Checkers Game

After arriving in Geneva we stumbled upon a large park in the middle of the old town/university area. Even on a cold Sunday evening, it was bustling with couples, joggers, families, ice skaters, and tourists.

At the far corner of the park we were delighted to find a dozen or so large chess boards with knee-high figures. The boards were full of people playing and strategizing. Since we didn't have a lot of time before the light went, we opted for a games of checkers.

Matt realizing he's sunk...

Me with my winning kings

It was a lovely end to a lovely weekend...

Montreux

On the way from Gryon to Geneva we hopped out of the train in Montreux to visit a castle and see more of the Swiss Riviera. Montreux is a beautiful lake-side resort town full of beautiful buildings, green parks, and - apparently - artists and musicians.


We started our visit by walking the 3km lake-side path to the Chateau de Chillon. The path was flanked on both sides by trees, flowers beds, greenery, and trolls. Yes, that's right - trolls. Every hundred meters or so a scene of trolls was played out in colorful topiaries. We are not sure why they were the mascots of the path, but they were a fun addition to the walk. Also along the way, we past the Casino de Montreux (which burned down in 1971 and inspired Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water), a statue of Freddie Mercury, and the vineyard that supplies the grapes to the castel winery.
The Chateau, or castle, at the end of the walk was our first look at a real medieval castle. The whole castle was open to visit and we wandered through cellars, prisons, bedrooms, dining halls, lookout towers, and interior couryards.


After our tour, we hopped on the tram back to town and visited the artists and musicians garden outside the building that holds the annual jazz festival. We were greeted with statues of B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald, and Ray Charles, just to name a few.

Then it was back to Geneva to discover more of the old town. To see the rest of the pictures from Montreux, including more trolls, click here.

Food

Matt and I are the category of traveler Rick Steves would refer to as "tightwads". We walk the kilometer and a half to train station to avoid the €1 tram ticket. We drink whatever is cheapest on the menu - be it beer, water, soda, or something we can't translate. We attend church in cathedrals that charge entrance fees just to get in free.

Imagine my near heart attack when I discovered that a club sandwich cost 26 francs in Switzerland - and that didn't include chips and drink. And we aren't talking room service at a swanky hotel. My blood pressure only went down when I remembered we had kitchens at both of the hostels we were staying at during the weekend.

Picnic and cook we would, but I still wanted to experience some authentic Swiss cuisine. Matt had been talking about Alpine macaroni since he got back from Zurich last spring, so we knew that had to make the menu sometime during the weekend. As luck would have it, we found Alpine macaroni frozen dinners at the local grocery store. We added a bottle of cheap red Swiss wine and we had ourselves a true Swiss meal.When we shopped for dinner at the Chalet Martin, we were a little bit more adventurous and bought the ingredients to make raclette- a melted cheese dish similar to fondue, except you put the melted cheese on the food instead of dipping food into melted cheese. We had a great time melting the different cheeses (pepper, garlic, and regular) under a special burner and spreading it on bread and broccoli. Mmmm!

Swish, Swish, Splat

From the first mention of possibly moving to Delft for a year, I had some romantic notions about the possibilities of experiences: spending our anniversary in Paris, partying in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, touring the champagne region, ice skating on frozen canals, sleeping in castles, ect. The most fanciful of these notions, however, might just be the thoughts of skiing in the Alps - a la James Bond in For Your Eyes Only.

When I saw a flier for the Chalet Martin and their incredible weekend ski deals at our hostel in Bruges, I just knew we had to go. Forget that Matt has never been on skis and I have some coordination and balance issues, we were going skiing. Fortunately the mountain ski area was classified as a beginner/intermediate resort - but it was STILL the Alps.

Despite a snowy, foggy outlook for the following day, we suited up in ski gear on Friday night and got a few pointers from the hostel staff - wear goggles, don't brace yourself with your hands when you fall, and better to pop out a ski then pop out a knee. We were ready to go.

As soon as I stepped off the cable car and into my skis, I remembered why I don't go skiing more often. I have control issues. I like to be in control. At all times. And when flying down a mountain I do not feel like I am in control.

Trying to regain all the things I knew about skiing, we started on the bunny hill for a few runs. As I skied down the only slightly past horizontal slope with my skis in a rigid, wide inverted V, I realized kids who were not old enough to speak in complete sentences were whizzing past with an astonishing amount of speed, grace, and control. But then I looked down the hill and saw it took Matt on his snowboard 6 tries to successfully get on the button lift to return to the top of the hill and I felt a little better.

After a few trips down the bunny hill, we were ready to brave a beginner run - now mind you, this was not a short run and nor, by the time I got to the bottom of it, did I think it was a beginner run. And the forecast for fog was right on - there is nothing like getting to a hill and not being able to see the bottom of it. I think it took me twenty minutes to get down that hill and only took the 10 year-old behind me twenty seconds.Fortunately the "freshies" were thick enough to cushion the falls, even though "don't brace yourself with your hands" was quickly forgotten every time gravity took us to the ground. We got better as the day wore on; I spent more time going down and less time going sideways and Matt spent more time upright and less time on his butt. We never graduated from the beginner runs - maybe next time - but we did manage to conquer quite a few runs and the art of getting off a chair lift without falling down immediately.

Train Travel

We happily left our cars in South Carolina and came across the pond with no intentions of driving a motorized vehicle for a year. It has been wonderful. As much as I love Inge, I love train travel even more.

Train travel - even through flat countryside, in the rain, with no view - is far better than car travel any day. Unlike car travel, which requires maintenance, cleaning, map printing, and gas pumping, train travel is "get-up and go". More importantly, no driver is required and everyone can pass the time as they wish.



































Now add the scenery on a train ride through the Swiss Alps, and you feel like the train ride is the purpose of your vacation. We rode the train from Geneva to Gryon on our second day in Switzerland. The view out the windows on every side was spectacular the entire journey.

Looking out the left of the train, we saw the landscape was dotted with small cottages, old churches and farm buildings built up the side of the Alps. In between the land was covered with vineyards. Every once and a while you pass through another small town built on the Swiss Riviera on Lake Geneva - picture perfect buildings in lakeside resorts. The buildings became scarcer the higher up in the Alps we looked until it was nothing but a snow-covered peak with a Chalet on the top of a mountain.

When you get bored of the Swiss Alps, you can simply look right at Lake Geneva and the French Alps. The clear, blue water of the lake sparkled right up to the mountains with little towns dotted along the shores.
After we changed trains in Bex to go up the mountain to Gryon, the landscape slowly became covered in snow. The towns along the way were the ski villages that could be featured on any alpine post card to draw in skiers and tourists. Imagine small cottages with snow covered roofs and smoke flowing out of the chimneys.

We arrived in Gryon only to be presented with more snow covered beauty....

Cheese and Chocolate

Switzerland is famous for two of our favorite things: cheese and chocolate. That fact alone guaranteed that our weekend in the of land neutrality would be wonderful. We arrived in the city of Geneva and headed to our hostel to drop off our bags. When we checked in, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that Geneva gives all its hotel and hostel guests free transportation within the city. What a deal!

We then hopped onto the tram and headed out to Botanical Gardens for a picnic lunch. The gardens (and conservatories) were free to the public. Even in the dead of winter and the middle of the work day, they were quite full of people. It seemed to be a popular running spot for locals. After enjoying our lunch in the warm tropical conservatory, we perused the gardens and noticed there was even a deer reserve in the gardens. I imagine this would be the perfect place to spend a warm spring afternoon when the flowers will be in full bloom.

Our next stop was the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum. The permanent exhibit explained the founding, history, and role of the organization. While I believe the museum was cutting edge at one point, the 10 projectors needed to show a single 8-minute slide show seems a little out of date. I wonder what the return on investment would be to pay someone to create a movie with the slides verses the cost of running so many projectors. However, features like the large transparent, layered photographs of wars and natural disasters were visually compelling. One of the rooms contains all of the POW cards from WWI and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Also on display was the Nobel Peace Prize that Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, was awarded in 1901. Dunant was the first recipient of the prize. The International Committee of the Red Cross has gone on to win 3 more Nobel Peace Prizes during the last century.

The highlight of the museum was actually the temporary exhibit Walls Between People. It was a look at 8 different walls that have been built to separate people. The photographs of the walls showed how people were separated, lives disrupted, and other effects of the wall. It was interesting to see the world/humanitarian view of the wall between Mexico and the US and how it wasn't depicted that much differently from the barbed wire enclaves of Spain in Morocco or the barbed wire line between Pakistan and India.

Our last stop for the day was the United Nations' Palace of the Nations - quite possibly the least inviting tour ever. Nowhere was their a tour schedule; water damaged directional signs pointed into locked doors and the one open door lead to workers sitting at their desks beneath signs that completely mislabeled their function. After the security check, badge issuing, and payment, we were directed to an obscure door #39 "past the parking lot and to the left." To our amazement, there were actually a lot of people behind the door, and we joined them for what was actually a pretty good tour.

The tour took us through the "old" and "new" buildings, a few conference rooms, temporary exhibits and past gifts from around the world. It was similar to the Peace Palace in The Hague, in that every part of the building was built with materials from around the world and decorated with gifts from visiting dignitaries.

As the sun set, we strolled along through the parks that follow the shoreline of Lake Geneva. The view of the lake and mountains was positively breathtaking.

The rest of the day's picture are on our Flickr site.