A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That . .: 08/23/17

Day 1: Amsterdam - Lausanne

After a lovely breakfast and nice speeches by Martijn and Felix and company we headed out to the airport. And as luck would have it there was a problem with the trains or rails, not sure which. Anyway we couldn't take the train all the way to the airport as we should have. Instead we took it to some other station and took a bus from there. At least we gave ourselves plenty of time to get there.
We flew EasyJet which anything but a luxury airline, from Amsterdam to Geneva. They pretty much treated us like cattle and there were no seats in the waiting area, everyone just packed up between ropes. But at least the price was right, what can you expect.

Giant lamps at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam

We made it Geneva and found a train to take us to Lausanne. Matt met us at the train station and we took another train to his apartment. It is easier to take the train than the metro even though the metro station is closer, at least from the train station.

We settled in in his place and then went to downtown and to find a place to eat. We ended up in one of his favorite pizza places, Chez Mario. It is a neat place with all the walls covered with writing in different languages. We left our mark also :).

View towards downtown Lausanne
from the apartment

Chez Mario, Lausanne

Day 2: Lausanne

Since it is Sunday Matt could come with us. We took the metro to Flon and then the other line to Ouchy. They had some market stalls there selling meats and vegetables and fruit. We bought some strawberries and then headed out to the Olympic Museum. I had been there last fall and Matt has seen it a few times too, but Jeff had never been there. They had a nice display about the Summer Olympics in Rio coming up this summer.

Ouchy Castle, Lausanne

Ouchy, Lausanne

La Suisse paddle steamer, Lausanne

Olympic Museum, Lausanne

Ouchy, Lausanne

We did a short detour to downtown and then went to see how Coco Chanel's grave looks like in the spring. It still have white flowers, different than in the fall, and of course the perfume bottle and the pearls.

Coco Chanel's grave, Lausanne

Pierre de Coubertin's grave, Lausanne

Day 3: Lausanne - Cully - Epesses

Matt took the day off and we decided to go on a hike in the vineyards. We took the train, first from Prilly-Malley to Lausanne and then to Cully. There we got off and started walking towards Riex. These trails and on the hillside with stone walls, most of the times on both sides. We had beautiful views of Lake Geneva and the French Alps. It was too early for the vines to be growing but you could get a very good picture what it would be like in the summer. It was quite an uphill hike to Riex, but we finally made it. Going from Riex to Epesses was a lot easier since it was mostly vertical. The vineyards continued even higher but this was high enough for me. From Epesses we started to head down and back towards Cully. It was still about 5 km hike with about 460 meter vertical climb.

Vineyard hike, Cully

Vineyards, Cully - Riex - Epesses

Riex

Epesses

After getting back to Lausanne we went to see the Cathedral and couple of the major squares.

Palais de Rumine, Lausanne

City Hall, Lausanne

Then it was time to see EPFL and where Matt was working. We saw the new building, the Rolex Center, Bolo Museum and the sheep that were grazing around the university.

Rolex Center, EPFL, Lausanne

New office building, EPFL, Lausanne

Bolo Museum, EPFL, Lausanne

EPFL, Lausanne

We decided to go and just get something from the grocery store. Eating out in Switzerland is very expensive. We hauled Matt's table to his enormous deck and had a nice picnic dinner outside.

Day 4: Lausanne- Veytaux - Montreux - Aigle

Matt took another day off today. We took the train and went to Veytaux to see the Chillon Castle. I still think it's one of the nicest castles around. It's nothing like Versailles or Windsor, those are fancy. This is just a border castle. I like that we can go and wander around it on our own and not have to take a tour.

Chateau Chillon, Veytaux

View towards Montreux,
Chateau Chillon, Veytaux

From the castle we walked to Montreux. They had all kinds of statues made out of plant material along the Quai des Fleurs. Most of them were already wilted or turned brown. We grabbed a quick lunch and headed out to the train station to catch a train to Aigle.

Walk from Veytaux to Montreux

Freddie Mercury's statue, Montreux

Aigle also has a castle, Aigle Castle. It also has a wine museum. In this castle you can also wander around on your own. I think the wine museum would have been good, but since I do not speak French and all the signs were in French it was hard to understand everything.

Aigle

Chateau d'Aigle, Aigle

Day 5: Lausanne

Matt had to work today so Jeff and I headed out on our own. We decided to check out the Sauvabelin Tower and Park again since the tower was not open last fall. Well, that trip up there was a disaster. We took the bus, but there was some construction and we had to get off at a different stop, which confused us completely. The lake which was beautiful last fall had been drained and it was just one big mud pit. And then we got lost on the way to the tower. We finally found it, and . . . you guessed it, it was closed. It had been open for few weeks earlier in the year. We ended up walking to the Signal, down the hill to the Parc de l'Hermitage and to town. We went past the Cathedral and had lunch at Cafe le Petit-Bar just around the corner from the Cathedral.

Lake Sauvabelin, Lausanne :(

Sauvabelin Forest, Lausanne

Sauvabelin Tower, Lausanne

Signal, Lausanne

Parc de l'Hermitage, Lausanne

Lausanne

View from one of the bridges, Lausanne

We decided to check out the Parc de Mon Repos since I had not been there before. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics used to live in the mansion inside the park. There was also a very nice aviary with all kinds of birds.

Parc Mon Repos, Lausanne

Today seemed to be a day of walking. We walk to Boulevard de Grancy just to see some wonderful looking old buildings and continued from there to Parc de Milan and the Botanical Gardens. We ended up taking the metro home and having dinner on the patio.

My favorite roof in Lausanne

Boulevard de Grancy, Lausanne

Botanical Gardens, Lausanne

Day 6: Lausanne- Montreux -Tour de Peilz

Matt took today off too. We are going on a cruise today. There is an old steam engine paddle-wheeler that sails Lake Geneva. I guess there are several of them. It's a bit different than the ones on the Mississippi. This one the paddles are on the sides instead of at the back. So we headed out to Ouchy and bought our tickets. We didn't go all the way to the end of the route, just to Montreux. We were on the La Suisse boat. We didn't get the fancy tickets and had to stay either in the riff-raff cafe or the front deck. It was a beautiful warm day so the front deck was the best place. We had great views of the vineyards and all the small towns along the coast.

La Suisse, boat trip from Lausanne to Montreux

The trip took about an hour and a half. Once in Montreux we grabbed a quick bite to eat and planned what to do next. We decided to take the train to Tour de Peilz and go and see the Swiss Game Museum. I think it is a hidden gem. I don't think too many people go to a game museum. It is in an old castle and outside of the museum is an old tower which you can climb up to. The museum itself has lots of games from old ones to new ones.

Tour de Peilz

Game Museum, Tour de Peilz

Tour de Peilz

Game Museum, Tour de Peilz

World's largest jigsaw puzzle, Game Museum, Tour de Peilz

Game Museum, Tour de Peilz

We walked from tour de Peilz to Vevey. Saw the big fork and Charlie Chaplin statue. From there we took the train to Lausanne and had dinner at Brasserie le Vaudois. They serve typical Swiss foods and especially from the Vaud area.

Charlie Chaplin, Vevey

The Giant Fork, Vevey

Vevey

Dinner at Brasserie le Vaudois, Lausanne

Day 7: Lausanne

It is our last full day here. We headed out to see the Palais de Rumine. It has 5 different museums in it and they are all free. All you need to do is get a pass from the ticket office. It is also part of the university somehow. They have fine arts, zoology, archaeology, geology and Lausanne history. You could actually spend a lot of time in there.

@ a museum in Palais de Rumine

From there we walked past the Flon to Montbenon park and then took the metro to Ouchy. From Ouchy we walked all along the coast past a big outside swimming pool, beaches, Roman ruins and the Olympic Headquarters back to Matt's apartment. Then it was time to pack.

Bel-Air Tower, Lausanne

Flon, Lausanne

Tribunal, Lausanne

Ouchy, Lausanne

Lausanne

The Pyramids, Lausanne

Roman Ruins, Lausanne

Olympic Headquarters, behind all the construction, Lausanne

Day 8 & 9: Lausanne - Dublin - JFK

We originally had a flight from Geneva to Dublin with a connection right away to JFK, but one of the flights were cancelled. We are still flying to Dublin, but staying there overnight. We said goodbye to Matt and took the trail to Geneva and then flew to Dublin. Our hotel, Maldron Hotel, was a walking distance from the airport. After checking in we took a taxi to a small town of Swords. We were in a hunt for a good Irish pub with good beer. But first we walked around the town. It is a small place with nothing much in there other than an old castle. Which was closed for renovations, well it was also past closing time. We did find couple of possible places to eat. One was a neat looking old pub and we heed and hawed whether to eat there or not. It looked like the kind of place that could go either way, really good or just terrible. We decided to give it a try and we highly recommend it. The Cock Tavern has been around several hundred years. The inside is very interesting, especially the front room. The food was excellent and the had a new Guinness beer that was light. It had just come out couple months ago and was only available in certain pubs.