Sluglife

For our second full day in Switzerland on Tuesday, Bernard F took us out to the Redel factory. While Lemo is known mostly for metal-shelled connectors, Redel has always made amazing plastic-bodied connectors. The drive is about an hour from Ecublens before you start to climb into the mountains. Way above the valley the Redel factory sits in the stunning village of St. Croix.

The views all around are just beautiful hills and valleys


On the factory floor, there’s an amazing mix of cutting edge manufacturing equipment and generations-old tooling machinery set in this brightly lit building.

This is one of the fairly recent machines that mills the stainless steel bodies for many of our fiber optic connectors.

In goes the steel, out comes this:

They just added a couple new machines which make the tiny contacts for the plastic connectors. Here one is open for servicing.

And a closer up view:

When they close the door and start it up, the oil splashing inside the shell cools during the incredibly precise milling.

And then you come around the corner and one of the doors is open to the amazing hills

Some of the equipment is just cool to look at. This is one of the injection molding jigs set up and set aside for the next run.

Another view of the windows.

Our guide for the tour of the factory was the director, an incredibly passionate man. His enthusiasm for their workmanship was contagious. After the tour he took us deeper into the hills where we stopped at a beautiful tiny village and this place, Auberge Du Marais.

It was an amazing place – straight out of what you’d imagine the Swiss hills to be like – a couple had their dog below the table chilling while they chatted over coffee. There was no menu, just what they were making for the day. It was a rustic mix of locally grown vegatables and sausage and chicken grilled on skewers. Unforgettable.
After lunch, we went back to the factory where Bernard F gave a presentation on the new version of our database software and then we headed back down the hill

When we parked the Volkswagen van in the underground parking at HQ, I couldn’t help but notice the unmistakable shape that haunts any car lover’s dreams. Yes, that’s a Ferrari 250GT. It’s one of cars the owner of Lemo has. This one he happens to keep down here. He has a shop of exotic cars in Lausanne and I hope we can make a stop there before the trip is over.

That night, Bernard F took us out for dinner. I’m sad I didn’t take my camera – it was pouring rain – because we first stopped along the grape vines north of Lausanne, which grew at staggering angles above the shoreline. Hopefully we’ll make it back out there in better weather.
After work tonight, Bernard V too us out to dinner. We went to a place called, I kid you not, Speedy Gonzalez. We had a Spanish wine, and I felt obliged to take a picture of the label because I know someone would ask what it was:

For the record, it’s made from Tempranillo grapes, and went very well with their second speciality, pizza:

I say second, because Bernard V indicated their first specialty was horse steaks. Mind you, for lunch at the cafeteria I had beef tongue, so after that I just couldn’t bring myself to eat Sea Biscuit, you know? The pizza was good, though!
After dinner Bernard V took us down to the waterfront by the Olympic headquarters in downtown Lausanne. We walked past the scenic Hotel Aulac:

While it rained yesterday and last night, today it started to clear, and the clouds in the gathering dusk made for some beautiful pictures over the water

A picture of boats in the harbor:

At the outlet of the harbor stood this beautiful wind that turned with the wind

We stopped at a little café and had milkshakes and watched the cute swans in the harbor

I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but whatever it is it will be scenic!