Lausanne, June 28th

Back to the boarder for Tucker as Mike and I went to our 2nd city on Lake Geneva, Lausanne. Lausanne is the 5th largest city in Switzerland and French is the dominate language. It's about an hour and 15 minutes from Bern, and 25 minutes from Montreux.

Sadly, we did not love our trip. Maybe it was because it was sprinkling or maybe it's because we didn't have an itinerary but we did not fall in love with this city.

First thing we did was go to Starbucks for my coffee fix.

Then we went to the downtown area. There were lots of shops, street vendors, a farmers market and a cobblestone road. It was very nice. The rain was annoying and we may have wandered around outside more if it hadn't been raining.

We then went to Cathedral of Notre Dame of Lausanne (aka Lausanne Cathedral). Construction on the church started in 1170 and finished in 1275. The church was beautiful, full of sculptures and stain glass windows. 

They had a very impressive organ. Here's some interesting facts I copied from Wikipedia.

•  It took ten years to design it and it is composed of 7000 pipes, two consoles, five claviers, and one pedalier. 
• It is the first organ in the world to be designed by a designer. 
• The first organ to contain all four of the principal organ styles (classical, French symphony, baroque, German romantique). 
• It is also the first organ manufactured by an American company (Fisk) for a European Cathedral. 
• It cost a total of 6 million Swiss francs, took 150,000 man-hours to build and weighs 40 tons.

We paid 4 francs and went to the top for a view of the city. There were 223 steps to the top.

The church has 7 bells

Another cool fact I read on Wikipedia:

Since 1405 until the present day without interruption, the city of Lausanne has maintained a lookout in the Cathedral bell tower.The lookout announces the time by yelling the hour from 10 pm to 2 am 365 days a year. The lookout cries the hour to each cardinal direction "« C'est le guet, il a sonné [dix] »". The original purpose of the lookout was to provide a warning in case of fire though it has now become a traditional function. Since 2002, the official lookout is Renato Häusler.

Afterwards we headed down to the water. It wasn't what we were expecting. It was only a pier and a park. Montreux spoiled us with restaurants and shops on the water.

Mike's lunch. Roesti!

The train station

 We typically park at the train station when we visit new cities. It's usually right in the middle of town and there's always parking spots. When we were leaving we decided to stop by the restroom. In Bern you have to pay 2 francs to use the bathroom in the train station. We were surprised you didn't have to pay here, what luck I thought. I walked in and there were 3 stalls, I can't remember if there were doors on the stalls but they were all open regardless. But there was no toilet...just a hole in the ground. What? I have never seen a hole in the ground toilet before. Girls are messy, how did this work? What if you fell over? What if you had pants and they touched the ground...I can't imagine the area around the hole was sanitary. Do you flush or is it like a port a potty? And then the final straw...there was poop on the ground. Not in the hole but in front of the stall door. Who does this? And why? I quickly turned around and proceeded to wait an hour and half till we got Tucker and went how to use my own bathroom.

I watched a youtube video and this girl had visited Milan and she also walked into a hole in the ground bathroom. So I suppose I should just get used to it and start working on my squats.

We did not check out the Olympic Museum. I'd like to see that. But I think there are many other cities to check out on Lake Geneva and we won't be back in the near future.

A hot panini vending machine in the garage parking lot

Montreux, June 21st

Again we boarded Tucker and took a day trip to a nearby town. This time we went south to Montreux. Montreux is on Lake Geneva, and French is the main language spoken. It took about an hour and 15 minutes to get there.

The main purpose of our trip was to visit Chateu de Chillon. I've seen castles when we took a river boat down the Rhine River in Germany back in 2011, but I've never visited one. We took an audio tour, and spent about an hour and a half walking around. I loved the audio tour, and felt like you really couldn't appreciate the castle without knowing all the interesting details.The castle is much bigger than I imagined, it's more like a small village behind walls. The castle is made up of 100 buildings, and 3 open courtyards.

The Chillon is actually on an island, you wouldn't know this from the road as it's really close to the main land. The oldest parts of the castle could date back to 1005, but no one knows for sure.

It's on it's own island

The wine room

The dungeon

No one knows who sketched these drawings on the dungeon wall

Prisoners were chained to a pillar

People (visitors) would sign the pillar, the framed signature is by Lord Byron. He wrote the poem  The Prisoner of Chillon in 1816, about a monk that was imprisoned here for 6 years.

Next to the dungeon is where they stored the goods that were imported

The oldest artifact found at the castle. A church altar.

Very steep and narrow wooden steps

An impressive wardrobe

The dining room

All the rooms had different and amazing ceilings

The Keep, the last resort hiding spot if the castle was invaded

Small windows so no one could get in

Chevron print wall drawings. It was trendy back then too

This bed was only 5'6". People were much shorter back then and many slept sitting half up.

A stove in the bedroom, to keep you warm

Drawings in the Lord's bedroom. The color blue was only used for important royals. 

The toilet

The chapel

Mike is too tall to live in a castle

Models of the castle

The century walk was a walkway around the castle

The view from the Keep

After touring the castle we walked along the lake and had lunch.

My lunch, and my first hamburger in Switzerland

A saw off

Montreux is also Switzerland's largest wine region, which means we will be back.

Montreux has a lake, hills, vineyards, a view of the alps, a castle and a charming french feel. It ticks all of our check boxes for a good place to visit. It's not a big city but there's enough to do to warrant an overnight trip. Plus there's ferry's that will take you to city's all over Lake Geneva.