GstaadLife

 

Fresh off last weekend's FA Cup victory over Portmouth, Didier Drogba (above) has arrived here in Saanenland to lead the Ivory Coast national team in their pre-World Cup training camp. While his Chelsea teammates warmed the England bench at Wembley this Monday, Drogba, Salomon Kalou and the rest of Les Eléphants worked out in Saanen at FC Sarina's impressive new facilities. For lovers of good football, the Ivory Coast actually features a number of English Premier League and La Liga regulars, including brothers Kolo (Manchester City) and Yaya Touré (FC Barcelona) as well as Emmanuel Eboué (Arsenal). For the groupies, Sven's men are staying at the Golfhotel in Saanenmöser (below second from left, Ivory Coast national coach Sven Goran-Eriksson).

Yesterday, Monday May 17, Armon Cantieni, director of the BDG AG, outlined the investments for the cable cars for this summer. Planned are the construction of a new piste from Ostgrat to Gandlouene to better connect the Rinderberg to the St Stephan ski area, construction of the chairlift from Chalberhöni to the Vordere Eggli, the renovation of the Eggli Berghaus, and of course the new 8-person high-capacity Rougemont-Videmanette gondola. 

 
Have you seen the new sign? The picture above was taken coming from into Saanen from Rougemont as you approach the entrance to the airfield. Better than the old one, you think?

 
Well, the rumors have been going around for a while but now they were confirmed. Didier Drogba, captain of the Ivory Coast and central talisman for Chelsea, the recently-crowned champions of the English Premier League, will be coming to Saanenland. The Ivory Coast team, managed by fomer England and Manchester City trainer Sven Goran Eriksson, has selected Saanenland as their pre-training base for this summer's World Cup in South Africa which starts on June 11. Footballing business will take place at FC Sarina's impressive new facilities in Saanen from May 24 through June 8. Drogba's and co's first game in South Africa will be on June 15 against Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal.

The above picture is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The construction of the new riding center has started and the new bridge over the River Saane connecting the riding hall with new pastures and outside riding facilities is nearly complete. The horses are in temporary stables right now hoping that everything goes to plan and that they can move into their new home in December 2010. The new riding center Gstaad AG was estabilished on April 28 with Marcel Bach as its president and Oliver von Grünigen, David Matti, Gianni Biggi and Janis Karamis as members.

We love it too - the beach volleyball tournament in Gstaad. New this year is that many of the side events will take place in the Menuhin festival tent. Some of the names mentioned are Marc Sway, the Delilahs, Span and the Powertones. Also making their now customary appearance in Gstaad will be the Alphabeters from Austria (see picture). Tickets here.

The tourist office is heavily advertising Gstaad as a biking destination. Well, we can only agree - it is gorgeous to mountain bike through Saanenland with about 500 km of GPS-listed trails. And for those who prefer to do the same but sweat less there are always the flyer-bikes...

Music is in the air again - over in Rougemont's beautiful church they are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ancient music festival La Folia from May 20 to 24. This year the theme is England.

The Gstaad easyaccess card (GEAC) is expanding its scope from this summer season. It will henceforth also be valid across the Röstigraben (yes, it does actually exist, see picture above) to the Pays-d’Enhaut. With this card, which you can get as a guest of Saanenland and Pays-d'Enhaut at the tourist offices, you can use cable cars as well as various other public transport and leisure activities, for just SFr 36.- for three days. Detailed information can be obtained at the tourist offices. 

The federation of trade unions of canton Bern has launched an initiative for fair taxes for families. The center piece of their initiative: the abolition of the flat-rate tax, or Pauschalsteuer, which is paid by wealthy foreigners who reside in Switzerland. They are collecting signatures and hope for a vote in 2011.

Here in Saanenland this has caused an uproar, since it is here that most of the people who are eligible for this tax live. But it's not just the rich who are up in arms. Across the community in Saanenland, many are against the abolition of this rather unusual tax structure (at least when compared to other European countries). Simply put, it allows wealthy foreigners to pay a fixed rate of tax irrespective of often considerable income which is loosely based on the rental value of owned property (and the quality of your negotiation skills with the local authorities).

But despite seeming regressive and unfair, ordinary folks in Saanen are largely against the abolition of the tax as they fear an outflow of chalet owners and a halt in the inflow of those considering to move here. Indeed local businesses fear the loss of up to SFr 20 million from the local economy as well as the disappearance of 1,500 jobs. There was even a delegation from Saanenland in Bern the other day protesting to the powers that be not to endorse the abolition of the tax (photo album here).

It was also the topic of hot debate at a local town hall meeting in Saanen last week, where various ideas and compromises were discussed by community members, including the possibility of changing the formula for calculating the tax from today's level of five times the rental value of the owned property to 7 times. We'll keep you posted on this hottest of local topics. If your read German, check out some of the comments made by the people of Saanenland on our sister website Anzeiger von Saanen.