Geneve

An early start this morning to get to the train station in Interlaken for the train to Geneve via Berne. Apart from getting up in the dark, it was an uneventful trip with all going to plan - gotta love it! Of course, the sky was clear and the mountains were magnificent in the early light... on the day I left. I’ll just have to return to this beautiful part of the world some other time.

I found the bus to my hotel and then another bus into town. I’m staying close to the airport, and lets just say the hotel is ‘clean’ and by this read, not luxurious! Although I do have a television which is a first for a couple of months, and I’m now watching Crime and Order with french dubbing - interesting!!

I remember being impressed by the Alpes around Lake Leman, (or Lake Geneva) when I last visited in ‘95, but I have to say, they’ve got nothing on the Alpes of the Hasital.

I went on a little tourist train tour around the old city of Geneve and of course found myself sitting behind another australian - they’re everywhere! But I suppose having resigned my self to the fact that I’m a tourist for the day (I’ve resisted this wherever I can) it is only to be expected...

After the tour I walked back up the hill to the old town and visited Cathedrale Saint-Pierre. This is a lovely old church and one of the chapels has some lovely stained glass windows. As per my usual approach (comme d’habitude), I climbed the towers of the Cathedrale for the view of the city and the lake. Beautiful!!

Given the anticipated high standard of the restaurant at my hotel, I decided to have a late and sizeable lunch before heading back. It seems I was in happy land, as I found a little creperie outside the cathedrale and enjoyed a delicious savoury crepe and salad followed by chocolate and banana crepe with vanilla icecream - yum!!

Back to the hotel for an early night ready to catch an early bus to the airport for my flight to Budapest.

Meiringen and Alpbachschlucht

On Tuesday my friend went back to work so I was left to my own devices. The freezing (well not quite 4 degrees) and wet start to the day suggested I’d be staying home, but happily after I’d finished my washing, updated the blog and chatted to Mum and Dad, the day fined up and I headed out for a walk through the forest down the hill to Meiringen.

SO beautiful! The path goes straight past the front of our house, so it was easy to find and follow.

I headed first for a viewing area (Muhlefluh) which looks out over the valley with Meiringen nestled at the bottom and has a beautiful view of Reichenbach Falls and the surrounding Alpes. lovely.

From there I continued down the hillside, passing under the gondola wires, to an amazing gorge called Alpbachschlucht. I walked up to the gorge and across a little bridge (bright red) which crosses it. The bridge is very high up the mountainside and the views to Meiringen and the Alpes are incredible.

After the bridge, the climb gets interesting... Once again the recent rain had caused the waterfall to be really big and flowing rapidly. All the water caused the track (and by this I mean steps carved into the rock on the side of the cliff) to be wet and quite slippery! I was very pleased to have the cable attached to the rock as a hand rail all the way up!

Once again the noise was impressive and the views difficult to describe!

I continued walking down the mountainside to Meiringen, a very sweet little town nestled in the valley.

I had some lunch, bought and sent some postcards and headed for the gondola for the ride home.

We had delicious cheese, bread, saucison and salad for dinner with a beautiful bottle of red wine I had bought in France. It was a 2003 and absolutely amazing!! Worth every penny, and perfect for my last night in Switzerland!!

If only they shipped wine to Australia!?!? sigh!

The beautiful mountains at sunset, from the apartment window...

Lucern

It was pretty cold and rainy again today, so we jumped in the car and headed to Lucern. The alpes here are filled with tunnels to speed up travel between the major towns, not to mention to transport water for the production of electricity.

There is a covered bridge in Lucern which is very old, and absolutely lovely with flowers planted all along the side.

I took the opportunity here to buy a few postcards and little Swiss souvenirs.

We had lunch in a little cafe, and tried a couple of different chocolate treats for dessert. yum!

Dinner tonight was cheese fondue in front of the fire - delicious, and happily I was with a Swiss man, so he could explain the need to drink hot black tea with the meal instead of cold water. Apparently, the cheese is just as likely to clump up inside you if you have a cold drink!!

We had some white wine with it too, also very good, but I was instructed that it is very important not to drink too much alcohol when you eat fondue. Again the nature of the cheese makes it "difficult to eat backwards!" Hee hee.

Happily, the evening passed without incident. Another lovely day in Switzerland!

Alpentower

On Sunday morning we took the gondola up to Alpentower for a buffet brunch with sparkling wine. The gondola ride was lovely with views of the surrounding mountains, the dairy cows on the hills (all wearing bells which rang as they chewed and moved about) and glimpses of Murmeli - the little beaver/otter like animals which live in burrows in the Alpes. Cute!

The view from the top is spectacular and we managed to catch glimpses as the clouds moved around the mountains and there was new snow up there!! After brunch - yum! we walked from Alpen Tower down to the next gondola stop - Magisalp. It was about an hour down and just beautiful!!

Wildflowers were out amongst the green, green grass and we managed to get some closer views of the Murmeli. One of them stands guard while the others wander about eating etc and if they sense any danger (eagle, people) they give a whistle and everyone returns to the burrow - toute suite!

If I said it once, I said it a hundred times... I LOVE the bells!! the hillside echos with the sounds of the cow bells ringing as the cows wander about and eat their heads off! Its such a beautiful sound! We came across some cows standing quite close to the fence so we went through to give them a pat. I got a big cow kiss!! Man, their tongues are really rough and scratchy!!

We stopped at Magisalp gondola station and had a plate of delicious meats and cheeses with bread... tasty! I was also introduced to another swiss speciality - Rivella - its basically a soft drink, but full of good vitamins and so forth, and some kind of milk product - not sure exactly how that works but its really yummy! We caught the gondola back down to Hasliberg Reuti and headed home. Between the stations of Magisalp and Bidmi there is a trail for the Muggestutz - basically little dwarf like guys local to the region - for the kiddies to wander through the adventure trail. We skipped this walk because of the weather, so I’ve started a list of things I can do on my next visit! They’re cute little cartoon guys - probably magic!!

On Sunday afternoon we headed up to Engstlen where we had a beautiful walk in the countryside beside the lake. We saw some foxes on the hillside - more cows, and bought the makings for fondue for tomorrow night and another yummy drink made from some kind of milk product but basically like juice - blood orange flavour. Full of goodness again, sadly I’ve forgotten the name.

We had pasta for dinner, and lit a fire - this temperature is incredible!! My muscles were seizing up and I was feeling a bit sniffly! Still, the fire was fantastic and warmed up the whole house - that, and the wine with dinner warmed me up too!

Haslital

Today was a busy day in the beautiful Hasital region of Switzerland. Unfortunately it was overcast and rainy on and off all day, but my host lent me a jacket so I was set to go. No need for any of the shorts, skirts or singlet tops I’ve been wearing in the South of France... from 32 to 5 degrees overnight takes a bit of getting used to!!

We visited the Rosenlaui Chlucht (Rosenlaui Gorge) and walked up the inside. The rain has one good outcome, the waterfalls are amazing! There was a huge amount of water flowing through the gorge, and it gives you a great understanding of the power of the water to find the weak points, and wear away the rock forming the gorge in the first place. The noise of the water has to be heard to be believed, there were times when we couldn’t hear ourselves think! Let alone speak!

From there we headed down to a beautiful old hotel where I was introduced to two Swiss delicacies - Ovalmaltine (a hot milk drink, malty flavour) and the local Haslital hazlenut tarte. yummo!! The electricity for this hotel is produced in the back garden with hydro power from the creek... its fantastic, ocassionally the power flickers the lights as it fluctuates.

Today we also visited the waterfall “Reichenbach Falls”. This is famous because, apart from being a beautiful backdrop to Meiringen town, it is the waterfall that features in the penultimate Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in which Sherlock Holmes and his arch nemesis Professor Moriarty fall to their deaths. Once again the rain made for an incredible display of the force of nature.

We caught a little cable car up to the viewing platform where it was impossible to stand at the edge without getting saturated!! Great fun, but FREEZING!!

On this day we also visited Grimsel Hospiz which is on a huge dam wall. There are lakes all over this region of Switzerland which are used for the production of electricity. One of the local power companies KWO has a display here which talks about lots of sustainable energy options.

We had dinner that night with my friend’s family, delicious provencale style dinner of baked home grown courgette filled with minced beef and vegies and served with roast potatoes.

Au revoir France, Guten tag Swisse!

It was overcast and rainy the day I left France.. Don't cry my darling, I will return!!

It was a bit of a sad farewell for me this morning as everyone came out to say goodbye. Even the dogs!! They have all been so welcoming and inclusive - great fun!! I have had the most wonderful experience here in France. The best of my life so far!! I can't wait for my life to continue!

And it does today, I caught an eight am TGV to Lyon where I waited for an hour before catching another train to Geneve and then on to Berne, arriving about half past three. I was collected at the station and taken for a little walking tour of the town. The River Aare runs in almost a full loop around the city, and is a beautiful pale blue, green colour. I will come to get used to this colour as all the lakes, rivers and waterfalls here are really clear and beautiful!

We left Berne and headed north past Interlaken and towards Lucern. We passed through Meiringen and finished up at my new home for the next few days in Hasliberg Reuti. A lovely little village perched on the side of the moutain overlooking Meiringen. The apartment is lovely and looks out across the valley to a number of huge (now snowcapped, although they weren't on the first day) mountains!

The view from the apartment...

We had Rusti for dinner - grated potato with cheese and bacon fried up as a pattie - YUM!! and some lovely red wine.

My last day in France

I spent the day packing and hanging around the polo club. In the morning i went to visit Albert to say goodbye. He was very sweet and told me that he and his daughter had prepared a small gift for me. When I tried to protest he merely raised his hand, palm out and shook his head. Universal language!! He had bought me a selection of provencale treats... Some nougat, callissons (small almond flavoured biscuits), Marseilles soap and a small jar of tapinade!! A really lovely gentleman. Then he continued... He had also bought the same for Megan and for Becky!! So generous!

I think he was pleased to have the visitors but as I said to him, it was wonderful for me to be able to visit him and chat away in french. To understand him and to be understood!! Very satisfying. Today he was telling me about his childhood in France during WWII. He was a small boy and remembers the Germans being there and moving from Aix into Saint Cannat to live with his mother and grandmother when his father went to the army. So interesting and the conversation was all in French!!

Before I left he said he wanted to show me something... Baby chicks. Three of them with their mummy hen. So cute!! Cheep cheep! I also took the chance to say goodbye to Carolyn, his fat little goat and Bianca the dog.

We then went into Saint Cannat and had lunch at the Cafe Moderne in the middle of town. Lovely! It was nice to have a little wander around this pretty town, and I posted some more books and souvenirs home to lighten the load.

We had cake at the club house this afternoon and I was able to show everyone some of the polo photos I've taken while I've been here. If I do say so myself, some of them are Gold!!!

The view from my kitchen window.

I finished off my fresh pasta from the markets for dinner last night and had a girl's night in watching Phantom of the Opera on DVD. Didn't quite make the end as I was a bit tired and had the early start this morning so I'm sure the others missed me singing along for the last thirty minutes....