Montreux - Geneva

The next morning we caught a train to Geneva changing trains at Lausanne, dropped our bags off at the Bernina Hotel and then got a ferry to Yvoire.  

The ferry from Geneva to Yvoire

Arriving at Yvoire with the chateau in the background

Yvoire is a medieval town preserved for tourists with the old buildings converted into cafes and souvenir shops.  

One of the streets in Yvoire 

Visited the small but aesthetically appealing church of St Pancras.

Inside St Pancras Church

St Pancras Church

Took photos of the Chateau and visited the garden of six senses, completing the photos was the chateau in the background.  The gardens originally belonged to the chateau's grounds and also houses aviaries.  

Six senses garden

Six senses garden

One of the aviaries housed these birds

That afternoon we returned to Geneva 

Chateau seen from the ferry returning to Geneva

to do some shopping and clothes washing.  Handy note the laundry mat is in the seedy part of town and I would not walk those streets alone as a female on her own.

13 July 2012 - The weather was the same as the day before coolish in the low 20's.  This was our last day in Switzerland and Europe before returning home to Australia so we had to squeeze in some sightseeing of Geneva.  

Flower Clock, Geneva

We walked to the Flower Clock, the largest flower clock in the world and then we visited Saint Pierre Cathedral which was where John Calvin preached.  

Saint Pierre Cathedral, Geneva

Inside Saint Pierre Cathedral, Geneva

The pulpit John Calvin preached from

Under the church in the foundations was an interesting archaeological display with foundations dating back to the 4th Century plus remains of the early village.  

Skeleton of an ancient person on which the village which would become Geneva was built

Remains on the early churches built on this site

We walked the streets around Saint Pierre Cathedral which was full of interesting historic buildings, one is said to be the oldest house in Geneva.

Oldest house in Geneva

The Old Arsenal, Geneva 

Exterior of the Old Arsenal

That afternoon we collected our bags from the hotel

Our room at the Bernina Hotel, Geneva

and caught the train to the airport, flying to Dubai, then Singapore and finally arriving home in Australia at 12:40am on the 15th of July.

Mont Tramelan - Montreux and the Chocolate Train

11 July 2012 - Temperature wise it was like the other days in Switzerland, cool, around low 20's.

This morning we got up at 3:00am to get ready to meet the train at St Imier to go to Montreux.  Mathias drove us to St Imier Train Station where we boarded the train, changing at both Biel and Lausanne arriving at Montreux.  Since we had about an hour to get to the hotel, drop our bags off and then get back to the train station and Montreux is hilly, we decided to take a taxi, we stayed at Hotel Helvetie.  After dropping off the luggage we took our time to walk back to the station, exploring as much of Montreux as we could and stopped for some pastries for breakfast.  

Montreux, Switzerland

We found the station and platform with no problems, the train arrived early so we had time to take photos of it, as it had some gold carriages that made it very appealing to look at 

Chocolate Train

plus the interior was that of the 1920's.  

Chocolate Train Interior, Trevor sat at the seat on the left.

The train circles the mountains behind Montreux giving passengers a great view of Montreux 

Overlooking Montreux from the Chocolate Train 

and then continues onto Gruyere where an included tour of the Gruyere Cheese Factory starts.  The tour is self guided with hand held devices explaining the process in your language.  They had these cool smelly things around the tour so you can smell the flowers and herbs that the dairy cows would smell when they eat the grass and all different things like that.  

Have a smell of that!

Gruyere Cheese being made

Gruyere Cheese maturing

After the cheese factory we boarded a bus to the village of Gruyere 

Gruyere, Switzerland

where we had around two hours to explore.  We spent nearly all the time at Gruyere Château which was both beautiful and fascinating.  

Gruyere Chateau

Gruyere Chateau

Wall and garden at Gruyere Chateau

The interior building of the Gruyere Chateau

Two hours later we were on the bus to Broc to visit the Cailler Chocolate Factory.  This is a must as you learn about the history of chocolate making in Switzerland, see how the chocolate is made, 

Cailler chocolate being made

try some chocolate straight off the assembly line and then enter a room where you can eat as much chocolate as you like.  Trust me; I made sure I got one of each in, even though it made me feel so unwell.  

Eat as much chocolate as you like!

Yes I had one of each of these too

To finish off the visit to the factory there is a huge shop where you can buy as much chocolate you can afford or carry.  

On our return to Montreux we took photos of Jon Lord from Deep Purple, because the song Smoke on the Water was written about a time when they played at the Casino in Montreux and it burnt down and the smoke lingered over the lake.  

Jon Lord, Deep Purple

Plus we walked along the lakeside to Chillon Chateau to take photos.

Chillon Chateau, near Montreux

Interlaken - Brienz - Mont Tramelan

9 July 2012 - Sunny 26 degrees, mountain area 16 degrees Celsius.

This morning we had a pick up arranged with Mathias Gerber, President of the Simmental Association.  10am we met Florian and Mathias at the Merkur Hotel in Interlaken.  The four of us travelled to Brienz where we met farmers Ueli and Karin Grossmann - Schlaeppi and their two children, then driving on to the mountainside nearby to see their cattle.  During the summer months the cattle are on the mountain slopes and when winter draws near the cattle are brought down to barns.  There is accommodation in the mountainside where Ueli's father stays during summer, where we had lunch that day.  

Mountain side accommodation

We walked around the mountainside looking at the cattle, 

Florian, Trevor and Ueli looking at Ueli's cattle.

plus we saw ibex 

Spot the ibex

and wildflowers abound, taking photos of the Alpine Rosa, one of only three wildflowers unique to Switzerland.  

Alpine Rosa

This area can be experienced on one of the many hikes around this area.  

Walking tracks near Brienz

After lunch we visited a waterfall near Brienz and had ice-creams, 

Giessbach Waterfall near Brienz

we said our goodbyes to the lovely Grossmann - Schlaeppi's (note they have an Alpine Restaurant at Bali ski and hiking area in the Meiringen - Hasliberg Haslital, www.balis.ch) and travelled north past Bern to Biel where we saw the largest cattle farm in Switzerland, which the land is rented from the government and has prisoners work on the farm.  The land here is surprisingly flat.  

Simmental Cattle in a barn near Biel

Travelling further north we arrived at Mont Tramelan, where we stayed the night in a holiday let.  We spent the evening exploring the outside of the house which shares a wall with the barn, so from one side the house looks like a barn only and the other side where the house is there is a lovely vegetable and fruit garden.  

House and barn in one building

Flower, fruit and vegetable garden

The landscape here is that of rolling hills and this area is known for being the place where Swiss timepieces are made.

The next day was sunny in the morning, temperatures in the low 20's followed by an afternoon hail storm.

This morning we had breakfast with Mathias and then had a look around his barn and saw his Simmental Cattle on his farm.  

Mathias's cattle

After admiring his cattle we drove to Florian's property and met his daughter.  Florian leases the land from a lady in her 90’s; the farm was named Florian  Wenger Chateau and of course has a Chateau.  

The chateau

All five of us went to have a look at Florian's cattle; I didn't get out of the 4WD as he has two large white dogs that live amongst the cattle herd to protect them from wolves and lynx.  

The cattle and dogs

After viewing the cattle we returned to the house for cordial made from local flowers plus some fruit.  Then Mathias drove us to his sister's place and we had lunch there with her husband and daughter.  They have a dairy plus sheep which were black and brown in colour.  

The black and brown sheep

It was a lovely lunch of braised meat, potatoes, tomato and salad.  Desert was vanilla and strawberry yoghurt with raspberry sauce and fresh raspberries.  After lunch Mathias took us to another farm which the land and buildings are leased from the government.  One of the buildings was built in 1825.  

The 1825 house

We went to one of the paddocks to look at the Simmental Cattle 

Simmental cattle and the storm before it hit the first time

and then decided to go for a drive to another paddock to see more cattle, when it started to rain and hail, so we returned to their house to have a hot drink and an apricot cake.  The storm had finished so we thought and so we drove to another paddock, where we got out of the van and were admiring the cattle when lightning started around us.  

Simmental Cattle hiding from the storm

Next thing we saw a bolt of lightning hit a tree in the forest about 500 metres from where we had been standing followed by the crash of thunder and direct hit on the tree.  We all ran back to the van and drove back to the house, hail starting once more.  That night we had a BBQ at Mathias's house with all the farmers except for the Grossmann-Schlaeppi attending.