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Published: July 20th 2011
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I had returned to Switzerland for the first time since January 1983, having at that time spent the previous summer at an Alpage followed by picking grapes for the Vendange. I was taking the opportunity of the short hop from Barcelona to revisit my good friends Brigitte and Francois in Vevey. Carolina was with me and I figured we would just lay about a bit, swimming in Lac Lamont, and maybe mixing it with some meals and talk with Brigitte and Francois in between them having to work at the backpackers lodge they run in Vevey (it being the very busiest time of the year with the Montreux Jazz Festival on).
The lay back certainly eventuated but we were meanwhile treated to a full week of wine, cheese, chocolate, walking, mountain stays, good company and visits to great places.
Francois is a connoisseur and collector of fine wines. I reckon that in this week we drank at least 20 or 30 bottles of various whites, reds and sweet wines. Note this sometimes was between 4 to 8 people so not too bad really! Then there was the array of swiss cheeses (including of course my favourite and a further
Our view and accomodation
Brigitte and Francois' place is at the left of the shot. We stayed in the flat with the top balcony which used to be where Francois' mother lived reason for my visit to Switzerland, Gruyuere), chocolates and other sweet delicacies. Gruyuere featured in our last night’s fondu, which we shared in the same family chalet in Les Pliades where I had first tried skiing back in January 1983.
The Swiss summer at Lac Lamont, on a good clear sunny day, affords wonderful swimming and lolling about on the lakes shore. Then the weather can change dramatically. Our second day was raining and misty so Brigitte shouted us to an afternoon in the hot springs baths and saunas about 40 minutes drive east of Vevey.Relaxing stuff! On another wet day we drove to Interlaken to meet up with Juerg and Jane (Swiss friends from Basel who spend half the year in Forresters Beach Australia) and to meet Brigitte’s lovely mother. The town itself was full of Indian tourists.
Francois took us to the Bulle Markets, where I had gone each Thursday all those years back with my alpage friend Jean-Claude Zosso to sell the ‘toms’ (small goats milk cheeses) we produced as a by-product of our Alpage duties. The markets had grown quite a bit, but there were still alpagers selling those toms.
On one sunny
afternoon we took the vuniculaire to Mt Pelerin, then walked from Chardonne down through the Lavaux World Heritage Cultural Site vineyards, passing through the lovely village of St Saphorin (where I had stayed in Brigitte’s then flat in 1983), ending up viewing the famous Lavaux Vinorama (prize winning film about the annual cycle of wine making in this famous place) before catching a train back to Vevey. A great time with fantastic vistas across the vines down to the lake. The specialness of these vineyards is partly due to what they call the triple sun effect: the direct sunlight, the reflected sunlight from the lake and the stored heat of the vineyard rock walls.
While the visit to the Calliers chocolate factory was not necessarily what I would do by myself, it was actually very educational (not to mention filling when at the last stage we were led to a room full of every variety of their chocolate to sample).
Switzerland is unbelievably clean and neat and green and fresh and beautiful. So much so that one wonders how such a place can exist in this crazy and chaotic world. But wow! It takes your breath away and
Bulle Castle
In Gruyuier district near Bulle certainly adds a few grams of body fat along the way unless one tries to keep swimming and walking between those meals and snacks and wines.
Back to Spain now but there is a sense that I might just need to come back to spend a whole summer once again in this place one of these years.
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Sandi Bartlett
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wow!!
Wish I was there!!