Christmas taught travellers to be patient

The extended Christmas holiday period led to heavy traffic jams at the weekend, with the eastern canton of Graubünden particularly hard hit.

There were also problems on the railways and air rescue services had their hands full.

Bright sunshine on Boxing Day was a magnet to attract the Swiss to ski areas but this led to kilometre-long traffic jams and long waiting times on many access roads.

The road between Küblis and Klosters was particularly affected, with traffic at a standstill over 12 kilometres. And there were waiting times of up to three hours to load cars on the rail connection through the Vereina tunnel into the Engadine valley.

The danger of avalanches also held up rail traffic in the region. The Albula and Bernina lines were closed for a day.

Police say that there were few heavy road accidents in the country.

Air rescue organisations were kept busy, with the Swiss Air Rescue Service alone reporting 90 missions from December 26 to Sunday afternoon. In the majority of cases, the service was called out because of skiing accidents, a spokesman said.

swissinfo.ch and agencies