GstaadLife

Everyone here at GstaadLife.com would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers Happy Holidays!

We’d also like to thank you for joining us online over these past months. We thought it might be fun to close out the year with a list of the 20 most popular stories of the year. But then we discovered that all the top 20 stories came from our daily coverage of the Transafricaine Rally back in November. While that’s great for our egos, it makes for a boring top 20 list, so here is the list of the top 20 non-rally articles of 2006:

1. Taki on Gstaad summers in the line of fire
2. Distant memories of schooling in Gstaad
3. Saanenland remains a gourmet’s paradise; so says GaultMillau
4. Why the Chlösterli will never be what it once was...
5. Saanenland ambulance service under threat; newspaper editors clash
6. Geneva-New York on Swiss: the beginning of the end?
7. Igloo village to open on the Eggli
8. From Saanenland to Arizona
9. GstaadLife recommends...pausing live TV
10. Ex-Palace director Hansruedi Schärer dies at 71
11. Chalet Kählen foreclosure sale sets new record
12. Weather challenging smooth opening of new glacier facilities
13. Swiss ski resorts try to fight high price image
14. An (opinionated) guide to going out in Gstaad
15. Gstaaders feature on Bilan’s list of Switzerland’s richest
16. In defense of Gstaad
17. Gstaad finally a winter wonderland: Eggli and Glacier open for skiing
18. GstaadLife recommends saying “Yes” in Bern Airport vote
19. The best hotel receptionists are in Gstaad
20. The winds of change blow through America

And here are the 10 most popular categories of 2006:
1. Transafricaine Rally
2. Automotive
3. Living in Gstaad
4. Property of the week
5. Property
6. Taki
7. Nightlife
8. Restaurants
9. Events
10. Winter Sports

We’ll be back on January 8 with all the latest, including exclusive party pictures from the holidays. Click "Comments" below to let us know what you'd like to see more (or less) of in our Gstaad/Saanenland coverage for next year. See you in 2007!

Here at GstaadLife.com, we've watched with some bemusement over the past week how the international press has taken the "Johnny Hallyday affair" and found every possible angle to bash the French government. Unfortunately some of the bashing has even extended to Gstaad. For those of you who haven't read the international pages for a few days, French rock icon Johnny Hallyday (pictured left) has very publicly announced that he is taking up residency in Gstaad to avoid paying what he believes are the onerous levels of taxation to France's dreaded "fisc". Normally such high profile players would talk up the beauty of the region or the need to slow down in life (or wouldn't talk at all), but Hallyday, whose real name is Jean-Phillipe Smet and who already has a chalet and extended family here in Gstaad, publicly denounced the broken promises of his friend and French interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, and France's broken taxation system as his reasons for leaving. As some of our readers will know, Hallyday is a pillar of the French music scene (for those of you who don't know him, he's like a French Mick Jagger) who is reported to earn as much as SFr 10 million a year, of which more than 60% goes to the fisc.

The Clubhouse of the Grand Hotel Bellevue (aka the Gstaad Yacht Club) was the venue for the welcome back apéro last Friday December 15 2006 for the team from the Gstaad Automobile Club that recently completed the first Transafricaine Classic rally from Paris to Dakar. The atmosphere was congratulatory as a well-heeled crowd of invitees and GstaadLife.com readers gathered just after 17h00 for a 1-hour film of highlights from the rally that took place between November 3 and 19. There was visible amazement on the faces of the viewers as they came to appreciate the hardship endured by Hansueli Brand and Stanislas de Sadeleer, ranging from rocks, dust and sand, to mud, floods and the Mauritanian army. After the film, Brand and de Sadeleer gave heartfelt speeches of thanks to those gathered, expressing gratefulness to their families and co-workers for allowing them this indulgence, and visibly humbled by the interest that their little adventure had generated in the community. At the end of the speeches they were presented with commemorative plaques featuring the daily coverage from this website, and the crowd lingered for another couple of hours to the backdrop of personal photos from the drivers. After the holidays we'll get around to posting all the video and photos so that those of you who weren't able to enjoy the evening can still enjoy the action. Thanks from the entire GstaadLife.com team to all our readers for your interest in following the rally throughout November.

Above: Following speeches from Hansueli Brand (left) and Stanislas de Sadeleer (center) at the Apéro Transafricaine, Xavier Ferguson of Consenda (right) presents the Gstaad Automobile Club team with commemorative plaques featuring German language texts of the daily rally coverage from GstaadLife.com. Consenda was the company that set up the technology behind the GstaadLife.com website which brought the drama from Africa to readers in Saanenland and around the world. Click photo to enlarge. Click below for more photos.

It's been a long time coming, but the Coop in Gstaad has finally re-opened its doors with an all-new interior. And in all fairness, it was worth the wait. Among the most notable results of the SFr 11 million are the new perfume department upstairs, a new Kiosk upstairs, a completely new layout with a counterclockwise flow through the aisles, a gem of a wine department with a greatly expanded selection, better-presented bakery and cheese sections, and two elegant new lifts serving the basement level. Less obvious but equally good are the new, larger carts which run much more smoothly over the new floor tiling, improved parking with significantly better lighting for winter evenings, and a slick recycling area. We do have a few minor gripes: (1) why did they take out the escalators? (there's probably a good reason for that so if someone knows please share by clicking "Comments" below);

For all you last minute shoppers, Peter Kuntze over at the GstaadLife print edition as put together an extremely handy list of opening hours for Saanenland area food shops over Christmas and New Year's. General groceries, bakers, dairies, and butchers are all included. You can download the list to save on your computer by clicking on the link below.

Download saanenland_food_shopping_opening_hours.xls

From the moment we heard we'd be getting a supercharged Range Rover Sport for the day we were excited. Just the thought of that wolf in wolf's clothing all the way over the Col du Pillon to Geneva was nothing short of exhilarating. That was until we drove it. Don't worry, we're not going to do something sacrilegious like slamming a Range Rover in Gstaad...it's just that we really can't describe to you how amazing this vehicle was to drive. Somehow...somehow the engineers in Solihull have managed to find that balance between sportscar and off-road vehicle. Sure, maybe the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S is faster in a straight line, but it's ugly (even with the facelift) and can be mistaken for the unspellable VW Touareg. The only thing you can mistake a Range Rover Sport for is, well, a Range Rover. And actually that may be one of its few problems.

Finally, after two and a half years of traffic jams and waiting at the incredibly long red light, construction at the Simmental Street’s Laubegg turn (the section of road before Garstatt and Laubegg) between Zweisimmmen and Boltigen is over. Since December 8 2006, both lanes have been passable in each direction. The roadway has been widened by 6.5 meters and was completed with a 1.5 meter-wide bicycle path. Approximately 400 square meters of retaining wall made out of natural stone make up the complex structure. Ten kilometers of steel nails were used to secure the embankment and four kilometers of micro-stakes hold the lateral retaining walls. Also, 6.5 kilometers of drainage tubes were bored into the mountainside for drainage and to hold back the earth. Above and adjacent to the breathtaking Laubegg waterfall, a new viaduct supports the road. Cost of the project was SFr 8.7 million, with SFr 5 million coming from the federal government. The cantonal slice was SFr 3.6 million and the Gemeindes of Zweisimmen and Boltigen each had to chip in SFr 100,000.

It's that time of year here in Gstaad when once again Europe's Ferrari elite descend upon the Gstaad Palace for the Bonhams Ferrari auction. This year sees a break with the tradition of the past eight events, with the catalog augmented (or sullied, depending on your point of view) by that other great Italian marque, Maserati. Here at GstaadLife.com, we've heard grumblings about the number of truly rare Ferraris for sale, something that seems to have been a growing problem in recent years with classic Ferraris now fetching much better money with US buyers (even after factoring for shipping and handling). Perhaps this is why the Maseratis have been added. Either way, Classic Driver has a good preview of the cars on offer at this year's auction, which include a 1962 Maserati Tipo 151 (shown above) estimated at SFr 1,100,000 - SFr 1,400,000, a 1952 Ferrari Tipo 212 Export Berlineta estimated at SFr 1,200,000 - SFr 1,350,000, and a 1955 Ferrari 750 Monza Spider Corsa estimated at SFr 1,500,000 - SFr 2,000,000. Click here for the full lotlist.

UPDATE December 18: The auction was once again a great success. All 28 rare motor cars and most of the 133 automobilia lots offered were sold, many of them at prices beyond their estimation. The most sought-after lot was a 1962 Maserati Tipo 151 Sports-Racing Berlinetta (shown above). The V8-engined car with genuine Le Mans, Bridgehampton and Road America racing provenance is the sole complete survivor of just three of these Maserati 151s. Its extreme rarity makes it one of the most highly-prized of all great racing cars. It fetched an outstanding hammer price of SFr 1,850,000, some 32% above upper end of Bonham's pre-auction estimate.

The Gstaad Yacht Club proudly invites you to a special evening on Saturday December 16 2006 with Russell Coutts. Coutts is a GYC Honorary Member and 3-time America's Cup Winner, including most recently with Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi team. He will be talking about past experiences, current projects, and future plans.

Open to both GYC Members and guests
Menu Price: SFr 85.- per person
For RSVP contact Angelo Fratalli:
Email: manager@gstaadyachtclub.com
Tel: 033 748 0190 Fax: 033 748 0191

UPDATE December 17: Coutts was introduced by GYC Commodore
George Nicholson. He talked through his life and passion for sailing from childhood, how he got involved in sailing, and his achievements through to the present day. Coutts also spoke about his latest project, the design and production of the RC44, a new light-displacement 44-foot boat.

One oddity from the feedback period for the Saanenland rezoning plan is the level of opposition against the proposed new laws to restrict construction noise. Sure we'd expect the construction industry to come out against these news laws, which are designed to stop them tormenting us at 06h45 with jackhammers and blighting the Saanenland skyline with new species of cranes. But the tourism industry has also come out against the new laws, with Gstaad Saanenland Tourismus making public its opinion that such a new law would be counter-productive and would work against its goal of promoting year-round tourism. Huh??? Like people come here the world's most scenic building sites?! On top of that, Gemeinde president Andres Hurni says very few letters were sent in that were in favor of the new law. We find this bizarre given the number of comments we receive here at GstaadLife complaining about construction noise.