THURSDAY
Thursday was an interesting day. I was cutting things very short in the morning in order to make my flight. I had my final medical examination at 8:30am in the morning to complete my visa application and grant me living privileges for the entire year in France. In typical France style, my appointment was was running half an hour late because the medical ladies needed to have their morning coffees... It was all fine, until they let me keep my chest x-ray. I had my bag planned down to a tee, with no room for an x-ray to fit in. I spent the bus ride to the airport trying to poorly skype mum for a second opinion on whether I could just chuck it. She said no haha so I rolled it up and squashed it into my bag. One thing I didn't know about Jetstar was you're only allowed ONE bag. Literally, one bag. Your handbag/purse has to fit into your main bag. Mine just fit.
The flight was fine. I was seated between two ladies (actually my first flight without a window seat thus far), but that didn't matter much because I wouldn't have seen anything. It was quite foggy and raining when I landed in Geneva at 2:00pm. I caught the train from the airport to the train station. Switzerland is actually pretty good with transport, I got a free transport card when leaving the airport for 80 mins of free travel within the canton, and both of our hostels gave us free transport cards too which came in andy. This is when the fun started. I hadn't checked when Hanna's train arrived in Geneva station that day, and we both didn't have working phones or wifi. We were meeting under the giant clock at the train station. Assuming Hanna's train pulled in at 2:40pm, I whipped out my ipad and stood inside reading (standing against a wall as there were refurbishments happening inside and it was raining outside). When it got to 3pm, I thought she might be a little lost. With no means of communication, I was starting to become a little worried. I could see a McDonald's sign and knew they had access to free wifi, but I didn't want to leave my spot, just incase Hanna showed up. Eventually, at 3:30pm, I ventured down the escalators to where I thought Macca's was and discovered a massive shopping centre. I spent the next hour doing 5 minutes trips around it at 15 minute intervals. Maccas was actually outside the centre. At 4:30pm, I was very concerned, and though Hanna may no longer be coming lol so left for Macca's in the hope that she'd left me a Facebook message if she had indeed cancelled on me. Instead, while scrolling back through her messages, I discovered her train didn't actually get in at 2:40pm, but 4:20pm haha. I walked back to the station and she was there!
We excitedly walked to out hotel and discovered it was pretty nice. We watched some weird french show on the tv while we settled in, and then headed out for some touristing in the rain and some food. We walked along the quays of lake Geneva, heading over the bridge onto the other side and seeing the jet d'eau from a distance. We basically just browsed shops and chocolate boutiques, and then headed back for some dinner at a cow restaurant, where I felt like a child for choosing macaroni cheese, but it was gooood macaroni cheese, and it came with bacon! You can't buy bacon anywhere in Bordeaux, so this was a luxury lol.
We got back to the hotel at about 11pm and went to bed at just past 12.
The view from McDonald's once I actually got there
At the park across the road near the hostel
Lake Geneva
A flower clock!
Eating street
A chocolate store
Geneva by night
We awoke to more rain but with heaps of excitement about the hotel breakfast! And the excitement was totally worth it! Breakfast was basically just every food imaginable that is likeable for breakfast, we both ate so much. But we didn't have to eat for ages, so that was good. Hanna had a bit of food poisoning during the weekend, so she didn't eat much in general.
We checked our bags out and left them at the hotel reception and then went exploring some more. We crossed the river again and walked closer and out to the jet d'eau, walking through parks on the way. It rained all day, but you just got used to it in the end. We then walked back around to the cathedral and came across the local hotel de ville. We sat in there for a while to escape the cold and as I had left my gloves in my bag at the hotel, I cocooned myself in my snow jacked and just hunched myself there. We eventually decided it would probably be best to walk back down to the lake and see if any cafes were open. As it was good friday, not much was open. We found a small cafe and went inside, sitting right in front of the heater and laying all over it. We were there for almost three hours haha just drinking hot chocolate. When we left, we walked back to the train station to grab some lunch (we figured we would have the most chance of finding a bread store or something open there). I ended up eating some weird meat baguette which I still don't know what it was.
There wasn't all that much stuff to do in Geneva. Well, nothing that really interested us, so we then walked back to the hotel, collected our bags and jumped on a train bound for Vevey. Our tickets were a bit more expensive than anticipated, but we had to buy them anyway so it didn't matter. Just before leaving, we bought some pasta, sauce and bread as we weren't sure what was going to be available in Vevey.
The trip out was good, going along Lake Geneva on one side and steep vineyards on the other. We could kind of get a sense for how tall the mountains were, but because of the low fog, we couldn't see very far at all.
Arriving in Vevey, we got a little bit lost on our way to the guesthouse, but ended up taking a nicer route along the lake. We arrived in time to get the last double room for ourselves! I wanted to know how far we were from the other side, it looked like an ocean. Because of the fog, we couldn't really see anything. The hostel was really nice, an old Swiss man introduced himself as 'a real Sviss man' while we were cooking dinner haha. It was fully booked out for the weekend, but we didn't really see many other people there. After dinner, we retired to the room and bedded at about 11pm.
Hotel breakfast, minus the selection of meats
and cheeses behind me
Lake Geneva with the jet d'eau behind me
A lovely fountain in the english garden
In the garden
Jet d'eau up close
One of the main shopping streets
Saint Peter's Cathedral
Under some shelter from the rain... with some canons
and mosaics
Hotel de ville street
The doors to hotel de ville
Inside hotel de ville
At the cafe with the heater haha
Walking back down to the station
Just arrived in Vevey
View of the lake... can't even see the other side
View of Vevey from our hostel room window
Cooking dinner
Making friends
This was by far our best and busiest day! We jumped up early in the morning as we had some stuff we wanted to see in Vevey and then head to the chocolate factory about an hour and a bit away. We left the room at 9am, with hopes of making the 10:34am train to Broc-fabrique (home of the nestle factory). We grabbed some breakfast at the local bakery, and headed along the lake to find the Charlie Chaplin statue! We then headed to the post office for some stamps and then to the station. We made it with plenty of time. We got off at our first train transition and decided to stay a bit. We walked to Chateau de Chillon (which Hanna had seen when coming from Italy via train). We didn't do a tour, but it was amazing just to see it from the outside! After, we headed back to Montreau and caught the train to our next transition point, Montbovon. This train ride was AMAZING! We were travelling through the alps, so we were going through snow topped mountains. I can't even describe it! We though there might be some lunch stops at Montbovon, but it ended up being a tiny village with just the train line haha. There was just enough time to do a lap of the entire place haha and then jump on the train to the factory.
Once arriving at the factory, we had a 45 minute wait, so we bought some hot chocolate and lunch. I had unfortunately left my chocolate stash at home as I knew we were going to choc factory and by this time was pretty hungry. The hot choc was delish!
The tour was pretty cool and funny. It wasn't a person guided tour, but you walked through different rooms where scenes and props and well-contstructed things moved. It was pretty spectacular, and then we came to a FREE ALL YOU CAN EAT TASTING ROOM! I ALMOST WET MYSELF! It was totally worth the 10 francs I paid for it (so it wasn't entirely free, but it totally covered itself)!!! Poor Hanna wasn't feeling the best so didn't eat very much, so I just ate enough for the both of us haha. Before we left, I bought myself some easter chocolate so I felt more homey lol.
We then took the train back down the mountain, which was even more spectacular now as clouds had started to clear and it wasn't raining anymore. We could see more of the lake from up high and more snow. I could actually see the other side, which wasn't that far away at all haha.
We hopped off the train at Montreau and apparently, some sort of geek/comicon day had occurred as teens were dressed up in all sorts of costume outfits. We visited the Freddy Mercury stature there, which we're still not sure why it was there, and then returned home.
We watched the sunset with some swans over the alps sitting on some stones on the side of the lake before getting a bit too cold and heading back for dinner cooking number two. Tonight was a reasonably early night as we were both feeling pretty exhausted lol, but not before we signed the guestbook and watched some video hits? haha
Waking up to some markets
Vevey markets
There were bells everywhere
In Vevey
A Vevey street
Town square
Charlie Chaplin
In front of the alimentarium/food museum
At the train station
Chateau de Chillon
My new home
Selfie in the gardens!
In the gardens
Train from Monbovon to Broc-Fabrique was only two carriages
Exploring Montbovon
The chocolate factory!! (Cailler is the yummiest Nestle branch)
Inside the factory story
The wall of chocolate
Starting the tour
Making chocolate
A massive chocolate cow
The tasting room
YUM
Back down the mountain
Back at Montbovon station
On our way back down on the train
On the train
Coming back down the mountain
From Montreau
An empty (but really very busy behind) wharf thing. This
is just in front of the Freddy Mercury statue, I didn't
like my photo so I'm not putting it up haha
From just outside our hostel doors. We can now see
across to the other side
A statue between the mountains and sunset
Enjoying it with some swans
Hanna!
Walking back
Drawing in the guestbook haha
We had planned on visiting some vineyards and taking a funicular today, but as Hanna wasn't well, we weren't sure what to do. Eventually, I suggested we just take our bags and go and visit Lausanne on our way back to Geneva. Good idea. The day was really clear and we got some blue sky. It was a really nice day. Lausanne was about half way so it broke up the trip nicely. We walked down to the water's edge, which was surprisingly a long way from the station and discovered some sort of easter thing happening. A lot of the cafes were also open which was surprising considering it was easter sunday. We didn't end up buying anything though because we still had heaps of left over food from the last few days. We just snacked at intervals on it all day.
We did heaps of walking in Lausanne. It was incredibly hilly too. Starting at the lake, we headed up the a cathedral, than further up to Notre Dame, where a man was playing the organ. We just listened to him for a while, and the walked up further to a chateau, and then back down to the train station and hopped on it. I wanted to get back off at Geneva, but was cutting it a bit fine with my flight. So I bid Hanna farewell on the train and she got off for a bid more exploring before her train that evening and I stayed on for the airport. I actually got to the airport quite early, but that was good. It gave me a chance to do some shopping. I had heaps of swiss franc coins, which can't be exchanged back into euros, so I needed to spend them. Needless to say, I bought swiss army knife chocolates! I wanted to buy an actual knife, but with only carry on luggage, I didn't want to be mistaken for a terrorist.
Easy jet ended up asking for passengers to voluntarily check their luggage in. You got to get on the plane faster, so I just did it (and we landed 10 minutes early, so I ended up no wasting anytime at all waiting for it in Bordeaux). The flight back was amazing. I had a window seat, and we flew over the alps at sunset. Above the clouds, there was an awesome view! I then fell asleep haha
Leaving Vevey for Lausanne
In Lausanne
Me on a bridge if you can see it!
The egg shell artwork
The harbour
Flags and a hotel at Lausanne
Hanna walking up a steep street!
Resting at the church
The chocolate I bought from the factory
A town square
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
View from Notre Dame
Food stop and view from Notre Dame, clearly excited haha
Inside Notre Dame
Inside Notre Dame
My newest chateau
Palais de Justice
On my way home with an amazing view!
I'm sure I've forget to tell things, but if I remember them later, I'll add them in!
But God made the earth by his power;
he founded the world by his wisdom
and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
- Jeremiah 10:12
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