Tag: Switzerland

La Dôle (1677 m)

We are resting our legs after a Tuesday hike, before a more challenging weekend plans. Radek took half a day off and we decided to hike La Dôle (1677 m) – the second highest summit in Swiss Jura. It was supposed to take 4.5 h but we were in a hurry and we did it an hour faster. We gave the most of us – not really good for the whole 'resting idea’ 🙂 Anyway, the hike was marvelous. Starting from the skiing fields, we had a beautiful view on the plateau, surrounded by the cowbells sounds. The ascent was very mild and pleasant.

La Dôle is well known in the surroundings as it’s easily visible from almost every place at the north west coast of Lake Geneva thanks to its dome – which is a meteo station in practice and looks like a huge football ball.

The view from the top is spectacular! I think it will become my favourite guest hike because it’s relatively easy and the panorama on the Alps and whole Lac Leman is just breath-taking!

We stayed for a while at the top – actually it was the very first time I didn’t feel like continuing the trip because the view was so nice. And ironically, we were in a hurry that day so we couldn’t stay too long. Anyway, the clouds started to threaten us a bit so in any case we needed to descend.

 

Rochers de Naye (2042 m)

Our today hike – Rochers de Naye – was supposed to be one of the most picturesque ones along the lake Geneva. We didn’t really have much (any) possibility to learn that. Despite the forecasts, we hiked with our colleagues Elina and Matthias in the clouds and the only moment we could see kind of a view was from the car park (see photo below) in the beginning and towards the end of the hike. However, this was not a wasted time due to two events…
Event one: cave exploring. The entrance looked really innocently but it turned out to be pretty long, humid, cold and complex. Radek was the first one to enter and we all followed using our flashlights to lighten the path in front of us. It felt adventourous.

Event two: sheep rescuing. Was it because of the fog or because of the bad fence – no matter the reason, we encountered sheep tangled in nets. Twice. I really don’t know the procedures in such cases, I may just hope we did what was the best – freed them.

Other than that our hike continued without perturbance. I really regret not seeing the views that should be really spectacular. However, nothing lost. Now that we know the route we can come back here some sunny day.

We could easily tell it was a fun summit. Situated at its foot Montreux is known as Lac Leman riviera and Rochers de Naye are reachable from there by train. Thanks to that a lot of tourists visit this mountain and it shows… Alpine garden, yurts, fancy restaurant, signposts and picnic places make it a very popular destination not only for hikers.

 A little obstacle on our way back:

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!

Family visit: Broc, Gruyères, Montreux

We are having guests this week – my sister and cousin have come to us from Szczecin. They will be here only for a couple of action-packed days. The very first one -a must on a map of the nearby attractions – Broc, Gruyères, Montreux tour. Radek did the exact same tour with our friends (see this post), now it’s my turn with family.
We started with a Cailler chocolate factory in Broc followed by Gruyeres cheese house and the village of the same name. Our last destination was Montreux- always beautiful, but truly spectacular by the sunset.

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.

Poetic Lausanne

Lausanne is a nice city very close to Geneva so we can be there whenever we want. Last time I visited it 3 months ago with my friends (see this post). This month I took my mum to see the Olympic city. Thanks to her interest in arts and literature I got to know many interesting facts about polish poets that lived there too. Juliusz Słowacki, Adam Mickiewicz, Stefan Żeromski, Zofia Nałkowska… Being curious about their works, I read a couple of Lyrics of Lausanne wrote by Adam Mickiewicz. I quote my favourite one (I can see Lausanne with my eyes of imagination when I read it).

 Nad wodą wielką i czystą                      
Stały rzędami opoki                               
I woda tonią przejrzystą                         
Odbiła twarze ich czarne.                      

 Nad wodą wielką i czystą                       
Przebiegły czarne obłoki                      
I woda tonią przejrzystą                        
Odbiła kształty ich marne.

 Nad wodą wielką i czystą
Błysnęło wzdłuż i grom ryknął
I woda tonią przejrzystą
Odbiła światło, głos zniknął.
A woda, jak dawniej czysta,
Stoi wielka i przejrzysta.

 Tę wodę widzę dokoła
I wszystko wiernie odbijam,
I dumne opoki czoła,
I błyskawice pomijam.

 Skałom trzeba stać i grozić,
Obłokom deszcze przewozić,
Błyskawicom grzmieć i ginąć:
Mnie płynąć, płynąć — i płynąć!…
 Lausanne, 1838.

 
/English version here/

Here are a couple of photos I took by the lake side that in my opinion illustrate well this poem…

But it’s not only the lake water that delighted the poets… Just a quick glance at the city is enough to win your heart. I’m pretty sure we will visit this place a couple of times more.

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.

FestiChoc in Versoix

„Land of cheese and chocolate” – that’s what I call Switzerland. And it’s true, these two goods are relished by Suisse citizens. One of its evidence is FestiChoc – the festival of chocolate that takes place in Versoix, close to our place. This year it was already a 10th edition! We couldn’t miss it.
We started our walk by the Favarger chocolate factory. When I was here in 2010 and was lucky to get a ticket to visit it and see with my own eyes how  chocolate is manufactured. This year we skipped this attraction, it would be difficult to manouver through the machines with a pram 🙂 We also didn’t hop on a chocotrain – although I proposed we could have hop on our pram and catch the train from behind to have a free ride 🙂

The venue was really big. There were marry-go-rounds, face painting, a lot of buvets, chocolate sculpture exhibition and, last but not least, a huge tent full of chocolate makers showing, giving away and selling their chocolate.

We obviously had our treats too – do you think Radek could calmly go past a chocolate fountain? 🙂