C'est fini (Days 30 & 31)

There's no question that Switzerland is a country of unparalleled beauty. I've written a lot about the scenery over the last month, but I cannot forget the beauty of the people, as well. As we have come to Switzerland on a home exchange, we have been fortunate enough to be able to get to know and spend time with some of our hosts' friends and family. This has included phone calls to ask general questions about getting around and things to see/do, "pop-ins" for coffee, being able to borrow a stroller for the month when ours went missing, a day-trip to a zoo, etc. The warmth, kindness, and generosity of the people we've had a chance to meet (especially Corinne's stepmom, Colette, and Serge's parents, Gil and Chris) has been amazing.

Our final full day in Switzerland was an extra special treat as we were invited to Gil & Chris' home for lunch to enjoy a traditional Swiss fondue! Of course, we had gone out for fondue at a restaurant in Vevey about a week earlier, but this seemed just a bit more authentic. What a fantastic afternoon! (And what a way to cap off our trip!)

Gil obviously loves children and he handily entertained Lucia and Elias during our visit. I think that's a Smurf mushroom house, serving as a temporary hat, falling off his head in the picture above. I remember playing with Smurfs when I was a kid. Funny to see my kids being introduced to them now!

We began the meal with a sampling of smoked and cured meats (ham and beef) that are specialties of this and neighboring regions, along with bread and crackers. And Swiss wine, of course. Then on to the fondue! That's the pot of unmelted cheese on the right! At this point, I'm sure I was starting to salivate.

This is a picture of Colette and Chris. I think they both never stop smiling. It's impossible to not enjoy being around people like this. Before we arrived, we didn't know that Colette would be there, and in fact, thought that we had said our last "goodbye" to her. What a delightful surprise to meet her again!

The cheese has melted! The fondue begins. (At around this point, Gil taught me that the way to really enjoy the fondue is to dip your bread into your white wine before dipping it into the cheese. Wow.)

Elias felt right at home with our new friend. I wonder if he might have picked up any French words during our visit?

The pot is not quite empty. We learned that the cheese that bakes on at the bottom of the bottom is especially yummy. This is the stuff to fight over! Needless to stay, I think we cleaned up the pot pretty good, despite our aching bellies.




This experience will be one of the highlights from our trip - both for the excellent food and the tremendous hospitality of the hosts (folks that had only met us weeks before!). We were even sent home with a huge Lindt chocolate bar and a framed picture that Gil had made himself with bits of folded paper (he's a very good artist). Extraordinary generosity. It's great to know that we will be returning home to Canada with great memories, photographs...and new friends.

Before I sign off, here are a few pictures of the place that we will fondly remember..."Likir". We don't name our houses in Canada, but it's not a bad idea. I think it was Gil that suggested that we might name our house "Leman" (for the lake) when we returned. I like that. Another option might be Cailler (for the chocolate).

The "chalet", with our wheels for the month (a Toyota Picnic). We have had a great time exploring the roads of Switzerland in this car/van. (It's bigger than a car, but not quite a van.)

And finally...the view from the dining room. What a dream it has been to wake up to this every morning for the last month. We have been blessed.

To the Weber family...thank you so much for a wonderful home exchange. It's been an experience of a lifetime for us, and we hope the same for you.

Ciao!

The Matterhorn & More (Day 29)

And finally...the Matterhorn. No time to write about this right now. Have a plane to catch in a few hours in Geneva. But then, a picture is worth a thousand words, and the Matterhorn should speak for itself. This day almost never happened. Are we ever glad it did...

Here is the original Swiss Chalet.

Is there even one place on earth that McDonald's hasn't infiltrated?

Rainy Days (Days 27 & 28)

It couldn't be sunny the whole time we were here. By Thursday (Day 27), the sky had opened right up and all the water in the world was falling on this area (or so it felt). Flooding was apparently a real problem down in the lowlands but fortunately for us we could watch the swollen river from up the mountain. (The point where the river met the lake was completely brown from all the runoff.) Feeling completely uninspired, we drove down into town to do some grocery shopping to cover us for the last few days that we'd be here. A trip to the shopping mall is usually torture for me, but at this point, it represented a warm, dry, and different place to be.

We had lunch at a self-serve restaurant called Manora in the mall, which kind of reminded me of Whole Foods back home. It was actually a really nice lunch, and we met a family from Southern California who had just moved to Switzerland for a year. He was going to be teaching at a new "branch" of Pepperdine University being set up in Lausanne. They were nice folks and made for good company. Grocery shopping afterwards was about as exciting as grocery shopping can be. Elias kicked up quite a fuss along the way, and we were sure the weather was getting to him, too. Dear Lord, please, please, please stop the rain!! (The picture above shows the house below us, and the extent of our view. Beyond this all we could see was white.)

And finally...it stopped.

Not to miss out on any opportunities to be outside, on Friday we got packed up and headed out for a bike ride in the hills above us. It was a bit cold, but we bundled Lucia and Elias up and they were happy as clams just to be outside getting some fresh air. I think even the cows were happy to be out with a bit of sunlight shining down on them.






We didn't have a long time to ride, since we had made plans to head out in the afternoon with Corinne's stepmom Colette. When she learned of our affection for blueberries, and that we were missing blueberry season back home, Colette had kindly offered to take us picking here in Switzerland. She had been keeping track of their progress and unfortunately this year's crop wasn't looking so good, due to unseasonable weather when the plants were budding. Nonetheless, we were still going to go find what we could find, as well as sample some special blueberry cake at a place she knew of.


When she arrived at the house we reconsidered, given the colder weather, the clouds in the sky, and the meagre crop. Nonetheless, for NEXT time, thanks to Colette, we are going to be prepared with some very fancy blueberry picking gadgets that rake the bushes and sift out the leaves, etc, leaving you with a pile of little blue beauties. Anything to increase the yield of blueberries earns big points in my books. Many thanks, Colette. You are too kind.



On Colette's suggestion, what we did end up doing was driving north of Lausanne to a place called Papillorama (near Morat/Murten), a sort of (mostly) indoor zoo, featuring exhibits of butterflies, insects, reptiles, birds, and nocturnal animals of all sorts. There were butterflies of all types flying around a huge dome, where a very warm and humid rainforest-type habitat had been created. I would have taken pictures there had my lenses not fogged up the second we entered. The nocturnal exhibit was every bit as interesting with all sorts of nocturnal animals (sloths, porcupines, bats, etc) busy about their business, tricked into thinking it was nighttime. It was not a little unnerving having bats flying by my (and Lucia's) head in near-darkness.

It was clear by the end of our time at Papillorama that we'd have to stop for dinner before heading home. This was OK, as we hadn't yet seen the town of Morat (French)/Murten (German), which we'd read good things about. It's yet another charming medieval town in Switzerland, with walls all around and a pedestrian center. They were having some sort of festival and there were a bunch of self-serve kiosks opening up when we got there, offering very basic fare. It wasn't the greatest meal I've had, but it was an experience. (Part of that experience was hearing Colette switch between French, German, and English while conversing with us and the vendors. Her multilingual abilities are impressive. I can't imagine how exhausted she must have been at the end of the day.)

Oh, by the way, the big pot is full of a Swiss potato dish called Rosti. (There's an umlaut over that "o", but I don't know how to put it there with this keyboard.)

Fun & Fromage (Day 26)

We woke up on Day 26 with heavy clouds and a lousy weather forecast. We were all starting to feel a bit squirrelly, but what to do? No point in heading to the mountains just to go look at clouds. We didn't want to drive too far but we've seen most of the sights around Vevey and Mont Pelerin. Finally, we remembered that although we had visited the Gruyere cheese factory near the beginning of our trip, we hadn't actually wandered uphill into the town. Plus, we thought that maybe, just maybe, if it didn't rain we could hit the bobsleds at nearby Mont Moleson. Off we went...

Here's a lot of Swiss Gruyere cheese (see below). I wish it were possible to give everyone a taste of this wonderful stuff. The suitcase just isn't big enough.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We had a chance to see all this cheese only after the downpour in the village. It was dry when we got to Gruyere and during the short walk up the hill into the charming little medieval village, and then the rain began. So much for bobsledding. The most obvious place to seek shelter was in the cheese factory down the hill, which we hadn't yet "officially" toured.

Below is a shot of the entrance to the village. No cars allowed here.

There's a wonderful courtyard once you're through the gates and a fountain with a beautiful display of flowers. I'm not sure how many of our photos have captured the flowers here, but they (the flowers) are everywhere. Underneath windows, on fountains, beside the road, hanging from lamp posts - everywhere. Not sure who the gardener is, but he/she must be busy.

Here's one of my favourite photos of the girls. This is one to frame.

Lucia and I exploring along the inside of the city walls. I was amazed that visitors were allowed to climb around here (both because of the potential hazards as well as preservation of the structure).

Before I forget, I should mention that the whole center of town (of course, it's not large) smelled of cheese. I guess that this has something to do with the town's namesake. This may conjure up some bad images for some, but please try to understand, this is no Velveeta. Every restaurant in town must have been offering cheese fondue, and this was the smell of all that melted bonafide Swiss goodness, wafting through the fresh air, creating an olfactory experience second to none. Mmm....

Here's a view of the countryside from on top of the hill. That grass is what feeds the cows that make the cheese. It's all connected.

Railway to the Rothorn (Days 24 & 25)

We've read a lot about the Bernese Oberland on the internet and in our guide book. This is a region of Switzerland east of Lac Leman that is home to many of the famous parts of the Swiss alps, and fortunately for us is just next door to the region we're staying in (the Vaud region). Not tiring yet of the mountains here, we wanted to explore the Oberland a bit and maybe plan an overnighter to limit the amount of driving we'd have to do in one day. One problem that we anticipated was the crowds - since the beginning of August, it seems that all of Europe is on holidays in Switzerland. (The strange thing is that we've encountered much fewer Canadians/Americans than we have during our previous times in Europe.) For this reason, we were hoping to find a destination that wasn't in bold print and large font in any of the Switzerland guide books. Corinne had suggested to us a place called Brienz, at the east of a lake called Brienzersee, where you can take a steam train up to a peak called the Rothorn Kulm. It sounded really nice, and better yet our guide book reserved only a sentence or two describing it. And of course, recommendations from the locals haven't yet led us astray.

We went, and here's what we saw...

When we looked Brienz-Rothorn up on the internet, we discovered that there was actually a hotel at the top of the mountain. Rates for simple rooms with bunk beds were actually pretty reasonable AND breakfast was included. At first we were hoping for a two-night stay, but the weather forecast was a bit ominous so we thought we'd bank on just one (a good move, as it turned out). Unbelievably, there was space for us when we called for reservations 3 days before. More unbelievably, when we arrived we discovered that we had a whole floor to ourselves. Imagine the excitement for Lucia...a bunk bed at the very top of a mountain. It doesn't get any better.

We weren't so sure when we got to the train station that we had made the right decision. Train boarding was the most un-Swiss experience we've had here - probably at least in part due to the travelers from other countries. (Us meek Canadians don't do well in anything but single-file line-ups.) But once we were on our way, our grumpy faces quickly changed to smiles. Again, we were amazed at where trains can travel in this country. Unfortunately we weren't pulled by one of the steam engines still operating on this rail line, but the diesel that pulled us definitely had to work to get us up the steep grade.

I know I'm repeating myself, but again we couldn't believe that we saw cows and hear their bells ringing the entire way to the summit. In the second photo up, you can just barely see a few of them (as specks) in the middle of the lower third of the frame (I'm looking down on the rail line and they are above it). One misstep and you'd see a big mass of beef rolling right down to the bottom. These are steep, steep hills. (It's hard to believe, but the lake really was that emerald green colour - it looked absolutely surreal.)

Above is the summit, where our hotel and the restaurant was situated. Nice spot to grab a bite. We had dinner and breakfast here, but unfortunately had to eat inside for both (too cold for dinner, and too rainy for breakfast).

Below is a shot of one of the ubiquitous sign posts marking walking trails with distances. You hardly need a map in Switzerland with all the good signage here, from the roads to the hiking trails. I'm not sure what kind of birds those are, but they flew up the hillside into the frame just as I was getting ready to shoot.

After a short walk to the summit, we all take a rest. (I think Elias had found a dog to pet, also. Bow-wow.)

It was a beautiful day when we arrived on the Rothorn. In the late afternoon, after we had stowed our bags in our room, we set out to explore some of the trails at the top. Unfortunately, Lucia had her first encounter with an alpine bee who decided to leave his mark on her cheek. I still remember my first bee sting, and I think worse than the pain itself is the surprise of it. There were quite a few tears, but nothing that a Mommy's comfort can't take care of.

By this time, Elias had fallen asleep in our "baby backpack" (aka the sleep machine). As long as you keep going with it on Elias will sleep, so keep going I did, while Danielle brought Lucia back to our room. I followed a trail along a very steep ridge out to a point where the ridge got even steeper. I turned back at this point for supper, but I sure wish I knew how this trail turned out. Besides the sound of my own feet on the trail, I only heard two sounds the whole time I was walking - the occasional chugging of the steam train heading up or down the hill and the constant ringing of the cowbells coming from the hills below. We're going to try and record this sound before we head for home - it's the Swiss equivalent of the hypnotizing sound of water lapping on a shore.

Here's Lucia and I peeking out the window of our room. Just hours earlier the picnic table in front of the window (and all the other tables around it) were full of travelers. After the last train of the day, the place almost completely cleared out.

Danielle, Elias, and his animals in our room. Elias can quite accurately make the sounds of cows, sheep, dogs, cats, and horses now. Pig sounds, the most complex, have not yet been mastered.

Just as forecasted, the rains began in the evening (with yet another thunderstorm), and continued when we woke up the next morning. We would have liked more time to explore the trails and to see the view from the top (we woke up in a cloud), but at least the previous day was beautiful. Breakfast was fantastic (yogurt, muesli, cheese, croissants - all of the good stuff) and the restaurant was a cozy place to huddle, while the rain fell outside.

One of the managers of the hotel/restaurant took a special interest in Lucia and Elias and set up toys and colouring supplies at a separate table. Lucia's bee sting was a thing of the past and she had a great time making a picture for the train conductor. (Elias doesn't sit still like his. I think he was running around the dining room, providing entertainment for an older German couple.)

More rain on the drive home. Coincidentally, our drive home took us near the Cailler chocolate factory in Broc. Funny thing - we found ourselves in their parking lot again. It's good to break up a long drive, you know.

Cheese and a journey to the Jura (Days 22 & 23)

It's been great fun reconnecting with our good friend Nils from Victoria while we've been here in la Suisse. Having lived in Vancouver for the last 2 years, we've not had a lot of opportunity to spend time with Nils, and we look forward to that changing when we all get back to Victoria. He is doing some pro bono work at the WHO in Geneva (the health organization, not the rock band), and he came for his second visit to Vevey this past weekend. We met him down at the market on Saturday morning, looked around a bit, did some shopping, and went to the lake for a swim (it was tres chaud). Previously, Nils had offered to look after Lucia and Elias if we ever wanted to get out for a bit of time on our own and so we took him up on his offer in the evening.




We couldn't come all the way to Switzerland and not have a bonafide Swiss cheese fondue, so Saturday night saw Danielle and I looking around in Vevey for a place to find the real thing. Our guide book was little help (Vevey gets little mention) but after looking at the menus of a few random restaurants Danielle asked, and got, directions to a small restaurant that served exactly what we were looking for (Les Trois Sifflets; translation, the three whistles, I think). It's a small place, with a little courtyard in behind, and our table was right beside a fountain made of two wine barrels of different sizes, cut in half. The temperature outside was perfect. Even when the sun had gone down, we were still warm.









Thanks to Nils, who has indulged in cheese fondue at least once during his time here, we had the good advice to not order more than one fondue between the two of us. Our stomachs were telling us differently when we were ordering, but our minds prevailed, which was a good thing. We prefaced our cheese-fest with a couple of salads and then began indulging in the gooey mixture of Gruyere and Vacherin cheese, kirsch and who-knows-what-else. Heavenly.

Make no mistake - there's a lot of cheese in that orange pot. We had no trouble finishing it off, but I'm glad we kept to our limits. It might have been the red wine from Valais (the region to the east of Lac Leman) that helped, but neither of us had the stomach-ache that we half expected afterwards. The walk under the stars beside the lake after dinner completed our night out sans children perfectly. This was an evening that I'm sure we will reminisce about for years to come. (Thanks again, Nils.)





An area of Switzerland that we had not really ventured into, but have been interested in, is called "the Jura". It's an area of rolling hills, lakes, and smaller mountains - not the rocky ones that you see on typical Swiss post cards - north of Lake Geneva, bordering France. From what we'd read, it sounded like it doesn't draw nearly the same number of tourists as other regions but is every bit as beautiful. Fortunately, Nils has an appreciation for getting off the beaten track as well, and we easily agreed on a day trip to go exploring. A spot in particular that sounded really nice (according to our book as well as Colette, Corinne's step-mom who we chatted with briefly before going) was le Vallee de Joux, so off we went with a general idea of where we wanted to go but an open agenda as to how we'd get there. The pictures above and below were taken at Lac de Joux, a picture-perfect spot that we came to where we took a stroll and had a bite to eat.

During the drive, Nils told us stories about how his family had cycled through Europe together when he was thirteen. A stop at a patisserie was a daily ritual, and him and his sister would bike up ahead to the next town, find the resting spot, and wait for their parents to arrive. Driving through the countryside in the Jura, with its small villages, rolling hills, and narrow roads, and hearing these cycling stories from Nils, made me hope that similar sorts of travel will lie in our family's future. (Perhaps with hiking shoes instead of pedals under our feet?)

There are countless fountains around this area like the one Elias is standing next to in the photo above. While we ate lunch, he dipped his hand in, looked, and dipped it in again. Timely distraction. The swimmer to the right of the large mass of weeds in the water is Nils. I told him I'd give him 50 centimes (~$0.45 CDN) if he'd jump right into the middle of the weeded area and swim through them. He did it. (I didn't actually have 50 centimes on me at the time, so I guess I owe him.)

Before we had left, I had read about a town in the area around le Vallee de Joux called Vallorbe. Just outside this town, there was apparently a network of caves that had been made "tourist-friendly" and were worth visiting. I dropped the word "caves" and Lucia was immediately determined to go. We were able to make the trip to Vallorbe part of our drive and when we got to the caves, we decided that I would take her in and Nils, Danielle and Elias would go explore the trails outside.

What you see above is what the passageways in the cave looked like - easily accessible but still natural in appearance. Unfortunately, my photos do little justice to what it was like inside. The "circuit" that we walked through is supposedly ~1 km and it was a bit chilly and wet, but fascinating. Plenty of stalactites and stalagmites to look at, as well as pools of water and an underground river.

Lucia was a bit nervous and held my hand pretty tightly while we were inside but was very excited to tell Mommy all about it when we came out. Kids' memories can seem so random. For me, seeing these caves was definitely a special and unusual occasion. I wonder if this experience will register as one of Lucia's memories of this trip? What other things will she remember? Feeding the turtles? Looking at the mice the cat caught? The boat ride to France? Nathan and Romain's Playmobil? Swimming in Lac Leman? I do look forward to finding out...but definitely hope that our time here will have left an impression as to how life looks in a different part of the world.