...work, eat, sleep, and repeat...

An A to Z of Switzerland

A is for airport - Where we started our journey. Actually that's not true, our journey started at silly o'clock in the morning when we attempted to fit a weeks worth of luggage into the boot of Phil's tiny Japanese sports car. Having got to the airport and packed things back into the bags they came out of, things went a bit more smoothly. We found a handy parking space next to the control tower and popped into the terminal for a quick coffee before take off.

B is for balloon - The one thing our destination, Château-d'Oex, is famous for is the hot air balloon festival that takes place every January, it's in all the guide books, apparently its pretty good, oh, and it's good for ski-ing too - except it's now September, hmmm!

C is for castles - There is no shortage of castles in Switzerland. Here is a selection of our favourites:

Château de Chillon, Château de Gruyères and Château d'Aigle

D is for daisy - There is also no shortage of cows in Switzerland. I have no idea whether any of them are actually called Daisy though, so I guess I'm cheating a bit (and I only made it to 'C', the shame). To distract you from that, I could tell you that cowbells are not only for waking the tourists up each morning. Cow herds are quite hierarchical, and the important cows have the biggest bells. To impress some cows (momentarily) ring a very large bell and watch them come running.

E is for English - "Many people speak English well enough to help you find your way around", proclaims the guidebook. Unfortunately the waitress in the cafe where we had lunch on our first day doesn't and, despite three years of lessons at school, we don't speak enough french to find our own way around (although we can hold reasonable conversations about birthdays, family members, and talk at some length about a range of fictional pets). Fortunately though the universal language of pointing is sufficient for purchasing an unidentified sandwich and a warm beverage.

F is for fondue - Bread dipped into a big pot of molten cheese, you probably know the score. Sadly Ruth and Emma went home early and missed our chocolate and fruit extravaganza.


G is for Gstaad - Celebrities are frequently spotted here...

...except by us, perhaps we were preocupied by the best breakfast in town - tip: have breakfast at Charleys.

H is for hire car - Hire cars are expensive at Geneva Airpot. Especially so on Sundays

I is for internet - Internet access is free at Geneva Airport. Even on Sundays (can you see where I'm heading with this?). The internet is a good place to book a hire car at a discount, for immediate collection, ahem!

J is for jokers - Despite there being no shortage of wonderful scenery, one of us decided to spend a morning making a two pack house of cards (yeah, okay it was me). I did complete the top row, but then it fell down a few seconds later. Phil has video evidence, honest.

K is for kilometres - The European measurement of road distance. We must have liked kilometers because we covered a lot of them (mainly on the way to and from Vevey).

L is for Lousanne - We spent an afternoon in Lousanne and visited the Cathedral, which looms over the town.

Deciding to stop for a coffee, we smiled and waved at a cafe owner as we sat down at what turned out to be one of the neighbouring cafe's tables - oops, sorry!. On the way back to the car I spotted the stunning Palais de Rumine, but we didn't have time to visit any of it's museums.

M is for mountain - Our chalet was about 2/3 of the way up a mountain, or perhaps it was just a steep hill. It certainly felt like a mountain when we walked up it, but the views were fantastic.

N is for night - We didn't really work out what there was in the way of nightlife locally. We had a quiet drink in the village with Ruth and Emma one night, and some raucous games of boggle on several others.

O is for Ouchy and Olympics - Ouchy, near Lousanne has a museum celebrating the Olympics, with a park of interesting Olympics realted sculptures. Why? - Who knows? A good place to spend an hour or two though.
The picture on the left includes sculptures showing the trajectory of the long and high jumps, while the sculpture on the right represents the change in an athlete's lung capacity

P is for painting - Janet and Michael spent a large part of the week painting. This is Janet's picture of the view from our chalet

Q is for quote - For more details of our linguistic deficiencies see 'E for English', but quote of the week goes to Phil for this classic conversation at the Chateau de Chillon ticket office:

Phil - Do you speak English?

Salesman - Yes, I'll try.

Phil (holding up fingers and speaking as slowly and clearly as possible) - t-w-o!

It turned out that the salesman had been an au pair in Golders Green and was reasonably familiar with English numbers.

R is for Raclette - A feast of warm cheese and potatoes, apparently. We were a little cheesed out and opted for roast lamb at Phil's friends' house near Lousanne instead.

S is for supermarket - Fortunately Switzerland has some decent supermarkets. Otherwise our linguistic shortcomings would have seen us both starve and fail to return home with suitcases full of chocolate. And luckily, we knew that fruit and veg needed to be pre-weighed to avoid embarrassment at the checkout.

T is for tour - We were lead on a tour of the cheese factory at Gruyère by a disembodied cow's voice, which was interesting. We also tried to visit the local chocolate factory, which smelled great, but was exceptionally closed. We were given free samples to make us go away though, and Emma was determined enough to return another day.

U is for up - We only went up from our chalet once. It was the hottest part of the hottest day of the week, and it was quite hard work...

V is for view -

...but the view was worth it.


W is for winter sports - Alas, there were no winter sports to be had in Switzerland in September. Phil had been quite keen to find a little summer snow, and I did my best to feign disappointment.

X is for eXtra - In another hillarious display of our inadequate language skills, I managed to add an extra pear to our sausage and leek casserole one evening (though it would be slightly more honest to say that the recipe card included no pears at all - in my defence the French words for pear and pepper are very similar). I think we did quite well to work the other ingredients out, and the pear added a little je ne sais quoi anyway.

Y is for yummy - The most appropriate word for describing Swiss chocolate

Z is for zero - The number of local radio stations that we liked. What an odd selection of music. A humourous distraction from the roadworks on our most commonly used stretch of motorway though.

posted by Paul @ 12:00 pm