La Désalpe in St-Cergue

This is an event we missed last year and I was looking forward to it this season. La Désalpe takes place when the cows come down from their grazing fields and stay in barns for winter. Yep… it means summer is definitely over.
We headed to a small village of Saint Cergue, already high up in Swiss Jura mountains. Cows were undoubtedly in the spotlight but other attractions included mountain shepherd dogs, long musical tube-horns (I’m pretty sure I once knew their original name but it’s gone now), and lots of countryside goodies like cheese, ham, liquors etc.

Did I mention the goodies? 🙂

There were lots of people, lots of cows, lots of noise and lots of sunshine. Such a nice day to say goodbye to summer.

Discovering France and Switzerland in summer

Another season is past. This summer wasn’t the best one when it comes to weather. I really was hoping for more sunshine that would enable us to set out for more challenging routes in mountains. Maybe the next year. Nevertheless, we managed to see some lovely places and instill the views in photos. See yourself. Other photos of this kind: Discovering.

Rolle:

Russin

Gruyeres:

Broc:

St Genis Pouilly

View on Mt Blanc:

Villaz

CERN:

Chamonix:

Vevey:

View on Geneva:

Annecy:

Dardagny:

Challex:

Cessy:

Ornex:

Montreux:

Fort l’Ecluse:

View on Chamonix:

Our balcony:

Goldenpass train ride: Gstaad and Château-d’Oex

We have friends coming over to our place so this always mean busy and fun days. I really try and keep my house open to anyone willing to visit us and I always enjoy those visits. Although seeing the same places becomes a bit of a routine to me (I never enjoyed going twice to the same spot) there are still places we haven’t seen around and friends’ visit is a very good occasion to discover something new.
And so… Switzerland is well known for its panoramic trains that meander through mountains and lakes. There are two that are particularly famous – Goldenpass panoramic trail and Glacier Express. The first one is a train that goes way up to the Swiss Alps and has big panoramic screens. The other one goes through glaciers and snow caps.
We drove to Montreux with Monika and Przemek where we hopped on the Panoramic train that would take us up to Gstaad.

The panoramic trail was nice but I guess living here we are a bit used to those landscapes of Lake Geneva and mountains. Gstaad on the other hand was really nice.  It’s a well known ski resort and a very posh place where all the high class of Switzerland spend their holidays and shop for accessories in fancy boutiques.

After a short walk and a hot chocolate break in Gstaad we hopped on a train again and rode to Château-d’Oex (crossing the language border – back to Frenchies). Again, we had a walk in this picteresque village, situated in a valley between the mountains. We didn’t get to see the castle in close up but I don’t regret it as we had a pretty tasty lunch instead. Tummies full? Yes? So let’s go back to Geneva.

Pit stop: Vevey

As Radek and Michał were riding round Lake Geneva, we decided to meet them somewhere half way. After a short discussion we chose Vevey for our meeting point. This little city is well known for Charlie Chaplin who lived and died there, as well as for propagation of the slow and healthy food.
When we arrived guys were already there waiting for us at the lake shore. We grabbed a bite, talked for a while and then they wanted to move on having still quite a distance to cover. So I stayed with Magda and walked around the city.

I liked the walk a lot as there where many little details about this place that made it unique and very vivid. When we went past the old part of the town, we moved on to the shore again and continued along a promenade, admiring various statues and installations scattered all over. We didn’t get to see the alimentarium museum – this will have to wait for our next visit!

Tour Du Lac Leman

I have been thinking about a bicycle ride around lake Geneva for one year. This summer I had a great opportunity to do this because my best friend and biking buddy came to us with visit bringing his bike. So we started our journey Saturday morning and went counterclockwise around the lake. 

We rode through Geneve, Yvoire, Evian, part of Valais, Montreux, we took a longer brake in Vevey, then through beautiful Lavaux vineyards, Losaunne, Nyon and back to Saint Genis Pouilly.

The whole trip was 195 km long and took us 11h with a long break in Vevey. Our trip in Endomondo.

Wine tasting in Féchy

We’re very happy to host in our place our best friends Magda and Michał. I just can’t imagine not taking them to wine tasting – it’s always so much fun! We planned to visit a lot of caves, but as usual, we overestimated our possibilities when it comes to visiting those places and finished up seeing two. I won’t write „just” two because two was definately enough 🙂

We decided to go for a new destination – Féchy. It’s a very small place but full of vineyards. Our first one – Domaine La Colombe turned out to be a real hit! We stayed there for over an hour, chatting to the owner, getting to know all bits and pieces of wine making and of course… tasting! But I also appreciate the artsy part of those tours. Each cave has its own unique style, full of little quaint wine-making related art items.

From there we moved through Féchy to find another spot to sit. What a lovely village! It’s situated on a hill from where we could see Lac Leman and the surrounding vineyards.

Most of the places were already closed since we overstayed our visit at Colombe Cave. We managed to find one place though – Cave La Goutte de l’Amitié – which welcomed us with open hands. It was a completely different place than the previous one. It was small and living up to the expectation of its name („Drop of Friendship”). We were greeted by the two elderly owners who sat with us by the table and drank the wine with us as we tasted their makes. That was really nice and on top of that I got to practice my French!

We would love to stay longer but it was getting late and it was time to get going back. As we bough a couple of bottles, said goodbye and left the place, we were stunned by the rainbow over the lake. I imagine it should happen quite often here, yet I don’t remeber having seen it earlier. Bye, bye, Féchy!

  

007 jump

To do list: 007 bungee jump – check 🙂
The story dates back to 2010 when I was in Switzerland and heard about the famous James Bond jump for the first time. Do you know GoldenEye movie? In its opening scene 007 agent runs away from villains by making a jump of a dam. That dam is located in Switzerland, close to Locarno and is open for public stunts. I didn’t go to jump in 2010 because Radek couldn’t join me and we decided this was a moment we wanted to share. So the dream stayed in my head and heart until this day!
Before I continue the story have a look at our jumps:

We decided to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary by making one of our dreams come true… and doing something utterly awesome and crazy. We organised a trip with a couple of other CERN colleagues and set off for adventure!

The jump was crazy, it really was! But we were really happy to do it. It will be one of those experiences that you will never forget and be proud of ’till the rest of your life.
So, 1,2,3, JUMP!

The river wild

For once bad weather turned out to be a blessing… I booked our white water rafting session 2 months ago as a birthday present for Radek and were looking forward to it ever since, so when the rain didn’t stop to fall we were a bit annoyed. But thanks to that the Dranse river was pretty raging, thus giving us a lot of fun! The rafting took a bit less than two hours (normally it would be longer but the river was very fast that day). What can I say more… It was a blast. I couldn’t stop grinning. See yourself in this 'best of moments’ video we did:

Teppes de Verbois

We felt a bit lazy today so we decided to have a walk close to the Verbois dam. We already knew the terrain because we were there in winter (see this post) but summer views differ a lot. It’s a nice walk, through a forest, down the emerald river and past the ponds, through a village of Russin and the neighbouring fields. I bet it will be beautiful in autumn – we might check that this year!