I'm in love with Switzerland!

We spent about 4 days in Switzerland between Geneva and Montreux and it was enough for me to fall in love. It's the perfect combination of lake, mountains, and beautiful weather. The biggest downside was the cost. It is pricey!

June 17th - Fly to Geneva

We left Munich Saturday morning to fly to Geneva. Flying in was a crazy experience with the mountains surrounding the city. It seemed like we were nearly skimming the tops, but I'm sure we were much further away than my imagination was telling me. On top of that, we were in a pretty small plane, so we felt every to and fro motion as we came in to land. When we got close to the airport, it seemed like the runway was not going to appear since the airport was basically right in town and there were roads, houses, and other buildings right up to the edge of the airport. But everything ended well and we arrived and checked into our Airbnb.

We settled in and went out for a quick burger for dinner. Afterward, we walked around town a bit and happened upon an Irish pub that had about 5 minutes left of happy hour. We made it in on time to get some reasonably priced beers (which was great considering the pricey thing I mentioned earlier). Our Airbnb was right in the middle of town by a big park, so we could easily walk around and see some interesting things from there including "the world's longest wooden bench" (we were inspired to visit after the Amazing Race - Season 28: see here).

Longest bench

June 18th - Day in Geneva

On Sunday, we had some breakfast at our Airbnb, did a quick load of laundry, packed up some snacks for our day from a nearby market, and headed out for our day of adventures. We started our day by heading over to the United Nations building in the northern part of the city (another place we were inspired to visit after the Amazing Race - Season 28: see here). There is a famous art piece in front of the building of a "Broken Chair" which was created as "a refusal of armed violence against civilians". The UN building also features the flags of all participating countries lined up in four columns toward the road. We snapped some pictures and ate a few of our snacks before jumping on the bus again to head toward the Jet d'Eau. This famous fountain in the harbor in the middle of town can reach heights of about 140 meters. We walked through a nearby park on the waterfront on our way over to the fountain and admired the beautiful colors of the water and the greenery on the shore. We started to worry about the fact that we hadn't seen the fountain yet since it's so big and should be seen from very far away. We speculated that it was around the corner and buildings were blocking our view, but as we got closer, we realized it was turned off! :( We walked out on the boardwalk that connects the fountain platform to the shore anyway to check it out and sat on the wall to admire the water some more before heading onto our next stop (spoiler alert: we got to see it turned on later; we're still not sure why it was off).

United Nations

View from the Jet d'Eau walkway

We grabbed a quick lunch and jumped on another bus to take us to France! We took one of the buses to the end of the line which brought us to the border (it took about 20-30 minutes), then we walked a little bit to the bottom of a cable car that brings you up one of the tall peaks surrounding the city. We rode up and got to see an amazing view of the whole city. We thought they may eventually turn on the big fountain while we were up there, but when we first arrived, it still wasn't turned on. Then all of a sudden it was on! You can really see it from amazing distances, even from planes above! We relaxed and took in the view before sitting down in the restaurant at the top of the hill for a couple beers. After we soaked in the amazing view for a couple hours, we made our way back down and went back to see the fountain up close. We were able to walk on the boardwalk again right next to the fountain. We weren't sure if they angled the fountain away from the path or if the wind coming off the lake is always enough to keep it from hitting the people on the walkway, but other than a little mist, we didn't get wet even though we got within about 10 meters from where they shoot it off. At this point, we were pretty tired, so we went to the same market we visited earlier in the day to grab some pasta to make at the Airbnb for dinner (and to help us save some money!) and we were in for the night.

Cable car up the mountain

View from the mountain

Jet d'Eau turned on!

View from the Jet d'Eau walkway when it's on

June 19th - Train to Montreux

We had another relatively slow morning on our last day in Geneva since we didn't have a particular schedule to stick to. We needed to get a train to Montreux, but it didn't matter which one we got on and they ran about every half hour. Once we had packed up everything, we left for the train station and made our way to Montreux. We stayed for two nights in a hostel with my high school friend, Rachel, and her husband, Nolan. They were planning a Switzerland/France hiking trip when we started planning our trip, so we made sure we could meet up. This was probably the first place we had booked so many months ago!

The train ride was beautiful along the north side of Lake Geneva with mountains all around. We arrived in Montreux around lunch time, so we grabbed some food as soon as we arrived and made our way to the hostel with the hope that we could drop our bags and do a little exploring. After walking along the waterfront for about 20-30 minutes, we found the hostel. There was some major construction happening on the bridge right in front of the hostel and we discovered that because of this, the hostel had been closed all weekend and wasn't scheduled to open until 5pm that day. So we were out of luck for a few hours and had to lug our bags around with us a bit longer. We found a nearby restaurant to grab a beer and enjoy the view (even better than Geneva!). Rachel and Nolan were going to arrive a little before 5, so we had to kill the time on our own. We had a bit more time to listen to some podcasts by the lake before we could go check into the hostel.

Our mid afternoon view while waiting to check in

Around 4:30, we went to see if we could find Rachel and Nolan (they didn't have a working phone outside of wifi, so communication was sparse). We walked up to the hostel and they were waiting in the lobby and had arrived only a few minutes earlier! We were able to check in right away, drop off our stuff (we ended up with a 6 person room with just the 4 of us in it, which was super nice!), and get ready to swim! We were all very hot from carrying around our bags in the hot weather. We walked to a small pier just down the way and jumped in. The water was definitely pretty cold, but felt very nice after the hot day we had. Afterward, we found some dinner in town and walked around some more before heading in for the night to prepare for our big day of exploring Montreux.

Freddie Mercury statue in Montreux

Montreux at dusk

June 20th - Exploring Montreux

We started the day with some breakfast at the hostel and headed for the Château de Chillon which is a beautiful castle right on the lake just about a 10 minute walk from the hostel. We checked out all the angles and got some good pictures before making our way to the incline train that would take us up the side of the mountain in Montreux.

Rachel and Captain Nolan with Château de Chillon

Us with Château de Chillon

Château de Chillon

We rode up to Glion and discovered that the next train that would take us higher to Caux, didn't leave for almost an hour. We explored Glion a bit before finding a market to buy some snacks for an early lunch picnic. There were a lot fewer people in Glion, up the mountain, than down in Montreux, even though they are so close to each other. The terrain really prevents people from moving between the two towns much without a real need to visit. We finished our snacks and got on the train up to Caux.

Train we rode to Caux

Once in Caux, we were at an elevation of about 1000m. It's crazy to think that two trains that both took about 5 or 10 minutes could take us so high so quickly. It was immediately apparent that we could see a lot more from our vantage point across the lake and in the mountains across the way. And the rolling farms up this high were an amazing sight to see. We hiked around a bit and found a great viewpoint from a nearby hotel's garden area and a cute little church before catching the train back down.

View from hotel in Caux

We made our way back down the way we came and were ready for a swim after being out in the hot sun all morning. After grabbing a quick lunch, we went back to the same spot we had swam the day before. I don't know if it was just because we were hotter, but the water felt even more shockingly cold this time. But it was still very refreshing after being so hot hiking around.

We had also planned to journey over a few towns on the lake to Chexbres to check out the vineyards per recommendation by the woman working the desk at the hostel. So we cleaned ourselves up and got on a bus and train to get over there. We were hoping we'd find somewhere that we could do some wine tasting, but where we ended up appeared to be nearly deserted. We wandered into a building that looked like they might have something for us, but couldn't find anyone right away. Eventually, someone came out and luckily spoke English well enough to tell us that the owner wasn't around and he couldn't serve us any wine. He gave us a few tips about places we could try, so we started to head down the hill through the different fields. It was very steep and we began worrying about whether we'd have to climb our way back up to get back to the train. After walking for about 30 minutes (all down), we decided there was no way that was going to happen. So we found the place we were looking for (Vinorama) and bought a couple bottles of wine for later. We were pretty hungry at this point, and luckily, we had wandered into a more populated area, and found a restaurant where we had delicious pasta. We were able to catch a bus all the way back to the hostel from down there, so we didn't have to walk all the way back up (whew!).

Vineyards in Chexbres

Waterfall by Vinorama

June 21st - Parting Ways

Rachel and Nolan were heading to Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen after Montreux before starting their hiking trip and Will and I were off to Konstanz, Germany, so we got some breakfast together, went to the train station, and said our goodbyes. We had a great visit, and I'm so glad we got to meet up with both of them while we were all over here! It's always a weird feeling meeting up with people from back home half way around the world! Good luck and safe travels to them as they continue their journey through Switzerland and France!