Annecy, France

On Saturday, we took a drive to Annecy (ann......see), France. Yet another picturesque old town on yet another beautiful lake with a stunning alpine skyline in the distance (they're everywhere!)

The weather forecast was a bit dicey, but it actually turned out very nice. This beautiful old town with narrow, cobbled roads, shops and restaurants of all kinds everywhere, and loads of street vendors to boot. It's about an hour and a half drive from Lausanne. We had fun checking out loads of antiques and other collectibles and in the process actually got some Christmas shopping done.

When we got their we were hungry so the first thing to do after getting our bearings was to find someplace to eat. We found a cute brasserie with a diverse menu and a biker for a waiter. I picked the place because it had some local "Savoyard" menu items and the old standby......steak, frittes.

We decided to split our choices between local and familiar. Therese had an interesting dish of sliced meats (prosciutto, ham, salamis) along with salad and boiled potatoes to be cut up and put into a "fondue" if you will of local cheeses and ham. I had the French version of a burger and fries.....the steak, frittes. Often called entrecote and pomme frittes or entrecote Parisienne avec pomme frittes, this is comfort food. You can get it almost anywhere in France and french speaking regions such as Lausanne. Add a good Bordeaux, (which we did) and you're set.

After lunch we did some shopping and as is our usual custom visited the local church. For us the more stunning beauty can be found in the smaller churches. Not that the large cathedrals aren't stunning.....just that the smaller churches sometimes contain quite nice surprises.

We found this little church in town with a "post-Baroque" style of architecture. Some Gothic elements, some Baroque. A real gem. In it we found this beautiful painting on the wall of an enclave.

We finished off with some of the best homemade ice cream ever. There are "glaciers" everywhere here. Seems like every other vendor is an ice cream vendor. Unbelievable creamy, delicious creations everywhere.

Life after Cat

Well, Caitlin left last weekend and this week was really a "test drive" of what living in Switzerland is going to be like. Just Therese and I and my work and her.......well activities. The first few days were quiet, to say the least. I would call a couple of times a day to see what Therese was doing and each night we would laugh over a glass of wine about what her plans were for the next day......a walk here......a trip to the store there. I was beginning to get worried. With noone at home to keep here from getting to close to the balcony.....

Mid-week she had a luncheon to attend with some women from the American Women's Club of Lausanne. With that, things started to look up. Renewed acquaintances, a trip to the Swiss version of Costco (Aligro's) and things might just turn out ok. It's early yet, but stay tuned. I'm as interested in the outcome as you are!

Farewell Switzerland

I leave for the States tomorrow morning, and am very sad to be going. I love Switzerland, probably more than France or England. Lots of people will say I'm crazy, but I really do love this place. I wish I could live here!

Thanks to those of you who read the blog, sorry I updated it all at once. I tried to make it as short as possible. Do take some time and look at our photos, and feel free to leave comments!

As a side note, I updated some pictures for dad of their trip to Basil. The link will be on the right.

There is so much more I wish I could share but I guess you'll have to ask me or mom if you want to know!!!

Swiss Kiss~

Cat

Paris with Mom, Dad, and Cat PART II

After our wonderful tour of Versailles, mom and I went museum-going! Our first stop was the Louvre. As the largest museum in the world, it was originally built as a hunting lodge in the 12th century, and then later served as a royal residence. It began its history as an art collection from 12 stolen works of art, including the Mona Lisa. Our guide book says it can be "frustrating, overwhelming or moving"--I found it to be frustrating and overwhelming.

Our timing may not have been the best because we came on an incredibly busy day. I don't always do well with crowds and in here it felt like Disneyland. I picked a collection I wanted to see--which turned out to be in the reject corner of the museum and took me 45 minutes just to get there.

Mom carefully thought out and hand picked the pieces she wanted to see in the Dutch collections. She had a much better experience than I did and was very happy she found her way through the museum and saw nearly everything on her list.

My advice for visiting the Louvre: bring your own water and EAT before you go. Unless you have a particular wish to see Venus DeMilo or the Mona Lisa, I would suggest picking some works outside the Italian painting and sculptures corridor.

After the Louvre, mom and I went to Notre Dame. This was a much more calming experience and we took the audio tour. I enjoyed the use of geometrics in the stained glass and the sculpture on the altar was particularly dramatic and moving.

As a wonderful end note to our trip, we visited the Musee D'Orsay. This museum holds the largest collection of impressionist works in the world and we took a tour of these collections. Our guide was very knowledgable about art history and technique, and we found the tour to be entertaining and informative. I learned a lot about the impressionist movement, its major figures, and noticed much more about the techniques that characterize impressionism. As a grand finale, we ended in the Van Gogh room which featured many of his most famous works.

Finally, we visited the Ethnological Museum which featured artifacts from cultures from all habitable continents and regions of the world. I think I enjoyed it a bit more, but mom also found it fascinating and informative about world cultures.

I should mention that we also enjoyed a spectacular dinner with the Grudzinskis and it was lovely to see their family. They have been so gracious over the years and I was glad to see Anastasia after three years. I wish I could say more about our trip, but I have already made my comments considerably long.

***Note: There are THREE Paris photo albums, not because of length but for organization. You can find all three links clearly labeled to the right.

Paris with Mom, Dad, and Cat PART I

So Mom and I took a high-speed train from London that went under the English Channel to get to Paris. We arrived a short time later and the three of us went out to meet Anastasia for lunch!
For those of you who don't know, Anastasia's family have become our good friends over the years ever since her brother came to stay with us almost 8 years ago.

After lunch, we had a leisurely walk around town and met dad's boss and his wife for dinner at a family favorite, "Au Vieux Paris" which is one of the oldest medeival houses still standing in Paris. Over the years, mom and dad have taken Maureen, Megan and now me to this great restaurant.

The next day, Mom and I took the day on a very intimate all-day tour of Versailles. As a history lesson, Versailles was built by Louis XIV, drained France's national treasury and thus planted the seed for the revolution in 1789, in which the peasants stormed Versailles and captured Louis XIV and his better-known wife, Marie Antoinette.

We took a tour of the palace (the "Hall of Mirrors" is what it is perhaps best known for), the palace gardens, and two smaller private residences reserved for the kings and their families. Marie Antoinette spent a lot of time in one of them. The gardens surrounding Marie Antoinette's private getaway were spectacular. She also had a "Hamlet" built for herself in the quant style of peasant's homes where she could pretend she was a commoner and play with her kids. Think "Snow white and the Seven Dwarfs" and you'll be just about right.

Our tour guide was very knowledgable and friendly, and mom and I had a wonderful time amongst the lavishness of former French royalty.

London!

Mom and I took a trip to London on our way to meet Dad in Paris. We stayed at the County Hall and our room had a head-on view of Big Ben and Parliament! The trip was four days, so I'll keep it short with just the highlights:

The first sight we saw was Westminster Abbey. Aside from being simply a church, many important figures have been buried here, mostly monarchs and nobility spanning at least 7 centuries. While beautiful, historic, and engaging, it felt a bit like mom's garage--instead of everyone's junk being crammed and cluttered in every nook and cranny, it was dead people.

The next day we took a tour of Stonehenge all the way up to Bath. This was the part I looked forward to the most. Nowadays, regular visitors are not permitted inside the henge, so I was very excited to have this privilege before the site opened to the public. While some people don't share the thrill of ancient, pre-historical monuments, I was giddy. This is a structure that baffled even the ancient Romans, and still remains mysterious today.

Along the way to Bath, we stopped at the charming village of Lacock that predates medeival times to have lunch. The tavern itself has been in business for 600 years and is still supported by the original wooden beams (which are themselves 1,300 years old)!

The Roman baths were my next favorite site. Buried and forgotten for 800 years, they were rediscovered just over 100 years ago. They were built by the Romans at the end of the 1st century A.D. and, remarkably, much of the original piping and plumbing still remains functional, intact, and water-tight almost 2,000 years later! It was cool to see how cities get built over themselves, as we descended through time (about 30 feet) to the actual site--much of which still hasn't been excavated. The amazing part about the discovery of the baths (built on a natural hotspring) is how old the water is. It probably fell as rain over 10,000 years ago!

After, we went to Shakespear's reconstructed Globe Theater and saw a production of Romeo and Juliet. Although it's not the original building, it was cool to get a taste of what the theater experience was like for people in Shakespear's time--without microphones or electric lighting. I found the play to be enjoyable, but I have read Romeo and Juliet several times and the play was easier for me to follow despite the volume and language issues.

The final highlight I will share is the Tower of London. The sheer number of people made it slightly less enjoyable for me, but it was still exciting to stand on the site where several of King Henry VIII's enemies were beheaded, including his wife Anne Boleyn. Many political prisoners have been detained and sometimes killed here, passing through the infamous "Traitor's Gate"--including Queen Elizabeth I and Thomas More. I really got a kick out of the Ravens that are kept at the Tower! Most interestingly, there still remains the remnants of an ancient Roman wall within the tower as well (which predates the Tower itself).

I might add as an afterthought that Mom and I felt very proud of ourselves for figuring out London's tube system and navigating successfully with maps--with no mishaps, wrong trains or asking for directions!

***Note: Our London photos are split into sections, roughly by day. To view all our photos be sure to click on both albums on the right! Thanks for perservering--now off to Paris!

Yvoire

Mom, dad and I took a drive all the way around Lac Leman, driving into France and stopping at the medeival maritime village of Yvoire. The structures that were once houses and shops are now restuarants and upscale boutiques, and Mom and I had a grand time shopping while Dad waited patiently outside.

The village church was quant and charming, being very small and intimate. Mom took a few pictures of it. It was a beautiful sunny day and we enjoyed ourselves.

Cat and Mom go to Lucerne

It has been a while since I last updated because I am a notorious procrastinator!

Before we left for Paris and London, Mom and I took the train to Lucerne. For those that don't remember, it is in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and is somewhat larger than Lausanne. Mom and I were pleased that virtually everyone in this city speaks English!

We started the day off by taking a walking tour of the city with a guide. Some of the highlights included the Jesuit church, constructed in the Baroque style and built in the late 17th century, and the Chapel Bridge, which dates to the first half of the 14th-century. Chapel bridge is arguably the city's most distinguished landmark, with its unique zig-zag shape and roof. Honestly, the bridge was the highlight for me because it features approximately 13 original paintings mounted beneath the roof.

Unfortunately, the bridge was set fire due to arson in 1992, and 80 of the original 110 paintings were totally lost. You can see the damage in the picture album. Some paintings that are displayed today were taken from local churches and castles to replace them. Much of the bridge had to be rebuilt, so only about 30% of the original 14th-century wood still remains. This was a major tragedy not only for the city of Lucerne but also for the many people who will visit the city now and in the future.

We visited the Boroque church and I lit two candles, one for grandpa and another for Clint's dad, Doug, who left us in 2007.

The old city was cool because it is characterized by the paintings on the outside of the buildings, usually as an advertisement of the wares once sold there or depicting recognizable characters and events. The pictures are quite interesting.

After our tour, we visited the famous Lion Monument, carved directly into the stone much like Mount Rushmore. When Mom and Megan visited in February, the lion's face was splattered red due to vandalism but we were happy to see that the city managed to get the paint out of the porous stone.

To view our pictures, Go to the link entitled "Lucerne".

Quick Note From Megan

Yes I am still in Phoenix but Cat is in Lausanne for most of June and has been posting notes and photos the past few days, so if you have not seen her additions, read on.

I have made a few adjustments to the photo links. Because I keep the photos on another site, I have been adding links directly to each new photo album as I added. It was starting to get to be a pretty long list (and I'm not sure how well the older folks can figure out how to link them now that I am not around) so I condensed it into one link called the main photo page. This will take you to the site which contains all the previous albums and you can browse through them as you please. I have kept direct links to the last few albums up so that you can see the newest additions easily. Cat has added a link on the top for photos of her time in Lausanne/Europe.

I still have to teach Dad how to upload photo albums, and I'm sure that as soon as I do he will add more photos from their trip to Basel.

Day 2 - Chillon Castle

Mom and I walked to the harbor and took a boat to the canton of Chillon, to visit the historic and ancient Chillon Castle. Along the way, we had lunch on the boat (I ordered in French!) and got a scenic view of the various cantons (which are like towns or regions) of Switzerland. We passed by vineyards and small farms, as well as cities and residential areas, which were all utterly pictaresque. With a few stops, it tooks us nearly 2 hours to reach Chillon.

The castle of Chillon is located on a small rock island, and archaeologists think it has been occupied since the Bronze Age--probably about 1500 BC! It has been used as a strategic outpost probably for about 2000 years, as Roman coins and artifacts have also been excavated on site.

The modern structure we see today started simply as a fortified wall along the lakeside of the island, probably built over 800 years ago. It may have been accompanied by a small church and a few other small structures--the crypt itself remained buried and forgotten until the 20th century! This is in the very, very early history of Christianity so this place of worship probably incorporated what we would call Pagan symbols and ritualistic elements associated with the ancient mystics.

The castle is the result of hundreds of years of additions and alterations made by the various family lines that inherited the castle over the years, and is a result of a long and complicated architectural evolution. A large tower was added a couple of centuries after the wall, called a "keep". A keep functions as a weapons cache, a lookout tower, and a useful long-range defense point to protect the canton from invaders coming from both Southern and Northern Europe. Living quarters weren't added until well into the 1100's.

Over the years, many other additions and alterations have been made by its many owners--new rooms, a second story, courtyards, chapels, etc. When it arrived in its 8th century of existence in the early 1900s, it was in a rather poor state and began to be renovated and restored--but you can imagine how "restoration" is an ambiguous and challenging feat because one must decide to WHICH conditions to restore it to, or during which period of occupation seems best fit for restoration.

Maybe if you are not a nerd for history like me all that seems boring. But I actually learned a great deal on this tour because I always thought a castle came into being when some king or nobleman decides they want a house, makes up the plans, and sets away to building in a more or less linear fashion. I could not have been more wrong!

Within the castle are many original elements-- 800 year old wooden pillars, 500 year old wall paintings, stone staircases, etc. While many aspects have been restored or replaced--such as area of the roof--it has maintained an incredible amount of historical integrity.

My favorite part was the prison located beneath the castle. People were held here and sometimes condemned to death. Along one of the walls remains an original charcoal drawing depicting Jesus on the cross and other Christian saints--all of whom are associated with death and the dying. It was probably the most powerful aspect of the castle for me as I gazed at these ancient images which probably offered the last measure of solace for many in the last hours of their lives.

Lord Byron, the famous poet, visited the castle and was inspired by the life of one of its prisoners, Francois Bonivard (who was imprisoned for 4 years because of his political activism for independence in the 16th century) . I will end this rather long-winded entry with an excerpt from the poem that Lord Byron wrote about Chillon:

On the Castle of Chillon

ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart—
The heart which love of Thee alone can bind.
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd,
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
Chillon! thy prison is a holy place
And thy sad floor an altar, for 'twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace
Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.

Cat Comes to Lausanne

I was very nervous in anticipation for my trip to Lausanne because it has been over three years since my last French lesson and Mom and I would be traveling alone for much of my stay. I didn't think we would be able to get around in Paris, so I worried and fretted during my entire flight.

It wasn't until we made our final descent over Geneva shortly after sunrise, when I saw the alps towering over little French villages and the big city of Geneva, that my nervousness completely vanished and was finally replaced by excitement. If you have never seen the Alps in person before, there is no way to visualize it--but they really are truly majestic.

Mom drove all the way from their house to pick me up at the airport. I was really anxious when we started driving but Mom had the attitude of a professional international driver! :) The roads and highways in Switzerland are very orderly, organized, and as we like to say, "civilized". People don't speed and the roads are not a crazy free-for-all, like in most European cities.

After I got settled Mom and I took a walk through Lausanne so I wouldn't get tired. The city is beautiful--there are lots of public spaces and parks scattered throughout the city, characterized by immense and ancient-looking trees, well-primmed gardens, public art and fountains. We stopped at a rather large park, within which was situated an old house and what used to be stables. The city runs the facility now, and installed large bird cages outside.

There were exotic birds, chickens, and pheasants and mom and I really enjoyed watching them. The city runs the facility! I was very surprised by that. We stayed and enjoyed the peacocks and finches, but my favorite were the chickens, who liked to scratch in the sand and squabble with each other.

We wandered home after lunch--I was ready to escape inside because I'll admit I was still kind of nervous about my French--and I passed out at about 6:45 pm and slept gloriously for 13 hours.