Ah, yes, the Wetterhorn Hotel. The dust has settled, we have all moved on a little, time to reflect and consider. The Wetterhorn Hotel. Yes, indeed.
Well, to put it bluntly, I have stayed there, so I will never have to again, and neither will you. They think that they are rather special, a bit top-end, quirky, a bit on the cool side of the street. Let’s deal with it in order of how it comes.
So, we start at the front door. This is what we found. It’s broken. It’s not special or clever. When you need to turn and pull and lift and twist, all at the same time, it’s broken. There’s trick to it, apparently – because it’s broken.
Then there are the Reception Staff. Are they specially trained not to smile? Does the glimmer of a smile represent a chargeable extra? Are they that way naturally, or are they selected for it? Anyway, they glower, particularly when:
You go to The Room. This is where you start to feel a little glum. We booked a Standard Room. Dark, poky, narrow: unbearable. Unacceptable. There was a gap between the corner of the bed and the wall of less than 300 mms. There was absolutely no view. We wondered about it and returned to Reception . . .
Of course, they said, you can have a reasonable room, but you will pay extra for it. Okay, we said, and we paid. Not enough, though, to get a vestige of a smile.
So we went to the upscale room. Here I must mention the Architecture (and the music). There are old bits and modern bits, all mixed together. Power float concrete floors, antiqued staircases. Strange trip hazards, cracked unfinished plaster. A fire escape left over from a prison. I imagine this must constitute some sort of quirky Statement. Maybe the statement was that the Refurbishment people walked off halfway through the job.
Then, the Music. Mixed into this blend of brutalism and modernity and Swiss Alpine style was a soundtrack of wailing old American Mississippi Blues Music, Lead-Belly Broken Legs or Blind Ranting Joe Miserable. For no reason I could discern.
The upmarket room: great views out over the mountains. Really nice. When it gets dark they also illuminate the random gravel and grass and inexplicable sculptures (which may actually be abandoned gardening machinery) in red. So it looked like a circle of hell. Within the room, there was a kitchen area. Pots and pans but no kettle. There was a bathroom area, partitioned off using reclaimed advertising hoarding timber (I think). There was no toilet door (this is a special feature, apparently, on all rooms). A strange hard bed with a very soft pillow which did not support your head.
Very poor Wi-Fi, I must mention.
Dinner. A short menu, quite pricey, served by children in “cool” attire. More Blues caterwauling. We asked for a bottle of wine and a jug of tap water. They charged £3 for the water and later explained that it cost that much to fill the jug and carry it to the table (these children must be paid better than Brain Surgeons); in the middle of dinner, a mouse ran across the Dining Room floor (no exaggeration).
Breakfast was better. Our waitress could smile and was helpful. We liked her. It turned out that she was Dutch.
But the best things about it are the views, of the mountains, the valley, the trees and in your rear view mirror as you leave.