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Europe » Switzerland » North-West » Le Bémont
June 26th 2006
Published: June 26th 2006
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On the Jura TrainOn the Jura TrainOn the Jura Train

The town's so small, you have to push that button to let the conductor know you want to stop there.
This was started a loooong time ago.



* * *


For the past 3 days I was in a little teeny tiny Swiss village called Le Bémont, in the Jura Canton, near the French border. According to wikipedia (German edition) Le Bémont has 346 inhabitants, soon to be 347, since the lady who runs the hostel is hugely pregnant and ready to pop! But she was so nice.

To get to Le Bémont was a bit of a trek. I first arrived in Basel via Germany, then too a regional train to Glovelier, then transfer onto the 'Jura Train', and then push a button on the train so the conductor would make the stop. The whole thing was so quient! The Jura train is only one track (maybe there is a name for this) and the same train goes between point A and B on the same track.

And the youth hostel at Le Bémont? Really good. Just like all the other Swiss youth hostels, couldn't ask for better. Well, other than no internet.

I arrived on Saturday afternoon before the hostel reception office opened so I decided to walk around a bit to see what's what, where's what. I cross the railroad tracks and I pass a lady working in her yard. She says 'bon jour' to me and I say back 'guten tag!' because uh, not to be rude, but I don't speak French! And then she gestures to me to go towards her, I do, and I don't remember how this all happened, but I some how figured out that she is telling me that I can leave my backpack on her porch while I go walking around and then pick it up on my way back. That's very nice of her, and I leave my pack, and then I sort of aimlessly walk down the road.

I pass fields, I pass cows, I see horses and I see houses. I see hills in the distance but way to far for me to walk, especially since I didn't sleep the night before and hardly had anything decent to eat.

I find a shady spot on a grassy field and decide to sit down and watch the cows. It's difficult to judge where I can and where I cannot tread. A lot of the fields have what looks to
Bovi StopBovi StopBovi Stop

To prevent the cows from crossing the road.
be stakes and strings rigged up to denote property lines but others look like huge fields of grass with a house or two sitting in the middle. Maybe all the grass belongs to that house and I shouldn't be sitting on there? But then again, I see random cows wandering onto the grass to EAT the grass, so I dont see the harm I could be doing by merely SITTING on it.

Yes, I have pictures of cows. Many.

Then after maybe 20 minutes I head back to the lady's house to get my bag. She sees me coming and she brings out refreshments! How cool is that? We stand on her porch and talk for a bit. She speaks mainly French, tiny bit of German, and we manage to carry on a conversation. So she tells me that she's lived there for all of her life, she has 3 sons, and her youngest (7) likes to go over to play at the youth hostel.

And THIS, I thought was the coolest thing, ever.

Her husband drives the Jura train for a living.

When the kids were young, he would make the stop in Le
All Those SignsAll Those SignsAll Those Signs

And I was still lost.
Bémont (less than a minute walk from their house), she would meet him at the stop with the kids and pass them through the window and then they ride with him up and down together!

Doesn't that sound really cool? I could totally picture it, and she looked really happy when she told me that little bit of story.

After a bit, I tell her that I wanted to check in at the hostel and go take a shower because I haven't had one for a while and I am really dirty (I was sportin' dreads in my hair, and NOT on purpose!)

* * *

I check in. The lady is really nice. Even though I am arriving a day late according to my reservation (original plan was to arrive Friday), she says that she won't charge me for the night that I wasn't there. And she gives me a bed in a 11 bedroom. Sounds like a lot, but I was the only one in the room.

My guess is that very few non-Swiss visitors goto Le Bémont. If someone had the inclination to go visit Switzerland, s/he would hit the highlight cities waay before find the way to LB. Not to say that the hostel was empty; far from it, the place was hopping with little kids doing a field trip with adult chaperons. But they were all Swiss.

Here's something else that's just utterly adorable: Little Swissy children speaking Swiss German. Oh, I could just squeeze them, they are so cute!


I slept really well on Saturday night, approx 12 hours.
And I woke up in time to stuff myself silly at the all you can eat breakfast buffet.

Milk products galore plus some deli meats and juice/tea/coffee. I was a bit anxious about where and when my next meal was going to take place because everything was closed on Sunday in LB (just like in Germany) and I only had a few snackie type things in my backpack (peanuts, trail mix, juice).

But fear not. I have not yet starved to death, and it can't possibly be worse than being stuck on a bus from Tallinn to Warsaw. ö

After stuffing myself silly at breakfast I decide to go for a walk. I manage to walk all the way to the next village, Saignelégier,
View IIView IIView II

Lake. Oh la la...
which has a bit over 2000 inhabitants, according to Wikipedia. It's another sleepy little town, and even more sleepy on a Sunday with nothing open. But guess what, it has a tourist information office! And it's open, too! From what I can tell, it's the tourist office that serves the whole canton of Jura, not just the town. I walk in, there is a lady behind the counter and no other customers, and I ask her what there is to do here on a Sunday... I know, lame question, depends totally on interest. She gives me some papers and shows me a trail to a lake. Sounds good. I ask her if there is a store open where I can buy some food, she tells me that there is ONE shop that is open until noon on Sunday but I have to hurry (it was 11.30). I walk really fast in the direction she points me to and I arrive at the store. Kinda like a 7/11. I walk up to the automatic door and it doesn't open, but I see people inside. Well, just my luck, I notice a chalkboard sign near the door and on it, written in
View IIIView IIIView III

Going around the lake, interesting roots.
French, was something like

'we are closing early today at 11.30'.


I walk back to the tourist office and now I ask if there's an internet cafe (if I can't eat, can I at least check my email??). She tells me no, but there is internet in the hotel down the road. I have to goto the hotel reception and ask to use the internet. ??? This is just strange. But I am desperate, so I go to the hotel. Which is a hotel/pizzaria! I approach reception and the lady says 'Bon Jour' and I say 'Bon Jour, sprechen Sie deutsch oder Englisch?' and she shakes her head, no... So there goes my chance of internet.

I go back to the tourist office again (not that she has anything else better to do...) and ask if there are any other places where I can buy food to eat, now I am thinking restaurant or cafe. She tells me there is a place that sells bread called the 'Tea Room' and that I can probably get something from there. Tea room is in the direction of LB, so I go.

At the Tea Room, the lady
All Those SignsAll Those SignsAll Those Signs

And I'm still lost!
greets me with 'Bon Jour'. I, again, reply with,'guten tag'. And then I ask for mitnehmen (literally 'take with', which is English for take out) and she now replies in German and tells me to go to the other counter where she can better show me what they have for sale.

The standard breads... And then a small section of pastries. And I see a torte! Or was it a tart? I see something that looks pretty and small enough for me to eat all by myself, and just in time for my birthday! I ask her how much, she says 5.8 Francs, I say yes I want it, and now I am the proud owner of a self bought birthday torte. :-) Considering how expensive everything had been, the torte is a steal.

I start walking back in the direction of the Hostel because I want to put the torte into the fridge. I will eat it later, after I spend some time posing and photographing it from all angles (its a round torte, not too many angles. but...)

Then as I am walking, I remember the nice lady from yesterday and decide that I will drop by her house again and share my torte with her.


* * *

I goto her house and knock on her glass door. She's home with her young son, Maxime, and she welcomes me in and I present my box. She smiles really big and I try to tell her in German that it's my birthday and that I am going to have a little celebration. She doesn't really understand, so I pull out my passport and show her my DOB that's printed on there. She takes a few seconds, looks at the calender, understands, and grabs a piece of paper to write down what she thinks is my birthday.

She writes down 20.
Hhahahaa.

I shake my head and point to the date in the passport again and she says something in French and revises her calculation.

She writes down 24. 😊
Looks like I'm not the only one around here with rusty math.


I take her pencil and write down my birth year, write down this year, and then do the calculation and show her the answer. She looks at it, eyes get really big, says a bunch of
The Lady's dogThe Lady's dogThe Lady's dog

She's about 12 years old and she loves cheese! What a life.
things in French, and then proceeds to do the 3 kisses on the cheek thing with me. Oh, someone's happy for me on my birthday!

Out comes the plates and she slices my torte for me. Her young son, Maxime, shouldn't really have any, she tells me, because he's diabetic. Poor kid gets shot 4 times a day. I eat my birthday torte together with her and she tells me about her family, her life, her town... in a mixture of French, German, and sporadically English.

Here's what's amazing to me. I've never studied French before and she speaks fast and ferious, but somehow I can understand her a good portion of the time. Often I will repeat back to her in German what I think I heard in French, and she will tell me yes, and then go on with more of the story.

That is just really cool.

I tell her a bit about my travels and how I ended up in here. And then she brings out for me slides of her vacation when she went to Thailand with her husband back around the early 1980's. I am the prefect audience for slides
My AccommodationsMy AccommodationsMy Accommodations

Swiss Hostels are awesome.
and vacation photos because most of the time I am actually interested. :-p

After the slides, she offers to let me take one of their bikes so I can go explore the lake. Great. The tourist office lady said it would take about an hour to walk there, so I figure with the bike, maybe 30 minutes, max.

She shows me the shed where they keep the bikes and she brings out one. That's built for a giant. No way. I can't even get my leg over the cross bar. Then she brings out one that's made for a normal sized European. :-/ Still really big, but at least I can manage to get my feet on the ground when needed. Then she brings out the helmet, the gloves, the sunglasses. Wow, even back at home I'm not all that prepared!

Maxime wants to come too but she thinks it's too far for him to bike. And besides, he doesn't speak any German! But Maxime wants to come, so she tells him he can ride for a ways with me and then he has to turn back when he feels tired.

Now I'm all geared up
My Birthday TorteMy Birthday TorteMy Birthday Torte

Happy Birthday to me Happy Birthday to me Happy Birthday to meeeeee! Happy Birthday to me
and she offers to take a photo of me. I laughed, I felt so silly with all of my gear, and I said no. But now I'm regretting not having a photo!

Maxime and I ride down the one road in front of their house that leads into the forests. I'm finding that the brakes on the bike aren't all that. We pass over many a "Bovine stops" (see photo) and after about 10 minutes Maxime stops, probably tells me that he has to go back, and then points straight ahead for me to keep riding. Bye bye Maxime! Really adorable kid.


* * *

The map from the tourist office is useless. I ride and I ride and I see none of the streets printed on there. I stop to ask directions and people tell me it's "that way". I go "that way", keep riding, stop to ask directions, and people tell me it's "over there". Three times I stop, and three times the answer is different.

At one point a car stops next to me and the occupants say some things to me in French. I shake my head and reply in German that I only speak and understand German and English. So they ask me in German, are you with a group or are you alone? I say I am alone. They say, ok, they thought I was with a group and that I got separated -- they wanted to tell me that the group of bikers went that other way.

So I grab that chance and say again that no, I'm by myself, and oh poor me, I am lost and I can't find the lake... oh by the way, can you tell me where to find the lake... So they take a look at which lake I'm talking about (there are 2 relatively big ones and a few ponds) and point back to where I came from. They give me really convoluted directions (in German!) and then when I see the lumber yard, turn there...???? Ohman, I am so lost. So I say, ok, thanks!

Then they ask me why I speak German.

That's a funny question to me. They first spoke to me in French, so did they think I would know French? Is that any different than knowing German? I don't really have a good answer for that, so I reply with "warum nicht" (why not).

They laugh and ask me where I am from. I tell them I'm from California (though I don't look it, I know, I know...), here on vacation. I guess I am just really out of place here. They wish me a happy journey and then they go on their way.


2 hours later, I feel that I'm no closer to the lake than when I started, and I'm starting to be hungry. I also don't want to get home too late because I don't want the lady to worry about me.

I ride some more in the direction of what I think the folks in the car had said. Over hills, down hills, past street signs that point to other towns. It's very frustrating for me to be riding left and right down the paths and every one of them ends up not at the lake. Around 6pm, even though it was still daylight, I decide to call it a day and head back to the house.

* * *

I knock on her door again and she comes out to greet me. I tell her in German

"die See -- nicht gefunden!" (not even a sentence, but the idea is there). She says a bunch of things in French and German, something about oh Maxime had taken me down the wrong road to begin with... but we can still go, there is still time to see the lake, we can go by car. I'm thinking wow, that's really nice of her! It's a lot of trouble to go through just so I can see the lake.

Then she takes me around her house to her neighbor's house. She yells his name from across the fence, he's watching the football (soccer) game, but comes out to greet her. She asks him to take me to the lake! I hear him ask her if I speak French, no, only German, so then he speaks German with me and tells me that we can go in about an hour, around 7pm. I guess he wants to watch more of the game.

Fine with me, I go back to the hostel to rest for a bit, and then around 7pm I return to his house. Turns out that he doesn't have a car but actually rides a motorcycle. So, ok, I guess I'm going to hop onto his bike and ride off into the sunset!

The lake is only about 5 minutes away by bike -- he rides fast. He drops me off near the entry and tells me to give him a call when I am done and he will come back up to get me.


* * *

The lake is very nice. You had to be there. Many people walking around it and some locals fishing along the banks.

* * *

I call up the neighbor after about 2 hours and he comes and takes me home. When we arrive, she's in the yard and she tells him that today is my birthday and he proceeds to do the 3 kisses on the cheek thing with me and wishes me a happy birthday. 😊

Weee! I ask him for his name. Pascal. How French! She thanks him for taking me all that ways this late in the evening and he says to her that it's never a problem, especially when it's a pretty lady. ;-))

They are sooo nice. She gives me something to drink and I sit with her and her other son, Samuel, for a few minutes inside their house. Soon it's almost 10pm, I thank them and start to head back to the hostel.


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26th June 2006

Wow, talk about friendly
no thoughts of crazy hitchhiker or axe murder as you are going to people's houses huh? Sounds so very quaint and European.
27th June 2006

It WAS very quaint and European
They ate unpasterized cheese, drank red wine, kept a little vegetable garden out front... Everything going at 1/4 speed compared to back home... And the village is so small the lady and her husband drives to the next town to buy groceries.

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