Category Archives: Travel: Within Switzerland

Gratitude Friday: Swiss Water

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Post by Lauren

One of my favorite things about Switzerland is the abundance of free yummy water.

Whether you are in an urban area, a small town, or the middle of the countryside, you are sure to find a babbling spout, as can be seen below. You can easily fill your bottle up no matter where you are.

In the US we have things like this but you wouldn’t dare drink out of it. However, here is is 100% safe and super tasty. I have been told the water supply is monitored three times a day to monitor for any abnormalities. From the swissworld site, they quote:

The drinking water that comes out of Swiss taps is as pure as bottled mineral water – and 500 times cheaper.

In a country where everything is expensive, I am grateful for this natural perk.

Bon weekend, everyone!

 

A Page from the Swiss Rule Book: 1st Class

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Post by Lauren

I wish this lesson for you hadn’t come with a 150 franc fine for us (equivalent of $200 USD) but unfortunately there is no such thing as a second chance or a warning in the minds of the Switzerland train patrol.

We have frequently ridden RER, regional trains, as it is the most direct way to get to and from the airport. Swiss trains are immaculate, perfect, and once they have had a good life riding along on the pristine swiss railways, it becomes their turn to be set free in the pasture. With the pasture being the airport and RER routes that are 15 minutes tops, and don’t require a world-class choo-choo.

You can ride these RER trains for the same price as a TPG ticket, so 3 CHF, or for us, free since we have an annual abonnement for public transport. From the airport, its literally free to encourage tourism.

What we didn’t know was that these little regional trains actually have a designation of first and second class. We went for the short line when boarding the train back from Russin, but mistakenly entered the first class cabin. No clue. No less than 30 seconds after the train started, we were approached. No biggie, we were all covered by our TPG passes. Not so much. They pointed out we were in first class.

“Oh, so sorry, we didn’t know. We’ll move,” we said.

“Trop tard,” said the stone-faced police man. This is “too late” in French.

“Really? We didn’t know these had classes, we’ll happily move there,” pointing at the 2nd class cabin, literally through a few yards, through the first set of doors.

He sternly asked for all our identification and issued us 4 tickets. By the time he finished issuing them all, we were at our very short destination of the main train station.

So, a very expensive lesson learned this weekend and a big buzz kill to the wine festival.

What do you think…..did we get what we deserved….or would you have given us a second chance?

 

Monday Funday in Lausanne & Evian

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Post by Lauren

On Monday, we took a little day trip. Andreas and I knew we were going to venture somewhere (Gabe unfortunately had to work and couldn’t play). But, luckily discovered that friends S and A were up for an activity, as well as they had another visitor C who wanted to join as well.

We took off for Lausanne, not completely knowing what the day had in store. Lausanne is a beautiful city on lake Geneva, just about 40 minutes north of Geneva. When Gabe and I first toured Switzerland, we immediately fell in love with Lausanne but it was too far to live from Geneva. I love the architecture and rolling hills. It has a similar feel to San Francisco, and our legs definitely got a work out exploring as well.

After climbing to the cathedral, we decided it was time for a lunch break. We stumbled upon Via Veneto right behind the cathedral and it turned out to be a great find. The owner was so open and welcoming and we also enjoyed chatting it up with the patrons next to us about Italy who shared their cheese plate with us. We all had plats du jour – everything was amazing, including the wine. When in Lausanne, we’d highly recommend this place.

After lunch, we strolled back down to the coast of Ouchy and enjoyed a drink on the deck of the Laclustre before boarding a boat for Evian, France. Yup, Evian, like the water. It is right on Lake Geneva, on the French side. The boat ride was quite nice and we split a bottle of wine and played games to pass the 30 minute journey.

We took a quick tour of the Evian “hall of information” but quickly found it to be quite boring, so we moved on to explore the town.

Highlights were a nutella crepe from the cafe and an interesting stop at the evian casino. I’ll let you wait for S’s post on that to explain the humor.

It turned out to be a really enjoyable day.

Reason # 37 I wish I knew German

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Post by Lauren


Introducing Sven. He is a Volvo. He is our method of transportation when we aren’t using Geneva public transportation or trains. Like in the case of Gruyeres that is best explored by car because of how remote it is. Its only a 1 1/2 hour drive, but via trains/buses, it would be more like 4 hours. Also, sometimes its cheaper to use a car if you have multiple passengers vs. buying train tickets. Of course, it could provide more room for issues in driving or directions, but that is part of the fun.

Sven is always very dependable. Until this weekend. He starting acting up in Vevey, when we stopped for coffee and a peak at the shoreline.

The guys looked under the hood, but we decided to press on to our trip to Gruyeres. After cheese tasting, Sven had some trouble starting. Uh-oh. It was a Sunday, we were in the middle of no-where. And it was raining. We kept on going to the castle, etc. and just kept our fingers crossed Sven was going to be able to be revived upon our return to him. We made sure to leave by 6pm, so we could figure out from an open restaurant how to do the train home if we had to. There wouldn’t be any prayer of an open service station on a Sunday. Questioning why? See a previous post.

We enjoyed our trip and descended down the mountain hill in the rain, hoping and praying Sven wouldn’t disappoint. He sputtered out. After seven attempts, he started.

Immediately after we took off, he displayed this warning:

None of us knew German. We assumed he was telling us he was going to blow up. Oh no, and now we were out of walking distance to assistance for the train route. Andreas hurriedly pulled out his Blackberry and translated. And it translated “trunk open”. We stopped, closed the front hood, and Sven pulled off his warning. We laughed. Disaster averted.

So, thus, another reason I wish I knew a different language. We could actually know what our car needed. But then again, what is the fun in that?

The coolest and scariest bar I’ve ever seen

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Post by Lauren

Before we left Gruyeres, Andreas suggested we stop into a bar he had seen on our walk in, the HR Giger Museum Bar. Now from the title, you may think, how scary can a museum bar be? Well, Giger was known for his creative work on Alien and won an Oscar. Apparently this bar was inspired by Jonah being in the belly of the whale. Check out the creativity…..the whole place was a magnificent work of art.

I love the one of Andreas and I doing a “double dragon”…our scariest move, from behind our skeletal stools.

For a more detailed look by professional photographers, check out this link or see this YouTube video:

 

Gruyeres, Switzerland

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Post by Lauren

We are excited to have Andreas in town visiting for the US this week. At first, Switzerland decided to show Andreas its gloomy side, but Gruyeres ended up being a good little day trip as the heavy clouds made the castle a little bit more mysterious, and the chill in the air made our cheese dishes a little bit more tasty.

When we first arrived, we checked out the Gruyere cheese factory and even got to try a sample.

Touring the Gruyeres Cheese Factory

The arduous process certainly made us appreciate our cheese more. I really especially liked the story, told from the perspective from one of the cows, detailing the history of cheese and cheese-making. The story also compared wine tasting (when you pick of flavors of cherry, oak, etc) to cheese tasting, where one should pick up the cumin, the thistle, etc of the matter that the cows graze on.

Next, we moved onto the town of Gruyeres. Usually you can see the Alps in the background. But, it was a tad foggy. Oh well. We were still charmed by the beautiful walled town. We grabbed a traditional cheese dish of raclette and relaxed and dined by a panoramic view of the valley.

After lunch, we adventured to the famous Gruyeres castle. It was really neat, but my favorite was the beautiful geometric gardens that rested in the courtyard.

We almost had an additional adventure when our car took 7 times to start in the very empty rainy parking lot. But, he made it. More on that later.

Gratitude Friday: Travel

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Post by Lauren

An easy gratitude selection this week. We have T in town from the US. We just returned today from a great overnight trip to Bernese Oberland where we explored the valleys, stayed in a peaceful Alp town, and scaled the mighty majestic Schilthorn. So, simply, this week, I am thankful for our ability to travel here. So many parts of this beautiful world are close and accessible to us during our time here. We are grateful for this opportunity and hope to make the most of it!

Here are some snapshots from the past two days:

Gimmelwald, Bernese Oberland

Murren, Bernese Oberland

Ascending to the Schilthorn with views of the Monk, Eiger and Jungfrau

Bon weekend, everyone!

I can’t count to 100 anymore

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Post by Lauren

One of the most frustrating things about speaking French in Geneva has to be the numbers 70-99. See, in French, once you get to 70, you have scary numbers that are math problems in themselves.

For example, 70 is 60+10 or soixante dix. When you progress to 71, 72, you add by a number already in its teens. So for 71, its 60+11, so soixante onze. And then for 72, its 60 + 12 so soixante-douze. And so on….

However, then for 80, its 4 x 20. And for 81, 82, you add by one, two, etc. So, for 81 it is 80+1, so quatre-vingts et un. 82 is quatre-vingts deux. And so on….

When you get to 90, it is 4 x 20 + 10. Back to the number in the teens. So, for 92, for exampe, its quatre-vingt-douze. And so on….

Why in the world don’t they use the same system? Why different names and different things to add, like 1 sometime and 11 sometimes?

And, this might be enough to give you a headache. Especially when you are at a store and they spit out numbers really fast.

However….enter…..solution!! I found out that in Switzerland, they use septante and nonante for 70 and 90. Then add by 1‘s. Ingenious. Those are easy!!! I was pumped I wouldn’t have to remember the really hard France French way.

In Lausanne, one town over, they use huitante for 80. Even better!! I started wishing I lived in Lausanne.

I made this chart for this blog post to help explain. I realize this may have been 15 minutes I’ll never get back as you are likely just skipping through the nonsense on this post.


But, alas…..when you go to different stores in Switzerland, they use a combination of all the above numbers. It’s unpredictable. So, not only do you have to know the really hard numbers, but you have to know all 3 versions.

Just imagine giving out a telephone number or even writing one someone gives you. It goes like this….

+41 079 589 78 92

You could be standing in one part of Switzerland. Imagine it…..

–5 miles away in France, one would say: plus quatre-vingt / zero soixante dix-neuf / cinq cent quatre-vingt-neuf / soixante dix-huit / quatre-vingt-douze

–5 miles away in Geneva territory, one would say: plus quatre-vingt / zero septante-neuf / cinq cent quatre-vingt-neuf / septante-huit / nonante-deux

–Yet, in Lausanne territory, where you are standing, you’d say: plus quatre-vingt / zero septante-neuf / cinq cent huitante-neuf / septante-huit / nonante-deux

Got that #?

Montreux Jazz Festival

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Post by Lauren

We had so many neat adventures this past weekend that I wanted to dive deeper into a few so that you could get the full experience. Luckily, guest Henry Birmingham is an amazing photographer so the next two days of posts are going to have more eye-candy than you are used to (all of the photos are his).

On Saturday, we traveled to Montreux Jazz Festival. According to wikipedia, Montreux Jazz Festival is the 2nd largest music festival in the world, after Montreal’s. If you recall, Gabe and I had been to Montreux on our first trip to Geneva – most of the sunset photos on our first post are of its beautiful Alp-view shoreline and the Chateau Chillon.

Throughout the week, artists such as B.B. King, Ziggy Marley, Carlos Santana, Natalie Cole, Jimmy Cliff, Seal, Quincy Jones, Paul Simon, House of Pain, Liza Minnelli, and everyone’s favorite Ricky Martin were playing in the different venues set up on the lakeshore. With us going the first Saturday, all the shows were sold out, but nonetheless, we decided to go check it out. Also, we heard there was a Jazz Train and Latin Music boat that could be cool options if we wanted a different pace from the land part of the festival.

We set out upon our day and had a little bit of a hiccup as it was the International Gay Pride Festival and they had started to close off the Geneva streets close to the train station. We finally decided to jump out and walk the last part. Here, Gabe is doing a victory cheer for beating the bus (bus in the distance)

After an hour train ride, we arrived and were immediately greeted by great music, beautiful art and our favorite find….reasonably priced AWESOME food. We are used to paying ridiculous prices for average food back home in Geneva. We prioritized and immediately split up to go get some eats and meet back at a table. This one kind of had a nice view.

The jazz train and salsa boat (above, bottom left) did look like fun, but we ended up just hanging out in the park watching the free jazz and wandering along the coastline to all the cool vendors.

We found the experience to be really cool, even without checking out one of the shows. We calculated that we can buy train tickets to Montreux, eat delicious festival fare and it will still cost less than an average low-budget meal in Geneva. Based on that, we may try to go back before it ends in 2 weeks. Maybe even to a real show this time!

 

A fantastic 4th of July with Henry Birmingham

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Post by Lauren

Sorry for the tardiness of this post, but Gabe and I have been trying to recuperate from the weekend and it has taken us some extra time to get back in the swing of things, due to its epic proportions.

As most have caught on, we give our friends abbreviated names often times to protect their privacy. So, instead of a simple abbreviation, our fun-loving guest chose his alternate name as Henry Birmingham. It is a combination of the street he grew up on and his first pet or middle name. Some of you are catching on….

Anyhow, Henry was in Europe for work and we were quite excited when he announced he was coming to see us at the end of his trip for the 4th of July. We had so much fun, we have dedicated this post to…..

Top 10 reasons why we love to travel with Henry Birmingham

#10 – The flower clock reads 3:30 on Friday July 2. Gabe would normally be at work at this time but motivated by his buddy being in town, he took off and we were able to have an incredible Friday afternoon spent exploring Geneva and lake-bar-hopping. Awesome!

#9 – He is always up for Donor Kebabs and trying new beers!! Exactly what Gabe likes to do best so I am glad he had someone to do it with wholeheartedly!

#8 – Ingenuity – I mean, who else can create a cup-holder so resourcefully in a country known for no cup-holders in cars!?

#7 – His appreciation for art – he got some amazing shots at Jazz Festival

# 6 – Love of adventure. I mean, this guy just had knee surgery like 3 weeks ago and he scaled the wall for this photo. However, along this same theme, I may need to deduct some “awesomeness” points in this category as his encouragement of a third bottle of wine on the train may have given the author a headache the next day and prevented the timely posting of this entry.

# 5 – It would have been anticlimactic if Gabe and I saw T’s doppleganger by ourselves

#4 – We haven’t made late night food in a long time. Thanks for re-igniting the magic.

# 4 – We couldn’t have justified ordering both raclette-for-two AND fondue if there weren’t three mouths to feed.

# 3 – We finally have photos of both Gabe and I in Switzerland, not just one of us taken by the other one. Thanks for all the incredible shots 🙂

# 2 – His interest in snow & ski led us to pick this 2nd day trip to Chamonix / Mt. Blanc which is only 45 minutes from our house. Keep in mind folks, this is June. Outrageous!

# 1 – It was just awesome to see a great friend and have the luxury of spending a nice weekend catching up and making new memories. Thanks for coming — we had a blast !!