Lausanne and Lake Geneva, Switzerland

For the past two days, Phillip and I have been in Lausanne, Switzerland, home of the Olympic headquarters and a beautiful city on Lake Geneva. Yesterday, we walked in the old city, up the hill from our hotel, and today we walked along Lake Geneva and visited the Olympic Museum, down the hill from our hotel. I say hill, but it is actually the side of the mountain. My guidebook described Lausanne as a "vertical city" and that is true... I found that Google maps for Lausanne are 2-D images for a 3-D city.

I took over 350 pictures during the past two days, so I'll just be captioning the pictures to describe our adventures. The Lausanne Cathedral with its stained glass and Lausanne cityscapes were yesterday. Lake Geneva, the Olympic Museum, and the Alps across Lake Geneva were today.

The stairs that were the one block "street" from the train station to our hotel. That's Phillip at the top, doing his Rocky Balboa impersonation.

Google maps told me to turn left here. It thought I was on the street below us.

We were on a sidewalk, not a bridge, when we took this picture.

Statue of William Tell. The story of him shooting the apple off his son's head to save their lives is a Swiss legend. 

Gargoyles on the Lausanne cathedral. I love these things! 

Stained glass of the cathedral. This one represents the consecration of the cathedral in 1275.

The cathedral became a protestant cathedral in 1536, during the Reformation. Most of the glass and artwork is a restoration done in the ealy 1900's, as the protestants covered and removed most of the original artwork. This portion, however, is original.

The cathedral's pipe organ was replaced in 2003 with a new one. These are its 7000 pipes, suspended over the church entry.

Another of the many stained glass windows

The outside of the cathedral had intricate work also

This is another "street" we used, this time downhill to get to our hotel from the old town.

Exit from a Metro station. The top of the station was also planted with greenery. This is a wall of plants.

Ouchy is the port neighborhood of Lausanne on Lake Geneva. We walked almost directly downhill from our hotel to reach this point.

We think this rotates to show wind direction for the many boats in the Ouchy harbor.

One of our many pictures of the Alps as we walked along the paved path that circles this part of Lake Geneva. Lake Geneva is the largest alpine lake in Europe, fed by the Rhone River.

The top of the Alp mountains are visible above the clouds in the distance.

The Olympic Museum is in Lausanne because the Olympic Committee headquarters were moved here from Paris during World War I. 

The Olympics were originally in Greece, starting sometime before 776 BC. Every four years, athletes would compete in Athens, believed to be part of the festivals and cult of Zeus at the time. The games were abolished by the Greek emperor in 393 AD because he thought they spread paganism. They weren't revived until a French baron, Pierre de Coubertin, was able to get them started again in 1896. 

In addition to the Olympic timeline and stories, the museum contained one of all the modern day Olympic torches, arranged in order in a display. 

Rooms of actual uniforms and equipment used by the athletes, labeled with the year, sport, and athlete.

Medals for each year were also on display. The Summer Olympic medals are required to be made a certain way, but no such restrictions are on the Winter Olympic medals, so some of them were unusual and intricate in design.

The museum had three floors and on the final floor, some of the displays were interactive and allowed the guests to test their balance and speed. The museum also displayed many of the posters, created by regular people, that were used for the Olympics. This was my favorite one.

After the Olympic Museum, we continued walking east, taking pictures of the Alps in the distance.

And sometimes, we'd sit and rest. We walked about four miles around Lake Geneva, just a fraction of its 45 mile length. We rode the train back to Lausanne when we'd walked as far as we wanted.

Lots of birds, ducks, and geese. A few people on our walk were feeding them bits of bread.

Frequently, small steams would feed into the lake and these streams would be full of diving ducks.

Phillip on the left. He's watching a dog swimming out after a stick that the lady threw for him. 

My main reason for walking east instead of west along Lake Geneva. These are the Lavaux Vineyard Terraces, a UNESCO World Heritage site. They stretch about 30 km on this side of the lake.  The vineyards trace back to the 11th century when Benedictine and Cistercian monastaries controlled the area. We didn't walk up the mountain to get a closer look, as this was the terminus of our walk. 

Our final picture of the Alps. We could actually see more mountains than when we had started. 

Tomorrow, we leave Lausanne in the morning and travel to Bern to spend the day. We catch a train in the evening from Bern to Basel where we will spend two nights before heading out of Switzerland to Germany on Friday.

Cow shoes and charcuteries

We are in Lausanne, Switzerland, in a hotel with wifi now, so I can catch up on the posts, describing our final day in Paris and our adventures in the area south of St. Etienne, specifically around Le Bessat where Julie's grandmother's chalet is located.

I hadn't downloaded Friday's pictures when I made the last post. We awoke in our hotel in Paris to rain that day; however, it cleared out by about 10:30 am, so we met up with Julie and Alex for a quick visit to the big Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris before our train in the afternoon. The day before, Phillip and I walked to all the sights we visited. This time, Julie guided us on the use of the Paris Metro. For 1.80 euros, you can ride anywhere in the city. The subway cars, we needed to change and use two lines, were moderately crowded, but not sardine-ish crowded. Notre-Dame is a medival cathedral, built in the 11th and 12th centuries. It is the most visited monument in Paris. The round window in the center is one of the cathedral's three Rose Windows, made of stained glass. It was quite crowded, so we did not even try to go inside.

I mentioned Julie's friend Alex. He lives in a suburb of Paris and came in to see Julie and to meet us. He has a master's degree in biology and is applying for a new job now as a clinical researcher. Alex speaks English, not as well as Julie, but well enough to communicate with us. He went with us to the train station later in the day as it was also his station to return home. Every time we came to stairs at the Metro or train station, he smiled and took my suitcase. Nice guy! And it's clear that he and Julie are fond of each other.

Phillip near the B & B

Friday evening, Julie, Phillip and I rode the high speed train to Lyon, then a regional train to St. Etienne. Jacques, Julie's father, met us at the train station and drove us to our bed and breakfast. Julie and Jacques stayed for dinner at the B & B. The owner cooked a delicious dinner of tomato soup to start, then pork chops with eggplant gratin and rice, followed by a cheese plate, then pears poached in spiced red wine for dessert. Phillip isn't a fan of eggplant, but because she called it by its French name, aubergine, he ate it and liked it. He loved the poached pear. Julie and Jacques left after dinner and drove to their chalet. We had a wonderful night's sleep. No cars, no noise, comfortable bed.

Saturday morning, Jacques picked us up and stopped at the nearby village for sausage and groceries for Julie to prepare lunch and dinner at the chalet. This is the picture of the butcher shop we bought sausage from. It shows what a typical French village of this area looks like. Small storefronts, landscaped narrow street, and very clean. I'm calling it a butcher shop, but it is also a charcuterie and the proprietor is a charcutier. Charcutiers make cured sausages. We love the sausages here, especially the ones with the texture of hard salami, but drier, smaller in diameter and better in taste.

Phillip and I have heard stories of Julie's grandmother's chalet for fifteen years, so we were very happy to visit it. Julie's grandmother, Juliette, passed away a few years ago, so the chalet belongs to Jacques. Jacques and Jaja have a home closer to Paris, but they come to the chalet regularly. It looks small, but it actually has four bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a dining room. No TV now, although Juliette had one when she lived here. The inside decorations reminded me of my grandmother's house: decorative plates on the walls, efficient use of space, and the focus on the dining area.

Jaja, Julie's mother, joined us after lunch. She is an artist and had been at an exhibition of her works in Tours. Jacques found a historic farm and reserved a time for us to visit on Saturday afternoon. On our way, he stopped at a viewing location for me to take some pictures. The chalet isn't actually in the French Alps, it's in the moutain range on the north side of the Rhone Valley from the actual Alp range. The mountains in the distance are the Alps, not a cloud bank.

The farmer we visited was famous for keeping the old ways of farming alive. He walked us thru his barns, explaining (in French with Julie and Jacques translating) the implements and equipment we were seeing. Jacques and I were especially excited because his father and my father had used some of this type of equipment: sickle bar mowers, manual corn shellers, and the like. And then we came to the cow shoes..... During World War I, all the farm horses were sent to the front for the soldiers. Most of them did not return, so the farmers turned to their cows to pull their plows and wagons. The land, however, had rocks and the cows' feet needed protection. So, cow shoes.

Each cow hoof needed two of those shoes. The metal bar coming up went between their "toes," and the outside was nailed into the hard part of their foot, the hoof material. It didn't hurt the cows, just like horseshoes don't hurt the horse. So, each cow actually got eight shoes. The farmer, Mr. Morel, had pictures of him shoeing the cows. He also had a supply of cow shoes in different sizes because cow feet may be different sizes.

In addition to his actual farming and the museum, Mr. Morel attends reenactments and renaissance-type festivals with his cows. These two particular cows are movie stars. They were in a French film, pulling a wagon. I didn't catch the name of the film. The harness to pull implements does not go across the cow's chest, but rather around its horns. Two cows walk side-by-side and the tongue of the cart or plow goes between them and attaches to a pole that is attached to the harness around the horns. Mr. Morel didn't rig up the cows to show us, but he did have pictures and showed us the harnesses with the poles. Way different from anything we'd seen!

On Sunday, the five of us, Jaques, Jaja, Julie, Phillip and I, went for lunch at a very traditional restaurant, Auberge de la Jasserie. Jacques parents and even his grandparents had eaten there. The building was also a lodge and in fact, Jacques had learned to ski on the hill next to it. Before lunch, we walked the trail from the parking lot, passing wild blackberry plants. They only grow in this area because of the altitude, soil, and climate. The blueberry jam made from them is absolutely wonderful. Our B & B had it for breakfast. We bought a jar there and another from this restaurant.

The trail, through a farmer's cattle field, took us to another lookout where we could see the Alps. It was quite a hike uphill, much faster going back down the hill (more than a hill, less than a mountain!) Julie runs every morning, Jacques bicycles long distances and teaches skiing in the winter, Jaja is naturally athletic, and Phillip and I, well, we were feeling our age on that climb. But we made it! Because of the clouds on this day, the pictures weren't as clear as my earlier ones, so here's a picture of Jaja and Julie.

And now, I'll just put pictures of our traditional lunch, with captions. We ate at a table outside under the trees, looking out over the valley. Our appertif, a glass of white wine with chestnut essence, is upper right of the first picture.

charcuterie: three types of meat

Phillip and Jacques shared this beef, potatoes, cabbage and quiche plate

Mushrooms (including morels and other "fancy" ones in a cream sauce with quinnelles (French dumplings that taste nothing like Bisquik dumplings! These are made with lots of butter) Jaja, Julie, and I shared this dish.

The cheese plate served after the main course and before dessert

The five of us after lunch. Jacques has pictures of his parents, taken at this very spot, on this very bench, in front of this same wall. 

Paris scenes

Paris sunrise from our hotel room

On Thursday, we spent the entire day, from 10 am to 6 pm, walking around Paris. If we had walked direct routes to the sights we visited, we walked 13 km (about 8 miles), but our walk was not direct, so I think we walked closer to 10 miles. While we are on our adventures, I think about having a step tracker or pedometer. When I'm home, I never remember to load one on my phone, so I only estimate our long walks. Our feet told us this was probably the second longest walk we've taken on our trips, second only to the fortress walk in South Korea (the one where I misread circumference as diameter for the fortress, making that walk 3 times longer than I anticipated).

Julie, who had to work that day, suggested we start with a visit to the Sacre Coeure, a church on a hill near us with views of Paris. It is a basillica in the Montmartre neighborhood and was a nice start to the walk, albeit all uphill from our hotel, with over 300 steps to reach the patio in front of the church.

Our next stop was Moulin Rouge. It isn't just a movie title, but an actual cabaret. It's in a seedier area of Paris, with the nearby businesses being adult toy shops mixed with regular businesses, like dry cleaners and cafes. I guess even cabaret dancers need to have their outfits cleaned and the tourists need to stop for coffee and pastries. Moulin Rouge was not open yet, being a late-night venue, so we joined the other tourists in the street median to get a picture. From this area of Paris, we headed southeast toward the Seine River. Captioned pictures decribe some of the scenes we saw. The passages were covered alleys between the major streets.

typical street view, no buildings over 6 stories

Notre Dame de Lorette (not the big Notre Dame,
there are actually several smaller ones)

entrance to one of the many passages, covered and paved alleys
with shops and cafes

Paris Opera House

main entrance to the Louvre

in the Jadin de Tuileries

one side of the Louvre

kids playing in the Jardin de Tuileries

statue in the Place de la Concorde

statues at a bridge over the Seine River

statue of Lafayette, erected by donations from
USA school children 

Eiffel Tower

public toilet (free)

Arc de Triumph

We had dinner Thursday evening at Julie's apartment and met her friend, Alex. Friday morning, we awoke to rain, so I started this blog post. I stopped to go with Julie, Alex, and Phillip to Notre Dame (the main one), planning to finish the post on the train to Lyon. Unfortunately, the French trains do not have the same strong wifi onboard like on the German trains. Our bed and breakfast has no wifi, so we are using Julie's phone as a hotspot to get this Paris post published. When we get to Lausanne tomorrow night, I should be able to catch up. If not then, probably Monday as rain is expected in Lausanne that day.

Phillip is having a great time! (Of course I am!) He's loving the cheeses and the breads, the scenery, even the walking.

Frankfurt was a good city to start our European travel. Although definitely a business city and commercial hub, it had enough historical sites to get us out of the hotel room and into the sun to walk and become accustomed to the different time zone. Tuesday, we explored Frankfurt by foot all day, strolling again to the Main River, back to the Romerberg, then farther east to a historic Jewish cemetery.

We returned to Romerberg so I could photograph the plaque in the ground that commemorates the Nazi youth-led book burning on the square at that location in 1933. The quote written in German around the plaque reads "When books are burned, in the end, people will also be burned." The words were prophetic when written by Heinrich Heine in 1823. Nazi youth were protesting outside ideas when they had the massive book burning, an event that is considered by some historians as the beginning of the Holocaust.

About a kilometer east of Romerberg was the Old Jewish Cemetery. The earliest burials there date to 1272. As you can imagine, during 1938-1942 it was almost completely destroyed. The cemetery itself was locked, but it is the cemetery wall, built in 1995, that is now the somber reminder of lives lost. This 6' wall totally encloses the city block. Jutting out from the wall are small blocks with the name of a Jewish person killed by the Nazis. If known, a date of death is noted. Many of these have a name, date of birth, and "Auschwitz." If you look closely, you can see pebbles placed on the name blocks. It is a Jewish custom or tradition to place small rocks on tombstones, not flowers.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped for dinner at a small restaurant. Although I found it by a TripAdvisor review, it was a local restaurant (waitress obviously knew the other patrons, no other non-German speaking customers). Our waitress knew a few words of English, but we had no problem pointing to the schnitzel to order. Delicious, with a salad, fried potatoes, and a beer for me. It was a pork cutlet, pounded thin, breaded and fried. I had mine "hunter style" so it came with mushrooms in the gravy. Delicious! It was served quickly after being made, so the coating on the pork was still crispy, the gravy hadn't made it soggy yet.

On Wednesday morning, we left Frankfurt on the high speed train to Paris. Boarding the train was easy. The Frankfort train station has 24 platforms, but the overhead monitors list the trains by name, destination, time of departure and platform number. At the platform, another monitor directs you where to stand based on the train car indicated on your ticket. No security lines, just hop on the train when it arrives. Once the train left the station, an offical came thru checking tickets. She checked my Eurail pass and ticket, stamping them both. On this train, I needed the ticket with a seat reservation in addition to the pass. On some future trains, I just need the pass. The train didn't become high speed until after we left Germany and entered France. 315 km/h = 189 mph.

street view outside our hotel

And we are now in Paris! It was about a km walk to our hotel from the train station. Narrow, cobbled streets and sidewalks, so the wheels on our suitcases are getting a workout. Our hotel had one small sign, but Google maps took us right to it. English-speaking staff at check-in to our 6th floor balcony room. We met up with Julie when she got off work and went for dinner. It was wonderful to see Julie again! She still looks exactly like that 18-year old exchange student from 2003. She works today, so we are walking around Paris and then going to her apartment for dinner. Julie's apartment building is just across the street from our hotel, so convenient. Pictures of Paris and of Julie in my next post.

Frankfurt: Nice beginning to travels in Europe

my porter at DFW Airport,
grand-daughter Kacie

Phillip and I are in Frankfurt, Germany, adjusting to the time change. Our flight was uneventful, just the way we like it, leaving DFW Airport at 4:30 pm, Sunday, arriving here at 9 am Monday. The flight itself was 9-1/2 hours, the time zone change accounted for the other 7 hours.

Our hotel is near the Hauptbanhof, the main train station. Since this stop is more for catching up on sleep and less for seeing the sights, our hotel is ideally situated. I expected to drop off our suitcases and walk around when we arrived, but the hotel clerk was able to check us into our room before 11 am. That was a pleasant surprise.

Phillip and I walked around a bit yesterday, after a little nap. Lots of commercial buidlings in Frankfurt. It is a banking and business center. We saw this one, unique and where's the other half of it? When we could see it around the other buildings, we used it to orient ourselves.

We also walked to the Main (pronounced like "mine" not "mane") River. A nice tree-lined walkway along it for as far as we could see. Boats were also available to give tours along the river, but I'd read that this river is the least picturesque of all the rivers we will visit, so we didn't visit the boats.

This morning's breakfast (included with the room) gave us another reason to really like our hotel (Bristol Hotel). Bacon and eggs on the buffet, as well as all kinds of cold cuts, pastries, and cheese. Unlimited coffee and juice. Smoked salmon and bagels, muesli, fruit. We ate in the breakfast room before we noticed the patio area, open for diners also. We finished our coffee on this patio. Even though we were just two bocks from the train station, no city noise at all - well, no noise unless an emergency vehicle drives anywhere near. They have that high/low/high/low wailing siren which we definitely notice because it is so different from our sirens.

Romer 

Frankfurt was heavily damaged during WWII, so most of the buildings are sixty years old or less. We actually found our way into the Romerberg (Old Town) area and I didn't realize it until I looked on Google maps to find out why people were taking pictures! The Romer was the site of the Imperial Hall where Holy Roman Emperoros celebrated their coronations. Today, it house City Hall in a building that was built during the post-war era.

Our favorite stop today was at the Kleinmarkthalle. It's an old-school market with a garden seed and flower section, about twenty sausage shops, numerous bakery shops, spice shops, and other food-related vendors. Gelato, not ice cream, is popular here, so we had a mango gelato in a waffle cone for just 1.4 euros each. Delicious!

After our Kleinmarkthalle visit, we walked down what is nicknamed Fressgass' (loosely translated as "feeding street). And that's where we purchased our first of many wursts on rolls. This one was pork sausage with herbs, fresh off a grill, on a fresh roll with mustard. Since we'd just had the gelato, we only bought one, 3.5 euros, and split it. Many more of those in our future!

Back at the hotel to write this post. Some thoughts about our first 28 hours in Europe:
-  The food isn't as expensive as we thought it would be, but the coffee is more expensive than expected. This makes our hotel breakfast even more attractive. Single cups of coffee run over 2 euros for a small at McDonalds (yes, there are McDonalds here).
-  We love the many small cars here, cars that make our Yaris look like an SUV. They are short enough to legally park perpendicular in the parallel parking spots. They aren't Smart cars, and I think they are even shorter than Smart cars.
-  Phillip is enjoying himself, probably because I'm not taking him to castles or museums.... yet. A lot of people watching, which we both love to do. This is an international city, so a lot of diversity here in the food and the people. It's been a great start to our adventure.

Travel to Europe - Tomorrow!

Our second adventure of the year, a trip to Germany, France, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, begins tomorrow. Phillip and I are excited about seeing Julie, our exchange student from 2003; her parents, Jaja and Jacques, whom Phillip has never met; and our niece, Becky, and her family who moved to Germany in July. This will also be our first real European trip. We've been to Barcelona, but only to get onto a cruise ship. We stopped at a few Portugese ports on that 2009 cruise, but spent no extended time in Europe.

Jaja and Jacques have been eager for us to visit them since I retired. We've always had Europe on our travel list, and this year, everything fell into place to get us there. The euro is down against the dollar (in 2009, 1 euro=$1.40, today, 1 euro=$1.15). Becky and her family have a 4-bedroom house, so six of our European nights will be rent-free. With Julie living in Paris, we will have our own tour guide, and Becky has found great things to do in her area of Germany, between Munich and Nuremberg.

Phillip and I fly into Frankfurt, a non-stop flight from DFW that lands Monday morning. We'll spend two nights in Frankfurt, not because it's a must-see destination, but in case we have any jet lag issues. Then, a high-speed train to Paris. Two nights in Paris followed by more trains to the French Alps with Julie to visit with her parents. Sunday, we leave France for Switzerland, with three nights in Lausanne (on Lake Geneva), a full day in Bern, and a day in Basel. Then, to Germany to spend the weekend with Becky and her family. When her kids go to school the following Monday, Becky will put us on a train to Prague. Friday, we return to Becky's house for our last European weekend before going back to Frankfort to fly home.

For our transportation within Eurpe, I purchased Eurail passes. Even with the passes, I also paid for seat reservations, required on 3 legs of the trip, optional on some of the others. I wanted the peace of mind that our transportation needs were handled. The Eurail website was easy to use and created a train itinerary for me that listed all the info for each train, in chronological order. Several of the trains are high-speed, but some are slower, regional trains that will give us delightful views of the countryside. I'm excited about all of the train travel.

And the history and sights! The Alps, the castles, the beer gardens, the WWII locations, the Charles Bridge in Prague, the Olympics Museum in Lausanne. So much to see. Also, the food: French bread in France, German sausage in Germany, Swiss chocolate in Switzerland, kolaches in the Czech Republic. Can't get more authentic than that.

We're all packed and ready to go. Two small carry-on-sized suitcases (such a great investment!), my trusty backpack, and Phillip's bag-o-snacks. This time, he isn't overdoing the snacks for us because his bag is full of candy for Julie, Jacques, and Jaja. A box of Reese's peanut butter cups from Sam's (Jacques likes peanut butter) takes up most of the space in Phillip's bag. Julie's favorite is Pangburn's Millionaires (made in Texas), so three boxes of them for the trip. We will have room for souvenirs during our return! I wasn't sure all our clothes would fit in the suitcases as we are taking long-sleeved shirts and sweaters, unlike the wardrobe for our Asian travels. No worries, plenty of room as some items, notably bug repellent and bathing suits, are not in the suitcase for this trip.

Considering the countries we are visiting on this adventure, closing my first post with this quote from Benjamin Franklin seems appropriate. "In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria."