Sluglife

Okay, so say you’re visiting Switzerland on business. And, let’s just say that over, I don’t know, two weeks while you’re there, you’ve only got one single day off. What do you do? Where do you go? What do you see? Oh, I don’t know…

Hell yeah, you go see the frickin’ Matterhorn!
And how do you get there? When last we spoke of Le Predator, it was AWOL. Well, turns out it was down in the garage (the same one as that Ferrari, by the way). That didn’t do us any good, because we couldn’t get in there after hours anyway. But IT had the brilliant idea of getting a GPS unit so visitors could get as lost as they wanted and reliably find their way back. For whatever reason, they didn’t install it in Le Predator. They installed it in the Volkswagen MultiVan – you know it as the EuroVan. But since we’re in Europe, it’s the MultiVan. But that’s a stupid name. So we’re calling it le ânon, the donkey. Why the donkey? Because it’s a diesel beast that makes a lot of noise, goes reliably, but takes its time getting there and always with a lot of braying. Le ânon:

So, we’ve got the transport for this Swiss road trip, where’s the rest of the cast? Well, here’s me:

There’s David at the wheel for the out-journey:

And introducing GPS. It speaks in a nice English woman’s voice, which we found quite soothing when she was sending us piloting le ânon down a single lane road with an anxious Renault coming up the other way. Silly gaffes aside, she was crucial to our successful road trip:

So, on a sunny Sunday morning, we took to the freeway above Lake Geneva and headed east

The clouds and rain from the day before had all but faded, with just a few wispy clouds left over the lake.

While the scenery around the greater Lausanne area has been stunning, not until heading out today did we start to see the towering mountains that Switzerland is known for:

But as we turned off the freeway and made our way away from the lake, we passed through some stunning scenery

This next picture shows two things we saw a great deal of. The first being the grapevines terraced over the hills at insane, unreal angles. Everywhere!
The second is the round-about. From the first day here behind the wheel of le predator, we were quickly schooled in round-about 101. GPS would helpfully announce their impending arrival and which exit to take. Oh, we’re round-about masters.

Past cypress trees, we passed amazing castles perched precariously on tiny mountains – alas, foliage and buildings along the freeway prevented me from getting a lot of shots of some of the more ancient scenery, and we didn’t want to deviate because we were on a mission. But it did make for our first slogan for our Visit Switzerland ad campaign: “Switzerland: There Be Old Shit Here!”

Soon enough we started into the mountain valleys. At some point around here we crossed the invisible line into the German-speaking section ,which led to our second slogan, “Switzerland: Get Lost In Two Languages!”

Look! Ahead! There’s snow on those mountains! Head that way!

And into the village of Tasch, which would be as far as le ânon could carry us.

Nope, from here a train would take us up to Zermatt

And here we are! The station is there to the left. The cute building ahead is a very forgettable Italian restaurant where we’d eat a very forgettable late lunch and wait an insufferable time for a check which we hastily paid and fled. Quickly. Dead center is a cute little horse-drawn carriage that would run up the narrow cobblestone streets unhesitatingly, forcing tourists to scurry for safety. It was cool!

So what’s Zermatt like? It’s a tourist Mecca, and all the good and bad therein. The narrow cobblestone streets were lined with every chotchke store you can imagine. A billion stores hawking over-priced tshirts, tacky stuffed replicas of saint bernards and beavers, Swiss Army knives, and anything else you can imagine. Times two. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

We headed up the narrow streets seeking a clear vista of the Matterhorn. Up one little byway we came across the cutest little garden.

Swiss chard!

Okay, there was other stuff there, too, but I couldn’t resist.
Hey, maybe we’ll get a clear view up that stairway. Wait, that looks pretty steep…

Oops, no, doesn’t go anywhere we want to go. Wait, we have to go back down?

At least there’s a nice view of the valley from up here! Zermatt is a little over five thousand feet, and going up the stairs we certainly felt it.

So we went down and around and up another path and then, wait, what’s that?!

It’s the Matterhorn! Wait, here’s a better picture:

This isn’t technically the end of the line. You can continue on and either hike up to the base of the Matterhorn or take a tram up there. But we didn’t have the time to continue up, so we took our pictures from there. Pictures like this

And just to prove I was really there…

Not a very flattering picture of me, I must say. This one isn’t much better – I’ve got the Matterhorn poking up through my head! I guess you could say I had the Matterhorn on my mind

And what could possibly be better than the Matterhorn? How about a beaver fountain?

After that we headed down to get the aforementioned forgettable lunch, David bought some chotchkes and then it was back down the mountain on the train. We retrieved le ânon from the parking garage and with me at the helm, we headed back.
As if to say, “We know you miss home,” we ran into traffic just above Montreux. Already down to one lane, someone broke down inside one of the tunnels (the Swiss love tunnels), and traffic came to a halt for about a half hour. Time enough to enjoy the stunning view of Montraux below:

And:

Oh, by the way, this isn’t far from La Tour-de-Peilz which is where Shania Twain’s chateau is. Nice.
Oh yeah, and me driving:

This is not Shania Twain’s place, but I’m thinking about moving in soon. You know, a small place to call home when visiting Switzerland.

Back into Lausanne we attended to business. What business would that be?

Just across the street (behind me when I took this picture) was a kabob place where we had these delicious kabob-burrito thingies. Nom nom nom.
So that’s our day off! Tomorrow it’s back to work. Now, though? I’m going to sleep!