On to Switzerland! Days 1 & 2

Eleven of us embarked early on the morning of St. Patrick's Day from Bernardi for Fiumicino Airport, bound for Geneva, Switzerland.  Even though I was excited to finally be going to another country, I was more than a little tired, having gotten up at 5:20 am and taken a cab at 6.  We took an easyJet flight at 8:45 and landed by 9:50.  Luckily, I was able to buy at chocolate cornetto and Coke for breakfast (healthy, I know) in the airport before we left Rome.  Anyway, about half of us (the others would catch up later) left Geneva on a train for Montreux, via Lausanne at 11:30, and by the time we got there, it was cold and rainy.

Horse racing game in the casino.

Now, going to Switzerland was my big idea, and I hyped it up a lot, so needless to say it did not start off on the right foot, and I was worried people would have been more than a little peeved if that had been the weather the entire time.  Also, Switzerland, which, despite being on the Swiss Franc (exchange was $1 to CHF 1.085 ), was pretty dang expensive.  Restaurants were all pricey, selling even pizzas or pasta for over CHF 20.  Luckily, we were able to find a relatively nice place that sold pizzas, falafel, and other things for a semi-reasonable price, and I had, of all things, a Hawaiian pizza.  Afterward, we made our way to the local casino.  The guy we asked seemed confused when Nolan said "casino" with the 'i' emphasized.  Apparently, the 'o' is emphasized or the locals will just look oddly at you (by they way, they were all French speakers in Montreux).  Actually, pretty much everyone in Montreux was exceedingly nice, especially the hostel owners, a married couple who had lived in Montreux for awhile. We tried to wait out the rain by spending a couple hours in the casino, which was really clean and relatively small, but was a much better atmosphere than Mistake Lake.  One of the coolest things was that there was horse racing game, with mechanical horses and jockeys making one loop around the track.  It's about 12 feet long or so, and was made by Sega in 2001.  So, Nolan and I split our time between this and blackjack, while the girls either looked on at the horse racing game, or went to the second level for hot chocolate or coffee or something.

The sun sets on our first day in Montreux.

The rain subsided enough, and we left to look for our hostel, which was right on Lake Geneva, and wandered for awhile before finding it.  The couple who ran it were able to direct us to all the local sites of interest, and are huge Queen fans (always a big plus in my book), since Queen had a studio there for awhile.  After a long day of wandering around, we went to the White Horse for dinner, which wasn't bad at all. The restaurant proprietor/waiter visited with us and was extremely entertaining, and even realized that he was spending so much time talking with us that he wasn't going to get our order in if he didn't leave.  The only problem was that one crepe cost me CHF 8.50, and it wasn't exactly the most filling crepe I've had either.

Freddie Mercury statue in main square.

The next day was, after an early morning of overcast weather, really sunny and warm, a great contrast to the miserable weather we had the previous day.  Although, here I'll back up and take that back slightly, because right before the sun set, the sun peeked out behind the clouds and illuminated Montreux, Lake Geneva, and the mountains in a really beautiful way.  A side note about the breakfast (which aside from lunch and dinner is my favorite meal), is that it was really meager, consisting of Smacks, some other cereals, bread, meat, cheese, and juice.  The only thing is that there was a sign that said that sandwiches were CHF 3, and we weren't really willing to spend that.  It wasn't until the last day that we discovered that that meant carry-out sandwiches, so we missed out the first couple days. Oh well, c'est la vie.  I went out a little earlier than the others and made my pilgrimage to the Freddie Mercury Statue, which was about a 15 minute walk away.

Later that day, we went to Chateau de Chillon, which had a lot of neat history, and was a really cool castle, built in several stages.  The whole complex is pretty big, and once held Francois de Bonivard prisoner, who inspired Lord Byron's The Prisoner of Chillon.  It was impregnable, and was home to the Counts of Savoy for a time.  A funny note is that one of the times that it did change hands, the lords of the castle sneaked out a back escape door that opened onto the lake, took a boat, and got away before the enemy even got through the gate.  There were many large dining halls (one of which can still be rented for parties), bedroom chambers with worn away frescoes, an armory, prison, heavily fortified keep, three courtyards and even a chapel with a private entrance for the lord of the castle.  Here's a link to the pics from the castle: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150120629701956.294470.507151955&l=5f52643887

Late in the day; view from Glion.

I really enjoyed the history and architecture of the castle, so I spent a good three hours--at least--just wandering around, and getting lost in what it must have been like to see it back in its day, with the fires roaring and tables full of food, fresh from being cooked over the fire.  And even as I walked up the keep, seeing different swords, guns, halberds, pikes, and poleaxes, and looking down on the various defenses, I was able to envision a siege, looking to seal the impending doom of those inside...I know that was probably more thinking out loud than you cared to hear, but hey, I guess that's the history side of me.

Afterward, we took advantage of the great weather and went up the side of the mountain on a steep-sloped tram 600m up to Glion.  From their we were able to see beautiful views of the mountains in the distance, the sun high in the clear sky, the crisp, blue lake, and other surrounding views.  Up there we first stopped in a church, which was one of only two Catholic churches we found in Switzerland.  I'm sure that there a bunch more, but in this particular part we couldn't find many (that or they had been converted into Protestant churches).  Anyway, we hiked around for an hour or so, in search of a waterfall that we never found, but we wandered down a private path and eventually found the owners, who kindly showed us the way to a public path a little ways through their property and down the mountain.  We eventually sat down along the trail on a part that had a good view of the lake, mountains, and falling sun, as well as a natural sloping ledge, so we could just dangle our feet and relax.  The only unfortunate thing was that this happened to be during the time that I had about 3 or 4 canker sores, which occurred in one part or another in my mouth for about three to four straight weeks.  Other than that, however, it was really pleasant--warm, sunny, great company, and awesome scenery.  After about twenty minutes or so, we walked back to Glion, laid down on a grassy patch, and prayed a rosary as we watched the sun set behind the clouds (although we were hoping to see it set beyond the lake).  Afterward, we took the tram back down the mountainside, then hit the casino later on for a little blackjack, capping the night off with a little fun.