Swiss Holidays: Paris to Montreaux

After a long and painful day of training in Hagenbach, I tumbled out of the train at Gare de L'Est at a quarter to eleven at night. David was patiently waiting for me at the end of the platform, completely exhausted from his own long day but ready to give me all the hugs I wanted.

We drove from Paris back to Conflans and flopped into bed after plugging in all of the devices for a charge. Only six short hours later I was awake again and staggering toward the shower.

We caught our planned train into Paris, then took the metro to Gare de Lyon, where we had enough time to find our car and settle into our seats without rushing. We napped and read travel books during the three hour journey, then stepped off of the train in Geneva just after noon.

At the car rental David was pleased to be handed the keys to an all-wheel drive station wagon; an upgrade from the Golf we had reserved. The fact that the Europcar agent was a girl who obviously appreciated his accent probably didn't hurt.

Before leaving Geneva we took a quick tour of the city. Thanks to the guide book we found an English book shop where David picked up something to read on the trip. We had a small Indian lunch and had our first Swiss sticker shock. On the plus side, now we know that Paris is not the most expensive place in the world.

On our way out of the city we drove a little bit out of our way along the banks of Lake Geneva to see "Europe's tallest fountain", which is nothing more than a really tall jet of water. However, we were out of luck, because it didn't appear to be on. Unless we managed to accidentally miss a jet of water 40 meters high?

We followed the shore of Lake Geneva for a while, until the traffic got heavy and we took to the highway. At the opposite end of the lake we passed through the town of Montreaux, then up a mountainside to find our B&B. The directions sent from the owner said "GPS not valid", so we had to use a printed topographic map and count hairpin corners to orient ourselves.

The house was perched on the ledge of the mountain, and our room took up the bottom floor. The entire front of our room was a wall of windows facing an incredible view of Lake Geneva and the mountains. After sprawling on the lawn chairs for a few minutes we tore ourselves away and returned to Montreaux to find something to eat.

We stopped at a small pizza place, but something about all those hairpins or maybe the Indian lunch or a combination of both attacked my stomach and David ended up taking the pizza to go and driving me back to the B&B doubled over. I was disappointed about missing the sun setting on the mountains, but I crashed in the bed overlooking the beautiful view and David followed after his dinner.