Hotel Pax and Hotel Alphubel in Switzerland

I returned to SWITZERLAND in September ’06, this time with a cousin.

• In Zermatt we stayed at Hotel Alphubel (3920 CH Zermatt; phone +41 27 967 3003, fax 967 6684 or visit www.zermatt.ch/alphubel), which is an easy walk from the train station. Our single rooms, each with a full bath, had a balcony facing the sunny south. I marveled at the stillness of the nights, because the hotel is elbow to elbow with other buildings in the very crowded village.

Five-course dinners were served on tables with linen tablecloths. The fresh vegetables came from the garden we could see from our rooms. The waitress spoke Italian to me, French to the couple at the next table, German to another group, English to another — and she was from Portugal!

There was ample variety for the buffet breakfast, and eggs could be special-ordered.

The cost — and this is not a misprint! — was only CHF98 ($80) a day for a room, service/taxes, dinner and breakfast. Really!

• Geneva is costly, but Hotel Pax is not (68, Rue du 31-Décembre CH-1207, Genève; phone +41 22 787 5070, fax 5080 or visit www.hotel-pax-geneva.ch).

My cousin and I shared a twin room there for CHF150 ($120) per night, including a Continental breakfast which featured all we could eat from limited but tasty and fresh choices, but there was no hot food to order. Our quiet rooms faced away from the street.

Trams and buses in Geneva make the whole city accessible. We enjoyed an hour-long boat tour of the inner harbor and could see Mt. Blanc. We drove with a local friend to Lyon and took a boat over to Yvoire, FRANCE, for a short visit and a lunch of crepes. We walked the quai along the harbor and relaxed in the parks.

• Our visit to Switzerland was timed to attend the Unspunnenfest in Interlaken (the most recent celebration, planed for 2005, was moved to 2006 because of flooding; the next Unspunnenfest is scheduled for 2017), a national celebration of Swiss culture held every 12 years.

The 3-day event included folklore evenings in a big but noisy tent, a yodeling concert that featured mostly male choirs, an ensemble of 17 alpenhorns, an afternoon of outdoor folk dancing by children and adults, and a parade with costumes and flags from every canton, in which both the participants and audience wore their national dress (I spotted some Japanese tourists in kimonos). It was quite exciting.

JON LAFLEUR

Kent, CT