We had more visitors! Last weekend Melissa’s grandparents, Stan and Dorothy Painter, as well as two of her aunts, Jean Klose and Jodi Windschitl, swung through Switzerland as part of a big 14 day European vacation that would also take them to Rome and Munich. In their short time with us, we hurriedly tried to show them as much of Switzerland as we could: from mountains, to lakes, to medieval towns, to the fine cuisine of Swiss chocolates, and wines.
Our four guests were scheduled to arrive in Geneva by plane at 11:10 a.m., on Friday the 13th. I try not to be a superstitious person, but they did run into some trouble in Paris, missing their connecting flight, which confirmed the day’s unluckiness. It wasn’t a big deal though, because they were able to get on the next flight into Geneva arriving around 2 p.m. It was a rainy day here in Switzerland, and when I met the weary travels at the gate hauling all their cumbersome luggage, they made the decision to go straight to the apartment instead of sightseeing in Geneva. They had all purchased Eurail train passes, so after getting them validated at the ticket office in the airport, it was a snap to find our way by train back to the apartment.
Back at the apartment everyone got settled in, and we talked and ate some snacks until Melissa came home from work. Melissa made a pasta dish, and helped me to keep everyone awake so that they could get on the European sleep schedule. When bedtime came, Jeanie changed her mind about sleeping in the same room as Stan and Dorothy and she just had to try the same adventure sleeping her sister Janell had done in December: sleeping on an air mattress in our kitchen. Around 10 p.m. our exhausted guests all passed out to rest up for the next busy day.
On Saturday we ambitiously planned to visit the Cailler chocolate factory, a castle called Chateau Chillon, and finish off the day sipping Swiss wine at a Canton wide tasting event called Caves Ouvertes. Everyone was up bright and early (probably because they still weren’t adjusted to the timezone), so we had plenty of time in the morning to eat croissants, and pack a lunch for the day.
Our first train was at 8 a.m., and I mistakenly told everyone we only needed to leave the apartment 10 minutes before it departed. Our big group was a little slow getting out the door, having to make sure we didn’t forget anything, and then we couldn’t all fit into our tiny Swiss elevator at the same time. By the time we were all outside there were only 5 minutes left to make the train, which meant everyone was able to have the traditional European experience of hurriedly fast walking/jogging to catch a train. Miraculously everyone made it in time, and we decided next time to leave with 20 minutes to spare.
Our route to the chocolate factory had us transfer in Lausanne, then again in Montreux, where the train only comes once an hour. After all the stress to catch our first train, we were annoyed to find our second train running late – right at the perfect amount of lateness that it looked like we’d just barely miss our connection in Montreux. But again we got lucky and made the connection with just seconds to spare.
The train from Montreux into the canton of Freiburg (where the chocolate factory is) was very scenic. Everyone could finally breathe a sigh of relief about making connections, and just sit back and enjoy the views as we climbed high up into the foothills of the Alps. The day’s weather was cloudy with occasional rain, but it was still clear enough to see across the lake, and the clouds obscuring the tops of the Alps just served to make them look taller.
At the chocolate factory our four guests took the tour, while Melissa and I waited outside, having been on the tour enough ourselves that the corny animatronics were starting to lose their charm. After everyone finished the tour, we had a picnic lunch, then we boarded a train back to Montreux.
On the way back our bad luck with trains finally caught up with us when the train from the chocolate factory, for some unknown reason, stopped and stayed stopped for 10 minutes. It proved to be just enough time that we missed our connection in the town of Montbovon and had 45 minutes to kill. Montbovon wasn’t a terrible town to be stuck in, there was a nice church to visit, and it’s situated in a pastoral Alpine valley, surrounded by snow capped mountains.
When we eventually made it back to Montreux we decided that the lost time had cost us seeing the castle, but we resolved to visit it first thing the next morning. It was around 3:30 p.m., and we moved on to the last thing on our day’s itinerary: wine tasting. Just like the canton of Valais had done the week before, the canton of Vaud was holding a wine tasting event called Caves Ouvertes. For 20 francs you could buy a glass and sample as many wines as you like, at various little villages spread throughout the wine region.
Our first stop was in the town of St. Saphorin, which is right on Lake Geneva in the heart of the wine growing region called Lavaux. St. Saphorin is a very small town with just a few medieval houses on narrow cobblestone streets surrounding an equally old church. Even though it’s a small town, we still had to ask directions to find the tastings, which were located up a hill from the train station. Just three wine makers were set up in the town square under tents that became crowded whenever the weather turned drizzly. Still it was a fun atmosphere, with live music, and all the wine aficionados, including us, boisterously enjoying themselves more and more with each glass.
By 4:45 p.m. we had all tried most of the wines offered, and thought we would have just enough time to check out another town because the tastings were supposed to close at 6 p.m. There was supposed to be a little shuttle to take wine drinkers from town to town, but we waited… and waited… at the stop without it showing up. By 5:20 p.m. we gave up on it, and also realized we had missed the train. So we decided to just go back up the hill to St. Saphorin’s tasting again. The people pouring the wine didn’t seem to care that we needed multiple samples, and Jodi even ended up buying a bottle.
We stayed a little past 6 p.m. sipping on wine in St. Saphorin, then caught a crowded train back to the apartment where we ate charcuterie for dinner and rested up for our next busy day.
Melissa and I were the slowest ones to get out of bed on Sunday, but everyone else seemed ready to go right away. Jodi graciously took care of breakfast, making some eggs, then we all headed out the door with time to spare for an 8:30 a.m. train. Our plans were to first see the castle we missed on Saturday, then head to Lucerne, Switzerland for sightseeing.
We arrived at the castle, Chateau Chillon, just a few minutes after 9 a.m. when it opened for the day. Even though Melissa and I had already seen the castle, we couldn’t say no to going again when Jodi and Jean offered to pay our way in. Inside we all stayed together to twist and turn our way through the self guided tour with 46 numbered places to see. The highlights to me were the dungeons, and the highest point on the castle tower where you get a nice view of the lake. No one knows exactly how old the castle is, the first written record is in 1150 AD, but walking through I know for a fact the builders were much shorter than me.
Our castle tour took about an hour and half, then we loaded back up onto a train and rode all the way to Lucerne. The ride from Montreux to Lucerne takes a little over 2 hours, so when we stepped off our train it was just about lunch time. We grabbed a quick, on-the-go lunch of sandwiches, then walked to the shore of Lake Lucerne. We had decided that our sight-seeing would begin with a cruise aboard one of the large public transit boats that traverses the lake.
We picked the shortest route we could, a round trip to the town of Weggis and back, that was scheduled to take an hour and a half. Traveling on an Alpine lake is a quintessential Swiss experience. The pure blue glacial waters, and the snow capped mountains shooting up abruptly from the coasts make for a scene not common anywhere else in the world.
As we were chugging along, we got to talking and came up with an alternative plan once we reached Weggis. We saw that there was a cable car near the port, so we made a quick change of plans and decided to ascend to the top of the mountain (Mount Rigi) and to catch a latter boat back to Lucerne. Little did we know that the cable car looked much closer on the map; it turned out to be about half a mile from the port… all up hill. We made it, eventually. There was no wait to get on the car, and soon we were off riding up the mountain. We had stunning, unobstructed views from the car, and it was a bit thrilling to feel the car sway back and forth occasionally, giving some of the people a bit of a jolt.
It turned out the cable car only brought us up half way to the top of the mountain and that there was a train that would go the rest of the way. We had about 45 minutes to wait until the train came, so we waited, talked, and enjoyed at the views.
The train was the kind that runs on a cog, similar to a roller coaster, and went up very steeply. The steep mountainside was dotted with houses that looked anything but level, much like what you would see on the hills of Duluth or San Francisco. Though our ride was only 20 minutes long, by the end of it we started to come across snow.
Despite the clouds and small flurries of snow at the top, there were still occasionally some decent views. The next train down the hill would leave in 13 minutes, and we decided, as we shivered in the cold, that that was long enough. Before we made our descent, Jodi wanted to cool down a couple of beers she had stowed away. She was able to shove them in a small snow pile for a few minutes until another train came up and whistled her out of the way.
We were able to take the train all the way down to the lake – no cable car necessary this time – and within minutes we boarded the boat back to Lucerne. Melissa and I made a sprint to the grocery store to grab some sandwhiches for everyone, and by 8 p.m. we were on our way back to the apartment. We managed to drag ourselves into the apartment by 10:30 p.m., after which we all collapsed in bed.
On Monday we took the morning nice and slow. We all sat around the table enjoying coffee and croissants for breakfast chatting about the remainder of their vacation plans. They got on a train at 9:30 a.m. heading to Lugano, Switzerland, where they would watch Melissa’s cousin Anthony play a basketball game for Saint John’s. This last week, while Melissa and I stayed in Switzerland Jean, Jodi, Dorothy and Stan roamed about Rome. However, this weekend Melissa and I meeting up with them again to celebrate our German roots with some beer and schnitzel in Munich.
