Fondue, Rolex, Hiking, and Roman Polanski... Hello Switzerland!

After turning in the rental car on the French side of the Geneva airport after a long day of driving, we hopped on a Swiss train around Lake Geneva (see pic at right) and continued eastward until we reached Gstaad, a small posh town in the Swiss Alps. Unfortunately we visited during the off-season (between winter skiing and summer hiking) so we were limited in the number of lifts and trails open, but at least the crowds were minimal. We never caught a glimpse of Roman Polanski, but apparently he's been hiding out in one of the chalets here. :)

Anyhoo, so the next day we took the train just a couple stops to Schonried, where we hiked the Helena Trail up the mountain and took the lift at the top back down (see pics). It was a beautiful sunny day, and on the trail we saw abundant wildflowers and numerous cows (with a lovely manure-stench that spread throughout the countryside, blech) - and the funny thing is, here they actually wear giant cowbells! (see pic) I kept asking the cows for more cowbell, of course. :) And we finished off the day with a nice dinner of none other than Swiss cheese fondue, which beats the Melting Pot hands down any day.

View from our room	Gstaad
Hike	Hiking signs
More cowbell!	Hike
Gentian flower	View from top

After a couple days in Gstaad, we once again boarded the train and headed south to Zermatt, home of the famous Matterhorn. Unfortunately the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and we arrived in the rain with no sign of the giant mountain obscured by the clouds. So we put off our hiking plans and instead spent the afternoon at the Matterhorn Museum (see pic), learning about the history of climbing attempts on the mountain, and then went across the street to the climbers cemetery (see pic) for a sobering look at how many lives have been claimed by the 14,700-ft peak. It was while walking through the cemetery that we heard a car crash - an awfully strange occurrence for this supposedly pedestrian-friendly "car-free town". It turns out that "car-free" is a bit of a misnomer, as vehicles were actually everywhere - little electric taxis (see pic), construction vehicles, delivery vehicles, everything but tourist rental cars. We actually came closer to getting hit crossing the road here than in any other town we visited, which is pretty ironic.

Rainy Zermatt	Matterhorn Museum
Climbers' Cemetery	Zermatt Taxis

The next morning the rain was still coming down pretty steadily, so we did some shopping downtown, purchasing a little Landert Swiss fondue set as our souvenir to bring home. We were both a little down, wondering if we'd ever get a glimpse of the Matterhorn before we had to head on our way the next morning, or if this would be another "Waimea Canyon" and "Cotopaxi Volcano" experience where we'd try in vain but never get to see the main attraction. Not to worry though, by afternoon the clouds had started to clear a bit, and we took the underground Sunegga Funicular to the top (the highest trail open) and hiked down through the small hamlet of Findeln. The top was still covered with snow and mud, but as we descended the mud cleared to grass and wildflowers, and we were surrounded by cute mountain marmots just waking from hibernation, and a few herds of sheep. And the best part was that we were treated to FANTASTIC views of the Matterhorn all the way down - eventually even the last wisp of clouds cleared and we had a perfect view. :) It was a great way to end our couple days in Zermatt before hopping back on the train and heading to Grindelwald.

Hiking	Hiking
Matterhorn	Matterhorn
Sheep	Sunny Zermatt

French Oddities

Turns out we didn't need to visit northern Thailand after all... we could have just gone to the "Chieng Mai" Restaurant in Paris!







If I want crepes that suck, I think I'll just make them myself instead of going to "Creposuk"...








Mommy, mommy - can I ride on the horse with the tequila barrel??? (seen on a merry-go-round near the Eiffel Tower)







An old-timey Paris subway sign








I'm not sure the "Fokop" Business Center is the first place I would go for assistance...








"I like nothing. I am Parisian." Fair enough.








The common abbreviation 24/7 seems clear enough to me, but in France they seem somewhat confused, as evidenced by Example 1:







And Example 2. What do these mean???!








I had never seen subway trains with tires on them until Paris:








The sign on this grave is to make the occupant aware that they are about to be displaced unless they continue to cough up the rental fee...






We saw a ton of these rental bikes all over Paris - neat idea!








Mime practice in the park...








Public street toilets








A very very old Citroen...

Normandy and the D-Day Beaches

For our last few days in France, we decided to rent a car in Paris, drive up to Normandy, and then drive down to the French side of Geneva, where we could hop on a train using our Swiss Rail pass. Needless to say, I can't count the number of times we got lost, got stuck in traffic, paid exorbitant $$$ for tolls and gas, pulled illegal u-turns, and just genuinely wished we had just gone with public transit all the way. But it was an interesting experience! We picked up our Ford Fiesta 5-speed at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris and literally crawled for the next 3 hours to Giverny, only 47 miles away. Once there, we headed to the primary tourist attraction in town, Monet's gardens and house (see photo at right). The gardens were gorgeous, but Brian and I both felt that the serene "Monet" atmosphere was ruined by the swarms of tourists everywhere. Once we got out of that claustrophobic area, we strolled through the town down to Monet's gravesite (see pic), and then hopped back on the crowded expressway to our our B&B in the Normandy countryside (see pic). That evening we decided to head to the town of Bayeux (~45 minutes away, if you know where you're going) for dinner (yummy vegetable crepes - see pic), and then had a nightmare of a time trying to find our way back to the B&B on narrow country roads in the dark. And we of course were assisted by enormously helpful roadsigns like the one shown below, that tell you what town you are NOT in. I really thought we were going to have to just pull over into a field and sleep in the car that night!

Monet's house	Monet's grave
Our B&B	Bayeux
Crepe	Street sign

The next morning we drove back to Bayeux (fewer wrong turns in the daylight) to view the famous medieval Bayeux Tapestry, which dates from the 1070s and is a very impressive 230-ft-long cloth embroidered with scenes from the Norman Conquest of England, to tell the story to the illiterate residents at the time. (The photo is from the UNESCO website, since photography was not allowed.) A parody of the tapestry was even featured in an episode of the Simpsons a couple of years ago as the opening couch gag. :)


After seeing the tapestry, we drove over to Caen and toured the Memorial WWII Museum (see pic), and then headed over to the 172-acre Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach (see pic), which honors American soldiers that died in Europe during WWII (most of them during the invasion of Normandy). We took some time to hike down to the beach, and Brian explored the remains of the German pill boxes above the shore while I marveled at how tiny male European bathing suits can be. Leaving the beach, we drove to the Longues-sur-Mer Battery, where Brian got a thrill checking out the giant German guns (see pic). And last on our self-guided Normandy tour, we drove to Arromanches to see the Mulberry Harbors, which were a British military invention for the war to provide a huge manmade harbor to assemble and offload cargo and men heading to the beaches of Normandy, since it would be some time before French ports could be captured. They were only supposed to function for 2 months, but the complex near Arromanches was used for 10 months and parts of it have survived in the channel for 66 years now.

Memorial Museum	American Cemetery
Omaha beach	German gun in concrete defense

The next morning we got an early start for our 9-hour drive from Normandy, back through Paris, and on to Geneva. The drive was long, rather uneventful, and cost us $90 in tolls. But we did get to see quite a bit of the countryside and a ton of vineyards... and we even passed right by Dijon, France, so of course I had to stop to pick up some local mustard! (see pic)