My town

It's the end of the year and finding myself back in my Australian home, I thought I'd post some photos of my Swiss one. Here's a tour through my town - Nyon, in Canton Vaud, Switzerland...

The centre of town. Each Saturday morning there's a
growers' market here, full of fresh food and produce.

Place de Chateau - often the streets around
the place are closed for festivals in summer;
usually to do with wine. The flags: Liberté et
patrie, the flag of Canton Vaud; behind it,
the red and blue fish flag of Nyon.

Chateau de Nyon. Parts of it have been around since the
13th century. I have a confession to make - in the 3 years
since I've lived in Nyon, I've never been inside the main
residence of the chateau; just the wine cellars downstairs!

The view from the Chateau's terrace across Lake Geneva
and the Alps - on a clear day, Mont Blanc (tallest
mountain in Europe) is clearly visible.

Down the hill towards the lake and we're into
the cobblestones of the vieille ville (old town)
part of Nyon. Some of the water pumps (see
this post) date from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Street life in the old town; Cafe des Moulins
in the background is a tapas bar.

In the old town: someone is keeping an eye
 on you. I call the statue Colonel Nyon.

Gelateria Venezia - seriously, the best
gelato this side of Italy. Maybe anywhere
outside of Italy. I'll be heartbroken when I
eventually leave Switzerland and can no
longer get my fix! It's hard enough that
they close in winter...

Nyon waterfront and jetty, where the lake's boats stop on
their to and fro voyages between lakeside towns in
France and Switzerland.

My town: Nyon.

Tour de Switzerland

It's coming up nearly two years since I arrived in Switzerland. And it flies by pretty quickly. There's been quite a bit I've come to like about this country - in fact, you can see a list here - one of which I have no hesitation in saying is Switzerland's proximity to everywhere else in Europe. In fact, it was one of the first things I wrote about. Jump on a train three hours north-west and find yourself in Paris; three hours south-east you'll end up saying buongiorno in Milan; and two hours' flight will take you pretty much anywhere in Europe. 

But I haven't really seen much of Switzerland itself. Living in one of Europe's most beautiful countries - and one that has some of the continent's most recognisable icons - that's rather sad.  So, much as I will always be willing to jump on a plane or train and venture outside of Switzerland's borders, I've recently decided to turn that around and see what Switzerland has to offer. 

And what an offering. I had long wanted to see perhaps the most instantly recognisable mountain on Earth - the Matterhorn. However to make the trip worthwhile - it's a bit of schlep, taking two trains and nearly four hours from Nyon - it's best to pick a clear day. 

A mountain that needs no introduction

We had a long weekend in September with fine weather, so after making sure that the weather at the Matterhorn was fine and clear - thanks to the magic of webcams - we headed for Zermatt, the famous ski town at the base of the mountain. Although traditionally a ski resort town, more associated with powder snow and freezing temperatures, Zermatt in late summer nonetheless buzzes with tourists and, of course, hard core Swiss hikers. 

After arriving in Zermatt, we walked through the town in a state of anticipated excitement - where's the Matterhorn? We round a bend in one of the pedestrian-only streets of the village - and there it stood, in its majestic, iconic, postcard picture-like beauty. 

Taking a series of cable cars from the village, we head up for the mountains. I'd never been to the mountains above Zermatt at all, let alone in winter - though that's another goal for another day - but seeing it summer was a strange experience. The landscape in the high mountains, bare of snow, was almost moon-like - grey, rocky, devoid of vegetation. 

The Alps from the summit of the Klein Matterhorn

After taking a couple of cable cars up ever higher, we take the last one for the end of the line - the top of the Klein Matterhorn (Little Matterhorn). With the summit at nearly 4,000m above sea level, it's the highest point on land I've ever been. standing on the summit is an awesome experience; the Matterhorn itself so close you can almost touch it, with cloud billowing off the warm face of the Italian side of the Matterhorn. To its left, the high peaks of the Alps roll off as far as the eye can see. I'm halfway to heaven and it's an experience I'll never forget. 

Back down to earth, and a few days later we're heading for Bern, Switzerland's capital. Bern is a little like some of the world's other capitals; the seat of a country's power, it's famous for being the capital - and not much else. Comparisons with Washington DC and Canberra in Australia spring to mind. 

It's not my first visit to the Swiss capital - that was on a miserable Sunday in winter earlier last year, and was a bit of a disaster. Horrible, cold, wet weather, and - being a Sunday - nothing open and nothing to do. I wasn't in a hurry to go back, so when Emperor D suggested we visit Bern on a Saturday at the end of summer, I was surprised - but after hesitating, decided to give Bern another chance. 

The River Aare coasts past Bern

I'm glad I did. While it will never meet the verve (well, for Switzerland) of Zurich or even Geneva, it is a pleasant city that's lively enough on a Saturday afternoon in summer. The old part of the town is gorgeous, with cobblestone streets, and Swiss chocolate box architecture. The River Aare that circumnavigates it, is a brilliant ceylon sapphire blue, with a fast-running current. Even on a day that struggled to get out of the 20s in temperature, it looked inviting enough; on a hot day in high summer, I can only imagine how packed it must get. 

We ended the day by coming across a small, pop-up rock concert in a terraced park by the river, not far from the train station. We took in local acts - some good, some truly awful - belting out rock tunes with English lyrics on the top of a bus while enjoying a pint of beer or a glass of wine. It wasn't a side of Bern that I expected to see, but I was nonetheless glad to see it, since it made me realise that first impressions don't always last. 

Then, during October, with autumn in full swing, we headed for the UNESCO heritage-listed terraced vineyards of the Lavaux region, at the top of Lake Geneva. Lavaux is famous for its vineyards and the wines that it produced from their grapes; it’s supposed to be particularly beautiful in autumn as the vines change colour.

Terraced vineyards of Lavaux

A group of us headed for the tiny lakeside village of Lutry, just east of Lausanne. From there we took a tourist train through the Lavaux region – the best way to see them – where we could see the vines marching up the hills in glorious autumn shades of yellow, orange and red. At the end of the trip, back in Lutry, we headed back up into the Lavaux vineyards where we eventually found a couple of bottles of local wines (self-service; very trusting of the Swiss with alcohol involved!), some disposable wine glasses and, finding a picnic table, sat down and soaked up the late Sunday afternoon autumn sun, with a couple of glasses of wine and a great view of the lake and the Alps. Happy times.

Heading back down the hill to catch the train back was an interesting experience, especially after a couple of glasses of wine and feeling a little on the light-headed side. With us in danger of missing the train and the next one not another for half an hour, and with the road down being too far away and winding, we took a shortcut – through the vineyards themselves. They are terraced, so getting down wasn’t too bad, but it did make for an adventurous end to the day trying to find our way through the vineyards, and ending up in someone’s backyard. I’m sure that’s not the first time that’s happened to them.

I’m glad I’ve got out and seen more of the country. I’ve been to Zurich as well in the last couple of weeks, but there’s still so much more to see. So, when in Switzerland, go and see her – she’s got a lot to offer.

Fine wines and cow hoe-downs

Yes, I’ve been a little quiet lately. Travel and social engagements have kept me busy throughout the rest of summer and into the start of autumn. And autumn is here with a vengeance; today it’s only 12C and there’s a healthy dusting of snow on the Alps. But the cooler weather hasn’t deterred festival organisers or festival goers. Over the last few weekends, I’ve attended two festivals in or near my home town, Nyon. One was a sophisticated wine festival showcasing the best local wines on offer; the other was a mountain-side cow hoe-down, featuring pretty much every cliché Switzerland has to offer.

Fetes de la Vigne in Nyon - the Swiss try out
their local drops

A few weeks back, I gathered some friends and we headed into the old part of Nyon for Fetes de la Vigne, a wine festival that features the best wine producers and wines in the local area. Local wines, however, are no slouch. Before moving here, I actually had no idea that Switzerland was such a prolific producer of wines – I thought the climate would be too cold but apparently it’s not; most grapes are grown in the French-speaking cantons in the south and west of the country. One of Switzerland’s best natural products is also its best-kept secret; the country exports less than two per cent of its wine, and what does go out of the country goes mostly across the border to Germany. So little wonder then that most people don’t know about Swiss wine.

But the local drops are great. I’m a red and rosé drinker and there’s plenty to choose from. The good thing is that at Fetes des Vignes – unlike other wine tastings in the area – the actual tastings are free. Plus they’re pretty generous with their ‘tasting’ size, with one old guy at a cellar stall giving my friend Julia and I nearly half a glass of a red to try. After my third ‘tasting’ I was well on my way to getting hammered until we decided to grab a bite to eat. The free tastings do work though; between the seven of us who went, we bought at least three, if not four, bottles of wine. The last one we bought was a bottle of red that had strong notes of dark chocolate but went for a pricey CHF35. We didn’t end up opening it that night, but despite what my parents – who are wine connoisseurs among the best of them – say, we won’t be cellaring it. Why store wine when it’s more fun to drink it?

The festival itself though was fun. It brought the whole community out for it, expat and Swiss, together. Friends and neighbours crowded around communal tables sharing a laugh and a glass – or four – of local wine. I have one gripe though – and it’s about the grapes. The programme for the festival in the local paper said that there would be grape harvesting and crushing. The harvesting I could easily give a miss. But grape crushing sounded like fun. Here I was thinking I could kick my shoes off and jump into a barrel of grapes to crush them with my feet, like I’ve seen them do in movies. Seeing the Swiss crush grapes with their feet would have been a sight to behold, but maybe they don’t have the passion the French, Spanish or Italians do. There was no feet crushing of grapes; the Swiss version of crushing grapes involved putting them through an old-school mechanical press to make grape juice. Never mind, it was still a fun festival.

Yes. It's a cow with a tree
and flowers on its head.

A week later, and the fun moved to St Cergue, a village up in the mountains from Nyon, for Desalpes (that’s from the Alps) – a traditional festival that signifies bringing the cows down from the mountains for the winter. Desalpes is Switzerland personified. The only thing missing from the parade of Swiss clichés was Heidi, and I’m sure that was only because she’s Swiss-German, not Swiss-French.

The festival is basically a continuous parade of cows, being brought down the mountain road into the village. Each farm leads their herd into the village headed by their ‘queens’ of the herd – or those that yield the most milk. The queen of the herd is easily identifiable by the headdress of trees and flowers on its head. Yes, you read right – by the flowers on its head.

The cows also have the massive Swiss cow bells and decorated collars round their necks. Then there are the dogs – I think they’re Bernese Mountain dogs – but they’re the adorable, sweet-natured working dogs, who pulled carts of children in a parade (I have no idea why).

While Desalpes is definitely a visual feast – including seeing traditional folk dancers in folk costume – it’s also a literal feast, with the streets of the village lined with stalls full of food, most of it local and traditional. Crepes, sausages, chocolate – it’s all there.

No Heidi? The next best Swiss cliche -
Alpine horns

It all makes for a cacophony of noise; in addition to the cow bells (which are actually quite loud when you add up a herd of over 100 cows, all with bells on, going at a brisk trot down the road), there’s the most Swiss cliché of them all – the Alpine horn. I can’t think of anything more Swiss – a group of men (with the odd woman thrown in), lined up in a row, blowing on these long, wooden horns, decorated with edelweiss and the Swiss coat of arms. Swiss cliché heaven.

I think there’s one thing to remember for the next Desalpes – bring a pair of Wellington boots. There’s a lot of cows…

Six months in Switzerland and what have I learned?

It’s now July, and it’s been six months since I arrived in Switzerland. And how quickly it has gone by – it seems only yesterday I got off the plane and took my first look about me in my new city. A mild winter with no snow has changed into a surprisingly sometimes hot, humid summer. I’ve learnt some French. Made some friends. Seen a little bit of the country.

But what else have I learnt? What have I come to love about my new country, and what would I willingly change? Here’s a list of loves and loathes…

Love

The mountains

Each day, especially on clear days when you can see Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain, I’m awestruck by the beauty and grandeur of the Alps and the Jura. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing them.

Loathe

Hard-to-find and expensive housing

Geneva is terrible when it comes to affordable housing – it doesn’t have any. Although I love our apartment, it’s tiny and the rent is a third of my monthly salary (which is not uncommon) – and it isn’t even in Geneva.

Love

The transport system

So an early post of mine complained about the trains, but honestly the Swiss rail network is one of the best in the world. They’re fast, clean, go to all corners of Switzerland, and are – usually – efficient.

Loathe

Expensive and hard-to-find food

A recent post for the Empress Eats, my food blog, sums it up. Food, especially meat, can be very expensive and I’ve found it hard to find some ingredients I take for granted at home. Not great when you write a food blog.

Love

Being in the middle Europe

This is not necessarily a bad reflection on Switzerland, but after living in Perth – one of the most isolated cities in the world – I love how being in the middle of Europe means you can travel anywhere in no time and often for next to no money.

Loathe

Expensive health insurance

Things that are expensive is becoming a theme, but it’s little wonder when you move from the 13^th most expensive city in the world to the 9^th most expensive. Health insurance in particular is nasty – I pay four times as much for less than half the coverage I got back home.

Love

Pretty towns; my pretty town of Nyon

Pretty towns

Switzerland is very pretty. Geneva is very pretty. Nyon is very pretty. With soaring mountains, beautiful blue lakes and rolling green hills, it helps to become endeared to a new place when it’s aesthetically pleasing to live in.

Loathe

Crap, expensive restaurants

I’ve recently been told that, per capita, Geneva has the most restaurants in the world. I’m yet to find one that I would give a glowing review to. The food is not that great, and, of course, it’s also expensive.

Love

The history

Switzerland is nearly 800 years old, having been founded in 1291. That makes for some very old towns complete with cobblestones, stone forts and city walls, and imposing chateaus. Coming from a country that is not even 250 years old, that is pretty impressive.

Loathe

Not being able to speak the language

Well, this is actually our fault, but not being able to speak the language is pretty frustrating; in fact, it’s what Emperor D dislikes the most about living here. It’s very hard to make friends and even just understand what’s going on when you don’t speak French.

Love

The melting pot of nationalities

I’ve met people from all over the world while living here, and it’s a real pleasure to converse and find out if someone from South Africa, or Malaysia, or the UK or US has the same perspective on life in Switzerland as I do. Plus, despite the loathe above about crap restaurants, you get a variety in the cuisine here that I don’t get at home.

Loathe

The smoking

I’ve written about this in a previous post, but honestly, the smoking here is atrocious. Dodging cigarette smoke here gets you a good workout. The sad thing – since posting in mid-March I have seen just one quit-smoking ad, and it was in a cinema just over a week ago.

Love

The weather

Typical cold, (almost) snowy winters were to be expected, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by summer – consistently warm, with some days hot enough to go for a swim; humid with frequent thunderstorms (which I love); sunny more often than not. There are worse places in Europe to live for the weather – summer in Scotland, anyone?

So they are the things I’ve discovered about Switzerland after six months of living here. It’s had its down moments, but surprisingly I haven’t once wanted to go back home. I thought I would have been a lot more homesick than I am – in fact, I haven't felt homesick at all. Sure, there are a lot of things back home that I miss – friends, family, the familiarity of it all – but it’s the lack of familiarity here that I relish. It’s a challenge to get out of your comfort zone and start life all over again. It’ll be interesting to see how much this list will have changed in another six months’ time. Keep an eye out for it!

Got snow?

The Jet d'Eau with a clear Mont Blanc
in the background, middle.

Well, it’s mid-winter and Switzerland doesn’t. I confess that having never really seen snow before, seeing fresh, powder snow was high on my list of must-see things when I first arrived in Switzerland, now just over a week ago. Before this, the closest I’d come to seeing snow was seeing slush – snow that had fallen a few days previously – on the top of Mt Rigi, near Lucerne, ironically also in Switzerland. That was in June, which is the beginning of summer, four and a half years ago.

Since I arrived, the weather has been unseasonably warm. Switzerland should be buried under two feet of powder snow and its citizens should be shivering under grey skies in temps hovering around 0C. Instead, I’ve been welcomed by temps around 10C – 13C (although today was a little colder, ‘only’ 6C) and brilliant, clear, sunny skies.

I should be grateful, especially since this Aussie came from mid-summer temps in the high 30s. I guess its Geneva’s way of providing me with a warm welcome (sorry, bad pun) and allowing me to gradually acclimatise to the cooler weather, rather than the shock of arriving in snowy, freezing conditions.

Images like these – bright sunny skies and warmer than expected weather – has certainly endeared me to Geneva. It’s much easier to like a place under these skies than grey wet ones.

A glorious sunny day in Geneva, but no snow
on the mountains says it all.

Still, I’m a little disappointed at seeing no snow. There’s no snow on top of the mountains either. In fact, a planned day to go snow shoeing in the Jura mountains with my new work colleagues had to be changed to a terrifying attempt at ice skating instead. No snow means I had to try ice skating for the first time since I was 16. It was not pretty – even 5 year old Swiss kids put me to shame.

The Genevoise are certainly lapping it up – some literally. I was too nice not to take photos, but yesterday I saw nude sunbathers soaking up the sun – despite it being only 13C – and today someone was swimming in the freezing cold water of Lac Leman (that’s Lake Geneva). More than one person stared and pointed at this lady, who clearly had a death wish by wanting to contract pneumonia. 

The Genevoise take advantage of the sunshine

Other Genevoise take to the promenades, strolling, riding, rollerblading in the sunshine with family and friends. Emperor D and I joined them. With Geneva even more backwards than Perth in having all the shops closed on Sundays, there’s not much else to do, but on a day like today, nobody would complain.

How could you when you’ve found yourself fortunate enough to live in a place like this? 

Bienvenue a Geneve

That’s French for welcome to Geneva, where I finally arrived after a killer 26 hours of travelling two and a half days ago. I’m so glad to be here at last. But let me back track a little firstly, as it’s been awhile since my last post.

Mountains from the Quai de Mont Blanc.
You can supposedly see Europe's highest mountain
from here and I thought it was the mountain
the middle; it's actually the one hidden by
cloud to the right of the building.

That’s basically because it’s been a whirlwind of farewells, packing, cancelling accounts – and lying by the pool reading, relaxing and doing nothing. I should explain that my parents live a couple of hours’ flight away from me, and I usually see them only every six months. A couple of months before I knew I was moving, I’d booked flights to see them for about a week just after Christmas. Turns out it was a good move, as it allowed me to relax and spend some time with them shortly before leaving, but it also means the manic period before I left became even more so. Still, it was certainly worth it.

There was also loads of packing. Our house looked like a bomb had hit it for a number of days – and I imagine it still does, as Emperor D hasn’t left yet and is finalising arrangements.

The left bank and the famous Jet d'Eau.

But I got here on Thursday morning. It was a long, long, trip. I had two stopovers in Singapore and Frankfurt before finally getting to Geneva, with waits at airports in between. I’ve always said that if I could have any magic superpower, it would be teleportation – a la Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie crossing her arms and blinking her eyes and voíla, she was instantaneously somewhere else – and never more so than after spending 13 hours squashed into an economy class seat.

So I arrived, and despite feeling pretty wiped out, I managed to venture out and take a look around. Wow. How fortunate am I to have landed in such a beautiful place. It was quite cloudy as you can see in most of the photos, except for the last one, which was taken today when it was much sunnier. In fact, the weather has been ridiculously un-winter like. There’s little snow on top of the mountains (real mountains!), and it’s been cool, around 10C – 13C, not bitingly cold. Hopefully I’ll get to see some snow before the winter out at this rate!

Lake Geneva - or Lac Lemán as the locals call it -
looking north from the Jetée des Paquis. Looks
like you can go for a swim - if you don't mind your
water being a chilly 10C - 14C.

I’m surrounded by people from over 100 nations – Geneva is a true melting pot, and you can see this in the variety of restaurants the city hosts. There’s the standard Italian, Thai, and Chinese, but I’ve also seen Japanese, Peruvian, Turkish even Ethiopian restaurants. And of course, there’s the French-influenced boulangeries, charcuteries and brassieres.

As for my French, I’m not doing too bad. I had started to learn several weeks before leaving Australia, by listening to lessons on my iPod. I’m glad I had learnt some French though. Despite being a city of over 100 nations and their accompanying languages, it seems some Genevoise speak little English. Not that I’m complaining – I relish the challenge of learning a new language - but I was surprised. I’ve learnt enough to get by in restaurants and shops. I feel quite proud of my French, which I imagine to the Genevoise is appallingly pronounced and delivered in a thick accent. But I think they appreciate my efforts.

The left bank - sans the Jet d'Eau - today,
when it was much sunnier.

While I’m looking forward to getting under Geneva’s skin a little more and exploring Switzerland as much as I can, my first few days have been interesting and filled with new sights, and I already have some great ideas for blogs in the future. Watch this space!