Category Archives: Lakes & Water

Captain Gabe

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When BuyClub came out with their motorboat vouchers, we scooped one up.  We thought it could be fun to take the parents out while they were here.   We knew it would be our only chance to take a boat out on Lake Geneva.   It’s apparently pretty hard to rent a boat / get a boat slip and any combination of having to do with driving a boat unless you are made of Swiss money.

So, the little four seater was about our speed. And price range.

We made a reservation for the latest spot of the evening, 6:30-8:30.   We planned for Gabe to join us after work.

However, he was having a hard time getting away.  We waited until about 7, but didn’t want to let any more time pass since we had a hard stop at 8:30.  My idea was that we could hang in the little harbor, pick him up, and swap drivers.    I surveyed the two passengers and asked if anyone was comfortable driving a boat.  After all, I never had.   And…..crickets.

So, I ended up behind the wheel.  Let’s just say, it wasn’t pretty.   I might have rammed it into the dock before we even took off.   The guy who was helping us cast off gave me a horrified look.  And we set off into the wild blue yonder of Lake Geneva.

My mother was audibly scared.  They can’t swim.  Solid checked to make sure there were life jackets on board.    We watched the cell phone. And waited.

Finally, we had saw via text that he’d parked and was on his way*.

We sailed back to the dock.  I may have forgotten to put the boat in neutral when we got him which may or may not have resulted in another scare by my mother and a new little skipper guy on the dock who was trying to help us.

Once Gabe became captain, it became much easier.  My mom chilled out.  We opened a bottle of wine.  And we cruised…

 

Twin, happy to see Gabe behind the wheel instead of me

 

She is laughing now. She was not laughing earlier.

The monks like to ride the boats too. This was a little bigger than ours.

Sun setting during our evening “cruise”

These people were real sailors.

Aye aye Captain Gabe

*We’d advise against driving & parking to do a lake front activity during rush hour.  Just take the bus.  It’s much easier.

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The Little Train That Could….Drink Wine.

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We love the Lavaux region.   The wine terraces are magical.   Twin had read my blog before their visit and had really wanted to stop in because of our rave reviews.

There are many options for seeing Lavaux.    If you have a car, you can drive through leisurely.   I do warn you that it is difficult.  S may have accidentally driven on a wine road not meant for cars.   Gabe found it challenging when we drove from Chexbres down to Rivaz with Couch Surfer.

You can also take a train.  I knew of two tasting spots accessible by train.  One is Vinorama nearby the Rivaz stop (bottom of the hill).  It has a lovely tasting room featuring hundreds of Lavaux wines and also a really well-done video which gives you more information about the UNESCO World Heritage Site.   The other is called Le Deck.  We haven’t been there but A & A raved about the magnificent terrace.   You can reach it by car, or by train via Vevey at the Chexbres-Village stop (top of the hill).

You can also hike the region.  The women’s club hosts a magnificent hike every fall during harvest.   I did it and enjoyed it, but it was 5 hours from St. Saphorin to Lutry, which is a little challenging for me.  You can design your own hikes by researching distance and picking a starting and stopping train station.

Lastly, I had recently heard about the Lavaux Express touristic train.   Before E-dawg came, I had listed it as an option since my feet were still recovering and I can’t drive our car, Frau Hilda.   However, we ran out of time.   I had honestly forgotten about it until I read Swiss Wife’s blog and saw her pictures.

So, Twin, Solid and I decided to try it out.   The little train schedule can be found online.   It only goes at certain times and actually on differing days it switches between Lutry and Cully.   Since we did it on a Wednesday, we left from Lutry, which was adorable in itself.

Port at little town of Lutry

Driving through Lutry’s cute streets on the Lavaux Express

Starting our ascent

The terraces are what Lavaux is known for

Rolling vineyards into Lake Geneva

The Swiss Wife had warned us that the daytime trains didn’t serve wine.  There is a 6:30pm weekend one that includes a taste, but we were going during the week.  So, we were prepared so that we wouldn’t be disappointed.

However, surprise, surprise….halfway through, the driver pulled off and their was a little hut with a lady offering tastes for 3 CHF.  So, we decided to partake.

Twin tasting Lavaux Pinot Noir

Solid exploring the vineyards with his glass of wine

The train was 13 CHF for adults.  We considered it a great value in order to get to see the vineyards without a car (and if you aren’t up for hiking super steep terrain).

Related Links:

The Swiss Watch Blog:  Lavaux Wine Tasting

The Swiss Watch Blog:  Gratitude Friday: My French teacher.

Swiss Wife Style:  All Aboard The Lavaux Express

Schwingen In Switzerland:  Stopping at Lavaux

Schwingen In Switzerland:  St. Saphorin

Schwingen In Switzerland:  Lavaux

Clouds Don’t Ruin The Golden Pass

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When E-dawg was here, it rained a lot.   I tried to brainstorm ideas for activities in the clouds and rain and one we considered was a scenic train.    However, I wasn’t sure how this would be.    On one hand, you don’t have to get wet at all in order to see the magnificent Swiss countryside.    On the other hand, would the rain ruin the view & visibility?

I Googled it, but didn’t get much information.  Luckily, when we took the Golden Pass, the sun came out for E-dawg and I.   Unfortunately, I never found out the answer.

Twin & Solid knew they wanted to take a scenic train, so I recommended we take The Golden Pass back from Lauterbrunnen, since Gabe had to return earlier to Geneva to get back to work.   That way, we could take our time going back and stop in towns that looked intriguing.   However, the forecast was dreary.   Rain was predicted in every town we were to pass through.   The scenic trains aren’t cheap, so  I posed it as an option to them that we could all ride back with Gabe if they preferred.  The downside would be a 5am departure to go back in the car with him vs. a relaxing and leisurely wake-up.

They decided to roll the dice on the weather.   And, remarkably, we had a great day.   So, for those traveling on Golden Pass, worried about the weather, I’d recommend you just go for it.

Here is a recap of our journey, starting from Lauterbrunnen–>Interlacken Ost–>Spiez–>Zweissimen–>Montreux–>Geneva:

Lauterbrunnen valley. Not promising.

Thunersee….still ominous

Solid admiring the view after Zweisimen

Twin checking out the view before our stop in Château D’Oex

Clouds over Lake Geneva, but still pretty

Wow.  The cloud cover showcases varying blues in Lake Geneva.   Maybe the clouds were a good thing after all?

The overcast Golden Pass train ended up being one of our guest’s favorite days.

 

Related Links:

The Swiss Watch Blog:   Alpine Views in Zweissimen & Chateau D’Oex

The Swiss Watch Blog:   The Golden Pass

The Swiss Watch Blog:  A Springtime ride on the Glacier Express

The Swiss Watch Blog:   All Aboard the Glacier Express

Schwingen In Switzerland:  A Gorge-ous Panoramic Train Ride

An Impromptu 4th of July Picnic at Genève Plage

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Today is the 4th of July.   As I have mentioned, sometimes it can be quite strange living somewhere that doesn’t celebrate your typical holidays.   Gabe is also out of town on business.  Since he doesn’t get US holidays (only Swiss), he had a work trip starting Monday and landing at midnight tonight.

I didn’t want to let the day escape without celebrating.   Luckily, some of the other ladies were up for getting together to recognize Independence Day.

M had suggested Genève Plage (Plage = Beach in French).  She and some of her mom group friends had gotten season passes as it provided a good kid-friendly meet up place, just about a mile outside of Geneva.  I had never been before, so I was excited to try it out and purchased a single entry at 7 CHF.

A view of Genève Plage from the water

So, we found a nice shady spot to spend the afternoon.

Our 4th of July Headquarters

Everyone dressed in fun 4th of July clothes.  The moms of us had to get their kid’s clothing on trips to the US long before the actual 4th of July.   Something that you take for granted!

All the little ones were dressed so cute

Miss Yoga is from Japan, but we were so glad she joined us for our Independence Day celebration.  Check out the yummy food she made, blending Japanese tradition with USA flair.

4th of July bento sushi – white rice, orange crab, black seaweed and little stars!!  Cute and yummy!

Caprese bites and deviled eggs with fish eggs

K made cherry pie pockets, so that they’d be easier to serve.  She pitted the cherries and made them from scratch since ‘pie filling’ doesn’t exist.  They were incredible!  I scored an extra to bring home for Gabe when he got home at midnight.

Cherry pie pockets

I made Red, White & Blue cupcakes.  Mama Mia had brought us some Red Velvet Duncan Hines cake mix in April, and I imported some cream cheese frosting from the States my last trip.  Since they didn’t have blue icing at the store, I just used blueberries.

Red velvet cupcakes for red, white and blue

P having some fun with the cupcake

We also had lots of fresh fruit, snack mix, and nuts to complement the red, white and blue.

After eating, a few of us went swimming.   The beaches in the Mediteranean can be quite different to some who have never seen stone beaches.  I remember when we went to Greece, it was Gabe’s first time seeing one.

Swiss lake beaches are quite similar.   When his family came in March and we went to Hermance, it was also a surprise.  Geneva also has stone beaches, as that is what is natural vs. the sand.  The pro is that you don’t get sandy.  The con is that sometimes it hurts to walk on.  Also, ‘rock’ castles don’t turn out so well.

Stone beach of Genève Plage

Genève Plage has a pool and a waterslide.  It was really busy that day, so I opted to get my thrills jumping off the high dive into the lake.

I did the middle section…the top one was closed.

The water wasn’t actually that cold this year.  Must have been the warm weather we had last week?

As for now, its 8pm Geneva time and I am listening to the rain pour down outside.  I’m glad we got our little celebration in before the storm.   Hopefully everyone back in the US is enjoying their Independence Day.  And a huge shout out of thanks goes out to all our servicemen for all you do to protect our freedom!

Related Posts:  

The Swiss Watch Blog:     Canadienne Buffet: USA Style

The Swiss Watch Blog:     A fantastic 4th of July with Henry Birmingham

Swiss Wife Style:  Party Recap

The Swiss Watch Blog:     Happy Swiss National Day

The Swiss Watch Blog:     Valentine’s Day and Other Non-Events

 

Luzern: Switzerland’s Loveliest City

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We hadn’t been to Luzern yet, but have had it on our list the entire time we’ve lived in Switzerland.   I almost got to go for Carnival with my girlfriends but when my surgery got moved to an earlier date, it fell through.

However, I knew I’d get a chance to reschedule a visit when Twin was to visit.   Because my mom loves flowers, I knew she’d goo-goo- gaga over the lovely flower bridge in Luzern. I was right.

First glimpse of the wooden flower bridge

Checking out the bridge

Historical stories than pan the entire bridge

Exploring the waterfront of Luzern

After walking around awhile, we settled at Rathaus Brauerei

Rathaus Brauerei

Solid & Gabe had local beers and Twin & I had some local red wine.   We got seats right on the water so ended up staying for awhile and ordering traditional Swiss German dishes – bratwursts, pretzels, frites, and some filet de perche since we were on the water. After dinner, we took a stroll through old town.

Lovely waterfront

Clock tower

Old town – beautiful squares and buildings

Loved the detail on some of the buildings….quintessential Swiss

My map showed a cool view if we ascended so we kept going.

The old city ramparts

Panoramic view of Luzern from the ramparts

After walking the ramparts, we descended to the other old bridge.

The old bridge

The water flow in the river was so powerful.  The poor swans had to work hard not to be swept away!

We learned that Luzern has to control the water flow to keep nearby lakefront towns from flooding.  In the Spring, as alpine melt rushes the lake, they must really take heed of the flow.  As summer progresses, the control can be tweaked to keep lake levels up.

Checking out the river / dam system that Luzern uses to control Alpine water flow

The next day we set a meet-up time of 1pm, so everyone could have free time.    Twin & Solid visited The Lion Monument dedicated to the Swiss mercenaries protecting the French king.

Luzern Lion Monument – Image courtesy of Walkaboutphil.com

Gabe & I opted for a old-fashioned Lake Lucerne cruise to fill our morning.

Boat ride around Luzern’s lakes

Boats on Luzern’s beautiful lakes

Sailboats on the lake

We left for Interlacken very content from our awesome experience in this lovely Swiss city.

Lake Geneva Nautical Adventures

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On Twin & Solid’s second day in town, we took a boat trip around Lake Geneva.   There are multiple options for boat trips.   Since Twin is a flower lover, we selected the medieval village of Yvoire.

Image courtesy of CGN.ch

Geneva boats are operated by the CGN.   On their website, you can see the possibilities.   Our particular boat left Mt. Blanc at 10:15, stopping in Versoix, Coppet, and Nyon before crossing the lake to the French side and anchoring in Yvoire at noon.  Full fare ride to Yvoire costs about 40 CHF, but you can use your half-fare card to get a reduction.

Lake Geneva CGN boat – a few are classical steamboats like this one

Pulling away from Geneva

Approaching Nyon, Switzerland

Docking in Yvoire, France

Enjoying the flowers

Pretty window box

We had authentic French lake cuisine: filets de perche

We caught the 4:20pm boat back to Geneva.  It is the only option in the Springtime, and our visit was the last day of the Spring schedule. During the summer, there are more options for coming and going as the tourist traffic picks up.

On the way home, we had stunning views of Mt. Blanc.   It is only visible a small percentage of time, so we were lucky to get the view we did:

Mt. Blanc looks surreal in the summer….it never loses its snow

It was a lovely day with the CGN!

 

Related posts:

The Swiss Watch Blog:  Monday Funday in Lausanne and Evian

The Swiss Watch Blog:    Route Blanche and the Mt Blanc Tunnel

The Swiss Watch Blog:   Yvoire, France

Colorful Copenhagen

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This weekend, we met up with Kung Foolish and Rhubarbara Streisand in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen is in Denmark.   We like cities on the water, and Copenhagen fell into this category.

Image courtesy of Nation Master

I think the coolest thing about the city is how the water was integrated into day-to-day life.   Copenhagen just isn’t on the water, life there is all about the water.

Our canal tour leaving from colorful Nyhavn harbor

Pulling out of Nyhavn, all the locals were enjoying a beautiful summer day, sitting on the sides of the harbor drinking beers (mostly BYOB or out of vending machines)

A few of the naval museums.  Including a ship (left) and a submarine (right).  Being on the water, the Danish navy presence had to be big.

Armory / naval building

Ship pulling out of the harbor

This guy isn’t afraid of the frigid water

There were many boat bars and waterfront bars. We enjoyed a round at Badlejing.

Also what was neat is to see the blending of architecture, old and new.  The Danish are very progressive and very green.    Their modern buildings were balanced quite well with their historical sites.

The Opera House

View into the centre of town at the old architecture of Amalienborg Palace

Beautiful modern buildings juxtaposed with classic Danish buildings

Classic architecture in the centre town

Looking down Straegrade street at the pastel buildings

I am a sucker for colorful buildings.

Enjoying the beauty of the architecture in Nyhavn harbor

Beyond the water and the architecture, we really enjoyed the food & nightlife.  But we’ll save that for tomorrow.

Related links:

Schwingen in Switzerland: Danish Bike Culture & My Fanboys Experience

Schwingen in Switzerland: Something was rotten in the state of Denmark…It was Us

The Ring of Kerry took our breath away

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When I first started researching our Ireland trip, something that caught my eye was driving the “Ring of Kerry”.   It is a road, about 112 miles looping in the county of Kerry through some pretty amazing and dynamic landscape.

Image courtesy of The Moorings

We got a hotel in Killarney which is the northernmost part and also the biggest town.

Here are some of our views from the drive:

Cliffs of Kerry

Cliffs of Kerry

Watching some surfing action.

Rolling hills of green

House overlooking the Atlantic Ocean

Loved the many little islands

Beautiful panorama

We were warned that there would be tour buses galore and it would get annoying driving down the roads.  However, we only saw three tour buses all day, so we really lucked out with the mild weather and unpopulated roads.    We only had to watch out for these guys :

Sheep in the road

In my reading, it said you could take from a full day to an entire week to do the ring of Kerry.  We only had a full day.  By the time we’d stopped at a few gorgeous places, we were running short on time and had to keep trekking back in order to get to our hotel at a reasonable time.  However, since we’d driven from Liscannor, we only started the ring at noon, so didn’t have a full day to start.

We stopped for an awesome seafood dinner at this “beach bar”

But to those going, I’d encourage you to break it up and try to do it in two days.     One, you can do it more leisurely and see more.  Two, if you are like me, I got so overwhelmed with how gorgeous it was that at the end, I couldn’t take in any more.  I had “panoramic shock”.

If you do it in two days, note that there were plenty of cute B & B’s along the route that would be lovely and advertise only 25 euro / night rooms.

Our tips:

–Do two days if possible

–Do the Skellig Ring add-on.  Our favorite!

–We also heard people liking the Skellig islands but we didn’t have time

–We ran into some recent grads from UGA and they said the cut through path in the middle of Ring of Kerry was pretty incredible too

–Don’t try to go too far off road. We almost got our rental car, Patrick, stuck in the middle of nowhere:

Yup, we drove down this road.  Gabe’s idea.  

Lugano, Switzerland

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Did you know there are palm trees in Switzerland??

As we have mentioned before in the blog, there are four different lingual / geographical groups in Switzerland – French Switzerland, German Switzerland, Romansch Switzerland, and Italian Switzerland.

I had wanted to check out Italian Switzerland since we’d moved to Geneva.   Gabe was a bit more skeptical. He would ask,  “Don’t you just want to go to real Italy…it’s just as close?”

So, when we were only an hour from the Italian part (called Ticino – in green, below) when we were in the Italian lake district, I jumped at the chance to swing through two of the towns on the way home to Geneva.  I legitimized we’d need to stop for a coffee and for lunch, of course.   Little did I know the travel drama that this would cause (post to come).

Image courtesy of about.com

Lake Lugano rests in both Switzerland and Italy.   Lugano is at the northernmost part.    This entire area is known for its mild Mediterranean climate, complete with palm trees and tropical plants.  Yes, in Switzerland.

Image courtesy of escapeartists.com

As we drove into town, we were impressed by the scenery, most notably, the large hill to the left of the town.

Lugano, Switzerland

We parked and strolled through a nearby city park, sitting for a cappuccino and a espresso.   Just coming from Italy, we noted we were back to Switzerland prices. And service.

Gabe commented on the little baby Jet d’eau that they had (as can be seen in the photo above).

All in all, it was a nice city.   Not sure if we’ll travel back, but I am glad we got to see it.

You might want to check on Schwingen in Switzerland’s adventures there (link below).  They had a sunny day and a bit more time for exploration.

Related links:

Schwingen in Switzerland:  Ciao Bella Lugano

Frau Hilda rides a ferry

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When we went to Lake Como, Frau Hilda got to ride her first ferry.   It is not her first time on a boat…she was ironically imported from South Carolina.

Because Lake Como is long and twisty (it resembles the body of a man), they have a network of boats and ferries so it is easy to traverse between towns on opposite coasts, saving time.

Bellagio is located where the legs meet.   Apparently there is a catchy Italian poem about this, but we didn’t hear it when we were there.

When we drove in, it was no big deal – we just passed through Como and continued up the left leg until we reached the village.    However, the drive was super hair raising and we didn’t necessarily want to repeat it.  Also, our destination was Lake Lugano which was due-west of Bellagio.    Luckily for us, they had car ferries between Bellagio and Cadenabbia (left side of mid lake) every 20 minutes.

Image courtesy of Owners Direct from Home Away

It only cost 19 euro for Frau Hilda, Gabe and I to ride.   We thought that was a smokin’ deal.    The ride was only about 15 minutes but saves us about an hour or two in driving time for where we were going.

Goodbye, adorable Bellagio

Frau Hilda was joined by a fancy car.   I guess these folks didn’t want to risk driving their antique Bentley on the curvy roads, either!

 

I am a ferry veteran.  We used to take the Cape May-Lewes one each summer to travel between New Jersey down to the beaches of Delaware.  However, this was Gabe’s first time.   He loved it.

What do you think of ferries?