The Last Day

Swiss countryside as seen from a moving train.

On our last full day in Switzerland, we spent a lot of time in moving vehicles. We took a train from Nyon to Lucerne (and back) and a ferry around Lake Lucerne. It was foggy and sometimes rainy, and I took a lot of pictures through the windows of moving vehicles.

I really need to stop doing that. Although the human eye can ignore specks, drops, and reflections on windows and adapt for some of the movement and actually see the magical scene, the camera cannot. But it's so hard to resist!

Not at all lost.

This was our welcome to Geneva on the day we went to visit the Geneva home of the United Nations, and it should have been a warning.

(More) Chocolate, Cheese, Churches, and a Château

The Château de Gruyères, Switzerland

When I first started writing about my trip to Switzerland with my Aunt Winkie, I mentioned that the four words in the title of this blog post really summed up my experience of Switzerland. Today's post really makes that clear. On our trip to Gruyère, we visited a dairy, a castle, two churches, and a chocolate factory. All on a beautiful, clear, sunny day.

Day of Rest

Flowers on my sister's balcony.

By September 28th, Winkie and I had been travelling for 11 days.

Our hosts, both in Holland and in Switzerland, had been very thoughtful about giving us time to lie down on comfortable beds and feeding us healthy, hearty meals, but we'd had a steady stream of full days, so it was very welcome to spend a day mostly at home.

The Long Way Home

You lookin' at me, biotch? 

Dairy herds in the Swiss Alps only stay up in the mountains during the warm months. With the cold weather of autumn, the cattle are herded down the mountain passes to lower fields, where they are kept in barns and fed hay. The alpages have become seasonal festivals in these rural villages, celebrated in local folk art and are referred to as la Poya.

Ineffable*

There is something about being on a peak in the midst of a vast mountain range that evokes a feeling that defies being put into words. That is what it was like to be in the Swiss Alps.

Medieval Meanderings

Yvoire, France calls itself "village fleuri" which roughly translates as "flower-bedecked village,"* and it is an apt description. For someone like me, who is inordinately fond of flowers, it was a real treat.

Switzerland: Chocolate, Cheese, Churches, and Châteaux

Puccini chocolates, Amsterdam 

Those four words cover many of the highlights of my trip to Europe with Winkie; luscious chocolate, piquant cheese, massive churches, and spired castles seemed to be just around every corner. In Holland, every morning began with large wedges of cheese served with toothsome bread; every evening finished with wine and a small bit of exquisite chocolate.

It was not much different when we got to Switzerland. There, a fresh loaf of crusty bread was always on the table, and cheese, "double" cream, and chocolate were never far away.

Road trip!

Vrouwekathedraal (Cathedral of Our Lady), Antwerp, the Netherlands

One of the things many North Americans can't get over when they visit Europe is how close everything is. Drive for an hour or two, and you can be in a different country from where you started, not a different state.