So yes – the rooms will be beautifully decorated, the spa will be fantastic, the beds (which have adjustable density to cater to the soft and firm persuasions) will be comfortable… …but the hotel and its staff will be equally concerned with all the not-so-physical aspects. Do the guests feel welcome and at home? Do they have an environment to help them rest, rejuvenate, work at their best? As someone working for a (fairly) new bed and breakfast, hearing about this philosophy and how it is practiced (especially the attention to detail) was inspiring.
The process begins when the reservation is made, because the reservation desk will ask for details about why the guest is visiting and what their preferences are. Two days before arrival, the hotel calls and gives them an update on the weather so that they’ll be sure to pack everything they need, and also expresses how much their visit is anticipated. At the end of their stay, the hotel thanks them for visiting. (And when we took our leave Friday afternoon, we were each presented with a parting gift of chocolate.)
Our last stop of the day was to a local winery. The Lambert family has been growing and pressing grapes for three generations now, and in addition to making wine from their own five hectares of grapes they also process another 7 hectares’ worth of grapes from other farmers. We were given a tour of the building where they make and bottle the wine, all a story below ground – the ground level has a bathroom, a writing/office area, and a lot of storage space for the farm equipment. In the basement there’s a room with a machine that deposits the finished wine into bottles, and another machine that labels the bottles and holds them for a worker who packs them into boxes for delivery or moves them to big wire-mesh holding bins. Beyond that room is another which houses the wine press (there’s only one, but they clean it in between each kind of pressing) and giant tanks that hold the fresh-pressed wine (each tank will hold between 3 and 5 thousand liters). The next room had more giant tanks, and the room beyond that had oak barrels – the small ones hold 250 liters each, and the large ones hold 3,000 liters. The Lambert family ages most of their wines for a year in the oak before bottling, but some wine is oaked for two years (and the better stuff comes from the smaller barrels).
After our tour we were treated to a tasting of three wines accompanied by bread, (really good) local salami, and local cheese. The first was a 2007 white cuvee (a mix of different grapes). To be honest, when I swirled the glass and sniffed the aroma, all I smelled was wine. I’ve never been good at picking out notes in wine bouquets. The first sip was jarringly dry, but after a bit of the mellow white cheese I found the wine more palatable. And after a taste of the salami, the wine suddenly had a definite honey-flavor, and even seemed ever-so-slightly syrupy. By the fourth sip I was envisioning how well it would go with a feathery salad of mixed greens and dried cherries. By the fifth sip I saw our host coming back with another bottle and a few containers to empty our glasses into, so that was the end of the white wine for me. Next he poured us a 2007 Pinot Noir, and I liked it, but felt that it was a little sharp. The last wine was a Pinot Noir Select, and I will display my lack of refinement by saying I didn’t appreciate it as much as the first. It was more noticeably oaked, and I have never liked the taste of tannin.
