Visiting the garden with your hot pot

Vacations in the Moosalpregion become an unforgettable time of pleasure thanks to the personal hot-pot in front of the vacation chalet. Who dives into the warm pool, immerses in a time of pure relaxation. Carlo Frezza has booked the hot-pot of the Moosalpregion for his vacation time. The Zurich journalist shares his moments of pleasure in the hot-pot with us in his experience report.

It's warm these days. So warm, in fact, that it keeps driving me out of the city of Zurich. My refuge has always been the Moosal region. In 1983, my grandparents bought a chalet on Stockjiweg - in the middle of Bürchner Chaletzone. Actually an unpopular decision for a family settled in Zurich. Zurichers are known to live more in the canton of Graubünden than in the Valais.

In love with the Moosalpregion

My family would make this decision again without batting an eyelash. We are in love with the Upper Valais. Our hearts beat even faster for the Moosalpregion. Together with my family or with friends, I now travel to the Moosalpregion in Bürchen several times a year - whether in the cold or in the warm months. While in winter snow sports are in our interest, in summer we enjoy the peace, the clean air, the Bürchen beer, the many kilometers of hiking trails and the steep ramps with the racing bike.

However, something has changed significantly in recent years. The heat is no longer unknown, even at 1600 meters above sea level. Whereas a few years ago there was still a pleasantly fresh breeze blowing on our balcony in the afternoon, on some days it is still blazing hot until shortly before sunset. Cooling down is required. For this reason, we have been thinking about our own hot-pot for some time. We have already asked for and checked several offers. Unfortunately, there was never a suitable offer.

When we heard last year after a conversation with Fabrizio Gull, the head of tourism of the Moosalpregion, that the tourism office offers up to three hot-pots for rent, the joy was written on our faces. That same day, we made a booking request on moosalpregion.ch/hotpot. With a little luck, Gull confirmed the one-week rental of a hot spot.

Wow - a hot pot in front of the vacation chalet

The rent was scheduled for the last week of July 2020. My brother and I had already been in our chalet for a few days to work somewhere other than our respective apartments in the city of Zurich due to the rampant pandemic. On a warm Thursday, Gull and his team brought us the hot-pot, firewood and other essentials like a paddle.

Shortly after the necessary instructions, we started filling the bath barrel. To our delight, this took less time than we had expected. Already after about ninety minutes we could start heating up. This, in turn, took much longer. Because the water we let in was just 10 degrees cold. But in order to stay in the hot-pot, the thermometer should show at least 35 degrees, although this is actually even warmer than the outside temperature. But if you don't want to freeze, you have to be patient. We soon realized that. Then the hot pot can be enjoyed to the fullest.

Just in time for the end of the working day, the water had reached a pleasant temperature so that I could drink a beer together with my brother in the hot-pot. It was definitely a different toast to the completed workday than what we are used to from the hip city of Zurich: Freshness instead of polluted air, birdsong instead of roaring engines, and huge fir trees and green meadows instead of meter-high concrete buildings.

Hot pot makes friends jealous

A day later we repeated the process. While we went about our work in our chalet, we heated up the hot-pot in parallel in the afternoon. Just in time for the end of work, which was the same as the beginning of our vacation, we sat in the water again. But this time something was different. Because we were not only toasting our vacation, but also expecting our friends. Our goal was to make them jealous with the sight of the two of us in the hot-pot. When they came up the path to our chalet, we quickly realized that we had accomplished our plan perfectly. They exclaimed. They said it was unfair that we would be sitting in the fresh water and they would have to take the steep walk up to the chalet in this heat. But they quickly calmed down. Because no sooner had our friends moved into their rooms than they were already squatting next to us in the hot tub in their bathing suits.

The following days we arranged completely different. We hiked to the Augstbordhorn to watch the sunrise. We rode our racing bikes up the future Tour de Suisse route to Moosalp. We measured ourselves at mini-golf or we enjoyed the excellent gastronomic establishments of the region. But one thing was the same on all days. We spent the last hours of sunshine in the hot-pot with a cool beer. It was the perfect ending to every single day of our vacation, as we were able to refresh ourselves from the hot temperatures during the day. Sometimes we stayed in the water even when the starry sky had long since risen and the most famous constellations could be seen without any problems - as was the case on Wednesday, the last evening with the hot-pot.

Our vacation days in the Moosalpregion approached their end in big steps. The next morning we emptied the water as agreed at the beginning of the rental, removed the ash from the stove and cleaned the seating areas. In the afternoon the team of the Moosalpregion was again in front of our chalet to take away the hot-pot. One year later, we still look back on the week in the Moosalpregion with a lot of joy. Especially the hot-pot did it to us. It was in a corona-conditionally uneventful summer 2020 a highlight that both I and my friends will never forget and can recommend to everyone. Therefore, we have also sent a rental request for this summer.