Tag: Nature

Creux de l’Envers

We have been very unlucky when it comes to our weather choices in here. One thing I learnt: never trust the forecasts around. But it is frustrating really – not to be able to say if the day will be good enough to get out or not. Saturday was supposed to be all gloomy and rainy so we stayed home. To our annoyence, it was a beautiful day. So on Sunday, as soon as it stopped raining, having looked at the forecasts which said: „don’t you worry, it won’t rain any more” we decided to have a walk at the footstep of Jura. When we set off it was sunny but the clouds were kind of forming as you can see in these photos.

At some point it became a bit more dramatic so we started rushing back to our car hoping that the rain wouldn’t catch us (I mean, we can stand a storm, but we were afraid about our baby boy health). And then, suddenly, the storm began! I mean it all happened in a split second, it became really cold and really windy, heavy rain dropped and turned into hail almost immediately. Oh boy, oh boy, where can we hide? We even didn’t have time to react because almost immediately a car pulled over and a nice lady offered us a lift to our car. Thank you, nice lady, you saved us! Our son even didn’t get wet.

That last photo was taken seconds before the storm. Well, you never know about the weather in mountains!

Les Gorges du Fier

Can you spot an outline of faces in the photo above? Such marvels of nature can be found in Gorges du Fier – a beautiful site by the river Fier which has carved those narrow passes in the solid rock.
The footbridge is installed at a stupendous height of 25 m.

The trail started with a view over the Fier river, then through a rock portal into a narrow canyon where light reflexes extracted all different colours of the rock and water. After a while we reached „La Mer de Rochers” – the sea of boulders. We watched in terror a guy jumping to the gorge from the rocks. No, he’s not a suicider (although it surely looked like he was!). At the end of the trail there was a wild beach with plenty of people bathing in sun and water. Man, why didn’t we take our bathing suits? That’s a reason to come back again some day!

Discovering France and Switzerland in spring

My love turned into spring windstorm –
Into spring windstorm – my madness into storm –
Into storm – my ecstasy into dreamy thrill –
Into dreamy thrill – spring of May into roses. –
From windstorm my new love flows –
New love – from storm frenzy will explode –
Frenzy will explode – dream will bring up ecstasy,
Spring will rise from a rosy bath.

/Untitled, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska/

translated by Julia Waszczuk

Spring is here! After a not so fierce winter we got to experience flowers and bird songs pretty early this year. I am happy at this time of year because it means that we are able to make more walks and trips, thus getting to know different places. So here are some of the photos we took this spring.

Saint Genis Pouilly

Pregnin:

Yvoire:

Chalex:

Ajon:

Saleve:

View on Geneva:

Lovettaz:

Lausanne:

Open Cellars

Switzerland is mainly known for its watches and cheese. But they also make a lot of very tasty wines. They are so good that Swiss people don’t want to share them with the rest of the world and export just 2% of their production. Fortunately we live almost in Switzerland so we can taste wines in their origin country. 
So last Saturday there was an Open Cellars festival in Vaud region (close to Geneva). For 15 CHF you could visit every of more then 300 vineyards and taste any of their wine. And there are plenty of them!

So we went to village of Tartegnin where we were able to visit 6 wine makers and taste many different wines and some local food specials.

We really enjoyed the scenery and atmosphere of this festival.  To keep it for a bit longer we bought a few bottles and brought them home.

Wsi spokojna, wsi wesoła

It’s been really long time since we had a chance to immerse into polish countryside which, by the way, I have always found delightful.But this summer we were invited to a get away wedding of our best friends who decided to organise the reception at Brzezieński Młyn – a very small village in Kaszuby. We stayed there for two days which was enough to have an insight into peace and quiet of the place.


 We started our little excursion by walking around the village. It’s actually amazing how the image of a polish countryside changed within the years. It developed a lot but didn’t change entirely. I guess you need to be polish to understand the rustic/rural character of a shop selling dotted aprons… Anyway, I liked this place a lot.

Here is the quaint image of the contryside:

 

And here is what the countryside has the best to offer:

Les Gorges du Pont du Diable

We decided to have a quick excursion on our last day before leaving to Poland and we chose Yvoire and Les Gorges du Pont du Diable for our destination. This site is nothing more than a tribute to the powers of nature – namely erosion. It’s amazing what water can do to rock!

A legend has it that this place used to be a devil’s hideout (therefore its name).

A whole tour took just a bit over 30 minutes. We followed a guide who answered all our questions and waited patiently while we took the photos and gazed at all those magnificent colours. A truly enchanting place.

 

Lazy lake

There is something very soothing about Lac de Divonne. The tranquillity of water and greenery of the mountains go well together, but it’s not like these two elements are special only for Divonne! Yet this little place is different to me than the others and I like visiting it. I like it so much that I decided it deserves a separate post even if I already did one.

Fête de la Tulipe in Morges

Have you ever seen 120 000 tulips of 300 different kinds? We now have 🙂 Fête de la Tulipe in Morges is an annual event attracting lots of people – and not without a reason. A local parc is turned into an ocean of colours and scents. It’s truly spectacular – I never expected it to be so beautiful.
The whole event lasts for over than month and now was the best moment to go and visit the park as nearly all of the flowers were in full bloom composing a remarkable mosaic.

 (I know I look a bit odd in my warm coat on a day like that – that morning was rather grim, but when we went out in the afternoon it got sunny and I soon took the coat off).

I really liked the combination of tulips and the tranquility of the lake and the surrounding mountains. In fact, we decided not to limit ourselves to the park and wander down the footpath by the water, enjoying the sun, more tulips, chic swiss lakeside mansions, more tulips, yachts, more tulips and the shy which was awesome that day. Oh yes, I forgot the castle! Every little village around has a castle.

When we finished the promenade stroll, we came back to see the tulips again and take even more photos.