My wife and I just got back from a six day trip to Switzerland. It was our first time visiting the country and I must say, as far as scenery goes, the country is by far the most beautiful place that I have ever been to. Lush green valley's surrounded on all sides by mountains, sparkling clear blue lakes and cozy looking chalet style homes, Switzerland for me was a combination between cottage country and the tropics.
Laussane
We live about a six hour drive away from the country and not wanting to miss out on anything during our trip, we decided to leave early on Monday morning, around 3 am. Getting up early wasn't really a problem that day. France was in a massive heat wave that week so I was barely sleeping as it was. Unlike out house, our car has air conditioning as well, so I figured that my wife would probably sleep better on the road anyway.
We arrived in Laussane, our first stop, at around 10 am on Monday morning. It was a brief stop over to see the city before driving the short distance to Vevey and Montreaux where we booked our hotel. We grabbed a quick coffee and walked around town for maybe an hour or two.
I was surprised that I wasn't in the least bit tired despite only getting a few hours of sleep the night before and sleeping like crap for 3 days prior. I guess the excitement and adrenaline of being somewhere new was having its effect. I'm pretty sure that adrenaline was keeping me going for our entire trip because it wasn't until Sunday when we got home that it finally hit me just how tired I was.
One thing that we learned in Laussane was that the people in this part of the country were predominantly French speaking, probably because its so close to the French boarder. Later on during our trip as we headed more north in the country, the language appeared to shift to predominantly German speaking. That was sort of interesting to experience. Luckily for us most people also spoke English.
Lake Geneva
Something else that we realized pretty quickly about Switzerland is that - damn! that country is expensive. The cost of food is basically double what we spend in France.
For instance, we tend to buy ice cream in pretty much every city that we travel in. Whereas in France, 2 double scoop ice cream cones cost about 8 euro, in Switzerland that same amount of ice cream cost 15 euro! Similarly, a very decent three course dinner in France costs about 29-35 euro and in Switzerland most of the single entree diners I chose cost around 33-37 euro. Yikes!
If we hadn't stopped converting Canadian dollars to euro a long time ago I don't think I would have been able to live with myself. So overall, I'd give the country a very high ranking on the beauty scale but a very low ranking on the expense scale.
Okay moving on.
One major plus in terms of expense was that the price of hotels were basically on par with other places in Europe. Not only that, public transit was also free in every city that we traveled. Furthermore, maybe its standard or maybe it was a hidden bonus related to covid-19 but many of the tourist excursions were being offered to us at a discount or entirely free.
At Lake Geneva, many of the museums in the area and the chateau de Chillon were free, along with several walking tours and even a 2 hour paddle boat ride around the lake that would normally cost 53 euro/person.
We took advantage of the offer and jumped on the boat tour. We got on in Vevey and basically used it like fancy bus ride to Chillon castle. We could have kept going all the way back to Laussane if we wanted to.
The town of Montreux felt almost like being in the Caribbean or tropics to me. The entire lakefront was lined with very nice resort style hotels. We saw a lot of guests playing tennis or sitting in lawn chairs in the shade.
We walked the flower lined promenade from Chateau de Chillon back to Vevey taking in the picturesque views around the lake. The area is also surrounded by numerous vineyards. I'm sure there is a way to do a few wine tours if you look into that in advance.
The temperature was quite hot that day. Not as hot as France but much more humid. France typically has very low humidity (if any at all), so 30 degrees outside really doesn't feel that bad if you're able to find some shade. Opening a window at night and running a fan cools the house down pretty quick as well. Aside from last week when temperatures reached 40 degrees in the country I hadn't even missed having air conditioning. The high humidity coming from all that lake water in Switzerland though made us feel sticky and gross by the end of day. It reminded me of being back home in Ontario Canada where the humidity from the great lakes makes you sweat through your shirt after only an hour in 20 degree weather.
A little closer to Vevey we noticed that a lot of people were swimming and paddle boarding in the lake. Unfortunately, both my wife and I had forgotten to pack a bathing suit on our trip so neither of us got into the water despite it looking so refreshing.
Not swimming in the water or doing any sort of water activities was one of our biggest regrets of our trip. This was especially the case in the city of Bern (more on that in a future post). It was a mistake on my part and I blame my poor trip planning. If we ever go back to the country we will definitely pack a suit and plan to get in the water. I would highly recommend it since the water looked so amazing.
Overall, the flowers, the clear blue water and the misty air really made the area feel like the tropics.
The last two pictures were taken in Vevey, a small town located next to Montreux. This is where we booked our hotel. We personally found the town to be just as beautiful as Montreux but slightly less touristy so I think its a good option for travelers overall.
If you are interested in seeing more of the beautiful country of Switzerland I will be posting about the rest of our trip over the next few days.