July 3rd to 8th
Geneva
Leaving Lyon was a mini-disaster, as it was raining pretty hard when we got on the tram to the train station. Besides the rain, everything looked okay as we had timed it nearly perfect and the tram would drop us off directly in the station, so no worries about the rain. Except that there was a fire in a building by the tram tracks, so they stopped the tram and forced everyone to unload. By this point, we could see the station about a mile ahead, but it was still pouring rain and we didn't have much time. So we slipped on the backpacks and did a run-walk the last mile in the rain and made the train by 2 minutes.
When we arrived in Geneva, it was still pouring down rain. We booked a supposedly nice hotel close to the train station, so we once again trudged off into the rain. I was trying to keep my pack dry, so had my rainjacket hiked up halfway ended up looking hilarious. Naturally we passed under the perfect sign.
After checking into our hotel, which is located squarely in the red light district and crawling with ladies of the night and other disreputes (even during the day - yikes), we met up with Kim and Harley. Kim went to b-school with Whitney and now she and Harley live in DC. We had drinks at the ridiculous Leopard Lounge (leopard skin molding on the ceiling, videos of leopards hunting and mating showing over the lit fireplace -- very manly) in the cellar of a hotel on the lake and then ate a great meal at La Boeuf Rouge - which translates as Red Bull.
For July 4th, we went out on the boat with Harley's dad Brunson (great names right?) and their good friends the Petit family. Lake Geneva is beautiful and the water was warm enough to swim which was great. They brought out two boats, a classic wooden Chris Craft and a sailboat, each spectacular. Here is a picture of Brunson and Mrs. Petit relaxing on the bow of the Chris Craft.
These people know how to live. On the boat, there was an amazing spread of meats and cheeses, wine and beer, pretty much everything you could hope for. Oh, and who am I kidding. Us visitors were living pretty well too.
It was pretty amazing to be swimming off the back of this incredible boat in a Lake in the Swiss Alps with Mont Blanc in the distance. You can see Mont Blanc to the left of Whitney.
You can also see the sailboat in the background of this picture. Harley and his dad took the sailboat in, but even though Harley was in the Navy, he apparently doesn't know how to sail, because he decided to use the motor instead.
Oh Harley. What a shame.
When we got back, I helped out by taking pictures of the people putting the boats away.
Very helpful Matt.
Here is the whole crew minus the Chamberlains, with Harley and Kim on the left, then the Petits and finally Brunson on the right. Their two boats are behind them.
We also got a short tour of the Embassy Row part of town, where the United Nations complex is located and all of the international agencies that call Geneva home. These are all located a bit outside of downtown Geneva on an expansive and beautiful campus of sorts. Mrs. Petit was nice enough to give us a driving tour, but unfortunately we weren't able to snap off any photos worth showing.
Geneva is a very beautiful town, with the Jet D'Eau (a huge jet of water that shoots out of the harbor a few hundred feet into the air) and the Cathedral St Pierre (beautiful church built in 13th century where Calvin preached for 40 years - the chapel is the second most beautiful we've seen after the Sainte Chapelle in Paris - unfortunately no pics because we saw it after our run) framing the skyline.
The city also seems to be teeming with young people from all over the world. Most of the sites and most of the young people are congregated on the south side of the Lake around the old town. We went to dinner there our second night and ate Flammekuchen (some sort of pizza-like flatbread) and beers at a brewery located on a cool square with hundreds of tiny litup tiles on the ground.
Each said something welcoming like "Welcome", "Guten Tag", etc. in a number of different languages - it was really neat.
The north side of the lake has the train station, a few ritzy hotels by the water and then the red light district. The red light district is pretty awful and would appear to rival Amsterdam in terms of prostitution. Amazing that this exists in the same city as the headquarters for the myriad international public service organizations located here. Here's another funny example of the hypocrisy here. Check out this picture below.
The beers are shielded from view by a black plastic shade, much like we do with dirty mags in the US -- but just two blocks away, prostitutes are standing around outside without any similar coverage. Anyway, if you can look past the hypocrisy or, even better, if you can avoid the red light district entirely, I think you'll love Geneva. We did.
For the rest of the Geneva pics, click here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mchamberlain22/GenevaSwitzerland
Next stop Interlaken, or so we thought.
Golden Pass Train & Montreux
On the way from Geneva to Interlaken we stopped for an hour in Montreux to check out the town and switch to the Golden Pass scenic train. Montreux is a beautiful city located on Lake Geneva about 45 minutes from Geneva itself that is know for its jazz fest.
In addition to the natural scenery, the Hotel Grand Suisse and the adjacent park were also impressive.
After a few short minutes in Montreux, we jumped back on the train for the Golden Pass trip to Interlaken.
It was a beautiful trip and we would highly suggest going out of your way to trake these great view trains. They have much bigger windows and they are really quite amazing.
And Charles at GS would be happy to note that even if there is not any on 11, there is still alot of wood to chop in Switzerland...
As we were arriving in Interlaken, we took one last look at all of our info and decided to abort plans. Instead of getting a room in Interlaken, we took another short train, a gondola and then another short train to one of the coolest places we've ever seen...
Murren
Nearly 2 miles above sea level, Murren is a mountain paradise. We couldn't stop taking pictures as everywhere we went seemed picture-worthy.
We were able to find a great hotel with a balcony overlooking the mountains and the town.
Murren was kind of a Rick Steves suggestion, but the place he really wanted us to go to was Gimmelwald which was a 45 minute hike from Murren. Here is a picture from the hike.
Neither city is accessible by car so they are actually fairly similar, but Gimmelwald seems quite a bit more remote. There are only two restaurants in Gimmelwald, so our options were pretty limited. We decided against pizza at the hostel and instead opted for more traditional Swedish fare (and beverages).
Talk about an amazing view from our seats, eh? That is not a doctored picture - it's real. Seriously. It was like this everywhere in both Gimmelwald and Murren. Really cool also that there were no cars in either town, so you get an authentic feeling of seclusion. They are probably both amazing in winter too. Here's a photo of Murren from above.
So the next day in Murren, we decided to go for a long hike before the weather got bad in the afternoon. Besides the stunning beauty of the mountains, the pastoral beauty of the green hills was equally breath-taking. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but the wild flowers on nearly every inch of our hike were amazing. I also pulled off a pretty awkward pose, but whatever...
As it turns out, the weather in the mountains here changes within minutes, so our smart plan to go out before the weather got bad didn't go so well. Within an hour (too far to turn back), we were getting soaked.
And this was not simply gentle rain, it was literally pouring on us. The views were so amazing though, that it didn't really dampen our spirits.
The weather even cleared up a bit after a few hours (by the way, that is our bag under my raincoat - I hadn't yet developed a 12pack sized beer belly, despite our frequent drink stops in Europe).
Our hike continued to take us past some amazing greenery and scenery...
...but after the weather came up again out of nowhere, we came across the bells, oh Lord, the bells...
And here, bells mean cows. Poor fellas must go insane. Every time they turn their head an inch, the bells, the bells. Alot of these dudes wouldn't get out of the road for you either. They'd just stand there and dare you to pass (we found out later, if you simply clap your hands they will scurry off, but a few looked ready to charge). These three were reading the trail map plaque getting a little background on the mountains. It was pretty hilarious.
While we are on the topic of hilarious, we should cover the most hilarious and awe-inspiring moment of the trip. After 3 hours of hiking, we finally came across an inn that had a small restaurant and bar. We each had one drink and headed back out to finish off our hike. Unbeknownst to us, this one drink would affect each of our judgment enough to allow for this most awesome of moments. We walk around the bend and see an enormous slide that is soaking wet from the rain and Whitney says "Hey, should I go on that slide with my raincoat on?", implying that because she has the raincoat, she'll go really fast. I understood what she meant and said "Absolutely".
Well she instantly got going so fast that she had no hope of slowing down and by the second turn was approaching the speed of sound. I was standing at the bottom to help her up when she got to the bottom, but it was apparent to me that there was no way she was going to stop there, so I dove out of the way. At the bottom of the slide there was about a 6 foot sand box to catch you, then about 6 feet of concrete beyond that. Well with the angle of the slide and the speed she achieved, she flew easily over this 12 foot expanse and about 10 more feet of muddy grass then hit the slope still going incredibly fast. I thought she might go all the way down the mountain but she finally stopped about 50 feet from the end of the slide, soaking wet, which you can see in the picture above (she is standing where she stopped - absolutely serious). If I had taped it, it would be a YouTube classic and we'd have won $25,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos.
That was essentially Murren - unbelievable scenery and unpredictable weather. We would have stayed for a week, but the weather report was more of the same, so we followed our initial plan and left after 3 days for Zurich. Along the way, however, was another scenic rail road trip - the continuation of the Golden Pass trail.
For all the Murren photos, click here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mchamberlain22/MurrenSwitzerland
Golden Pass - Luzern
To get to our next destination, Zurich, we hopped back on the Golden Pass train, which was still amazingly beautiful.
We were able to orchestrate the trip so that we had a short 90 minute stop in Luzern, so we tossed our bags in a locker at the train station and headed out to explore the city. This was our first use of the lockers in the train stations, so we felt pretty cool, like real backpackers.
It was actually real easy and made our short time in Luzern much more enjoyable. Luzern is very underrated. It is a gorgeous city with seemingly alot to offer. It is also very picturesque (like all of Switzerland).
We only had a short time, so we tried to orient ourselves as quickly as possible. Two things stand out about Luzern: 1) the river and the cool covered bridges that span it and 2) the architecture. The covered bridges here are hundreds of years old and have original murals within from the 17th century. They are sweet.
The cool thing about the buildings here is that not only do they have very ornamental architecture, but the facades of nearly every building are decorated with murals.
We've been all over Europe and this is really the only example we've seen of this. Sure there are a few buildings here and there in a number of German, Dutch and Swiss cities, but this was nearly the entire city. It was very cool.
We walked all around including up to its medieval ramparts that still surround the city, then grabbed lunch by the river and hopped back on the train. All in all, this was an awesome little city and a great stop. If you are passing through, hop off the train and pack your bags, so you can spend some time here. Definitely worth it.
For more pics of the train ride and Luzern, click here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mchamberlain22/GoldenPassLuzern
Zurich
Zurich also did not disappoint -- a city perched on the edge of a lake, surrounded by mountains, with a river running through the center.
Like the rest of Switzerland, awesome.
So one thing to note about Switzerland again, is how expensive it is. The dollar used to trade against the Swiss Franc 1 to 2, so basically take the price in Swiss Francs and divide by 2. That would generally make sense and everything would be priced correctly today, except that now the exchange rate is essentially 1 to 1, so everything now is priced double what seems reasonable. A simple gyro (meat type substance sliced on pita) cost between 12 and 16 SF, which if converted to $6 to $8 is already pretty steep, but thinking of it as $12 to $16 is absurd.
In any case, since you are paying alot for everything, you think more about what you want. And when we came across Mexican food, we thought it was meant to be.
Turns out that the food was pretty bad and the service was worse, but it did satisfy a little of our craving for Mexican (which we hadn't had in more than a month). We left in relatively high spirits anyway, and cruised around the city at night. Like most of the European cities, everything was lit up really cool.
In the center of the picture is the largest clock face in all of Europe. The church itself is cool too, as we found out the next day.
We also checked out the Grossmunster church, with its unique double domed turrets.
Looks like I was surprised by this picture or punched in the face immediately beforehand, but I swear we were having fun. We did however come across the most evil teddy bear either one of us had ever seen.
We walked all around town and checked out the Bahnhofstrasse, which features prominently in the first Bourne movie and in a book titled Numbered Account. It's really cool, with seemingly thousands of trams zipping every direction. It's also very beautiful as it is treelined the entire way and also lined by designer shops and boutiques in between all the banks and law offices.
Zurich is a very cool city, especially with the prominence of the banking industry there. It is absolutely a place that we could see ourselves living, as long as we'd be paid in Francs (and alot of them). The city seemed very diverse and the sheer natural beauty of the city is stunning. The fact that there are great jobs there really rounds it out. We felt very comfortable here and even enjoyed one of our best runs in Europe (Geneva's was also nice) as we were able to run nearly unobstructed for 60 minutes along the bank of the lake. Just a great place.
For more pictures of Zurich, click here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mchamberlain22/ZurichSwitzerland
Well, that's all for Switzerland. It is an amazingly beautiful country, but very expensive and probably a little boring. Definitely one that everyone should check out. Geneva is great, with a DC-like political feel, while Zurich is more the NY of Switzerland with a decidedly financial feel, each with a Lake Tahoe like feel because of the lakes and mountains. Speaking of mountains, the Swiss Alps for sheer beauty have to top all in Colorado, but I can't say for sure. In any case, you should make the determination for yourself.
Next we spend a few days in Munich before heading onto Austria!