Miesiąc: luty 2014

Visit Day 6: Chamonix

We waited with our trip to Chamonix for a perfect weather. We chose Thursday and we were not disappointed. Chamonix is a marvelous place where you can feel what high Alps mean. So as soon as we arrived on place we bought a day ticket for all lifts and we went to queue for Aiguille du Midi lift that took us on a great height of 3842 m.

I was on Aiguille du Midi in 2010 but this time a new attraction called „Step Into The Void” waited for me. It was a lot of fun for me but some people were seriously scared.

We spent lots of time up there especially that the sun that day warmed us nicely. So when we went down we needed to be hurry to catch up our second attraction „Mer de Glace”. Fortunately after a 30 min ride on a very nice train we were able to see and even lick the longest glacier in France.

  

After so many attractions we went back home to eat something tasty.

Visit Day 5: Montreux, Gruyères, Broc

We left two most action – packed days to the end of our friends’ visit. On Wednesday morning we took Ania and Wojtek to the airport (they flew to Poland) and we hit the road. First to Montreux where we saw beautiful Montreux riviera, castle of Chillon and of course statue of our favorite artist of all times Freddie Mercury. (You can see this statue on Made In Heaven album cover).

After Montreux we went to world famous village of Gruyères – home of Gruyères cheese and favorite place of artist Hans Rudolf Giger who is mostly recognized as a creator of Ksenomorfs for Aliens movies. In Gruyères you can visit museum of H.R Giger and drink something in bar that he designed.

After seeing Gruyères’ castle, Giger Bar and Museum we became hungry so we went to Maison Du Gruyères for some cheesy food.

For dessert that day we served ourselves a lot of chocolate in Cailler Chocolate factory in a nearby town of Broc.

Visit Day 4: Lausanne

It’s a nice coincidence that we got to see Lausanne – the city with presidency of Olympic Games – during winter Olympic Games in Sochi this year. We started the day by walking along the board of the lake in Ouchy district where also the museum of the Olympic Games is situated.

 

 

Afterwards, we drove to the city centre to have a look at Lausanne panorama from the cathedral hill and walk down the hilly old town full of fancy shops, narrow old streets and „ups and downs”.

Visit Day 3: Annecy

We started visit day 3 with a trip to Annecy – a place I have seen thousands of time because it’s so picturesque that every visitor needs to see it. For summer Annecy – check out this post. Winter Annecy is way different. Today it was a bit grim, with heavy clouds hanging above the lake. Fortunately, a general colourfullness of this place (houses, alleys, flowers etc.) made the whole town view more friendly.

We strolled around the village and then stopped at a restaurant to grab a bite and sip on coffee. We ordered traditional cheese omlette and cheese dish (with Reblochon – local cheese). Coffee was served in a pottery made in Savoy (this region). How quaint and lovely… On top of that, as we were sitting by the bank of river, enjoying local goodies, sky turned a bit brighter and we could see sun reflexes. We didn’t stay too long though because later that day we had CERN visit scheduled.

Visit Day 2: Pointe de Chalune

During the second day of our friends’ visit we wanted to show them what we have best here in Geneva region, so I took them to mountains. We went to La Chevrerie and we tried to reach Pointe de Chalune (2116 m). Mountains during winter are beautiful especially for people who have never seen so much snow before. Magda and Michał needed some time to get used to the snowshoes but after some time they started to enjoy the hike and views.

Unfortunately, during our hike the weather turned bad and we needed to turn back after half of our way to the top. But going down gave us even more fun than going up. We jumped with our snowshoes off the track until we completely disappeared in snow.
Because we didn’t reach summit of Pointe de Chalune we decided to go and see a view point of Turet close to Gex, later that day.

Visit Day 1: Yvoire, Thonon

We are having a longly awaited friends’ visit this week. With so many fantastic places around, we have an action packed 7 days ahead 🙂 We are starting mildly, not to tire Magda and Michał too much on their first day. Yvoire is a must for every tourist. We’ve been there with Radek a couple of times (see this post), not once in winter though. It was a real delight to stroll down the medieval allays without many tourists around. The old town is small but lovely and the coastal area with the castle… Real delight.

Since Yvoire is a 1-hour-walk town, we decided to pop by yet another coastal village on our way back to Geneva. We chose Thonon-les-Bains because we (Radek and I) haven’t seen it yet. Although those little places are similar to each other, Thonon has something that distinguishes it from the others… It’s le funiculaire – sort of a tram for lazy tourists who prefer to have a ride up and down the hill instead of walking. Yep – that’s us 🙂 Well, the truth is – we are not lazy – it’s just that the funiculaire is an attraction itself and we wanted to check it out. It took us to the lake and back. Would be hard to push a pram all the way up!

Teppes de Verbois

After Radek had come back from skiing, we still had like half a Sunday to do something fun. With a clearing sky and warm temperature, we decided to go for a walk at Teppes de Verbois – a nice route around ponds and vineyards. The route has not been fitted for prams but we somehow managed to go through the mud and bumps.
The road first went through a forest with ponds that are a habitat for different species of birds. There are even special observatories aside and inside we encountered a couple of photographers with very fancy and long lenses covered in camouflaging material… Well, we’re not at that point with our photography hobby, perhaps some day?

Soon we left the forest-pond area and entered the vineyards. Although grape trees are rather bare at this time of the year, we enjoyed the view anyone, especially when the clouds turned ominous dark blue (but these were not rainy clouds, it was just the sun set that made them look like sinister).

The last part of the walk led through a lovely village of Russin. Those little dots on the map are all so quaint and peaceful – like the laws of time don’t rule in this places – everything is quiet and peaceful. We went past the village, then last straight through the fields and back to the car. Very nice stroll.

Poppy – oat bran cake

I really like baking stuff, it gives me pleasure. I like eating too of course, but I guess it’s more about the act of baking rather than the act of eating. In the end – the two acts combined make for a fun day.
So I made an oat bran cake with addition of poppy seed. It turned out delicious.

Ingredients:

  • 190g butter
  • 150g sugar
  • 1 tsp almond essence
  • 4 eggs
  • 100g ground almonds
  • 1.5 cup of oat bran
  • 0.5 cup of flour
  • 0.5 cup of dry poppy seed
  • 200g of dried fruit, raisins etc
  • 1 tsp of baking powder

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Whip egg white, then add sugar, yolks, oat bran and poppy seed – mix altogether. Sieve in the flour
and baking powder (earlier mixed together). Add almond essence Pour into a lined cake tin with a removable base. Bake on the
centre shelf for 50 minutes until golden brown.

Nutella cupcakes

Can you think of anything better for a cold winter afternoon than a warm, hazelnut cupcake? Well OK, I can, but still, cupcakes are awesome 🙂
I took the recipe from my favorite site: Moje wypieki.

Ingredients for 12 cupcakes:

    Cupcake Ingredients:
  • 140g butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 flat tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 cup Nutella

To Make The Cupcakes:
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in vanilla.
In a separate bowl,
whisk together the flour and baking powder until combined.
Add dry ingredients to creamed butter mixture and stir.
Line baking pans with about 12 paper baking cups, and fill each two-thirds full with batter. At the top of each cupcake add 2 tsp. of Nutella and make 'doodles’ with a toothpick. Bake at 160 – 170ºC for 25 minutes or until a
toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Bon appetit!