A blog about Switzerland (part one) and Greece
As the place was taking off from Chicago, Megan and I had both passed out from eating so much meat only a few hours earlier, we slipped into a full blown meat-coma. We did awake a few hours later feeling rather groggy.
We landed in Switzerland and were greeted by my auntie, Suzy, who was taking us in for the time we were in Switzerland.
The drive from the airport was beautiful, green rolling hills on our left and to our right the massive Lake Geneva.
Once we reached the house, the view from the balcony was amazing, you looked over houses and trees, onto Lake Geneva with Montreux to the left. Over the back is the mountain referred to as ‘the teeth of Switzerland’ because the top of the mountain looks like jagged bottom teeth.
The next day was Suzy’s birthday, we had a few drinks and she opened up all her gifts, once Oliver and Georgia were home, they were ready to play a few games of table tennis against me, which I am always excited about playing. But being overly cocky and not realizing how good Oliver actually was, I got my arse kicked and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t score any points let alone win a game.
Inside, Suzy and Sean were getting the fondue ready for dinner that evening. The cheese was melting away nicely and the alcohol and cheese scent was wafting through the house. Meats, breads, olives, pickles, peppers, potatoes and pears were chopped up ready to be dropped into the boiling hot cheese.
Stabbing pickles with a fork and dunking them in boiling cheese mixed with alcohol sounded amazing, and it tasted even better than it sounds.
The following morning we walked to the market in Vevey, the walk along the edge of Lake Geneva was beautiful, water splashing ever so lightly on the rocks, big green trees sporting their first spots of orange and yellow leaves sheltered the walkways.
There was a statue of Charlie Chaplin and several more statues that appeared during the short walk.
Once we had reached the market, there were people moving quickly up and down all the aisles, the scent of waffles drifted through the air.
Then I saw the cheese, my god, the cheese. Stacks upon stacks of rolls, wedges, wheels, blocks, mounds, anything you could think of they had it. I tried a cheese pie type thing that I cannot remember the name of, but damn it was good.
Piles of spices ready to be scooped up were on display, they were an array of what looked like mustard coloured anthills, but the colours varying ever so slightly to be an incredible sight.
For dinner the six of us, Suzy, Sean, Oliver, Georgia, Megan and I walked down to Montreux to have a beautiful Thai dinner. However, in Switzerland, smoking has not been banned in restaurants, so of course the group of four that sat next to us smoked like there was no tomorrow, which made eating a bit difficult with smoke being blown into our faces and meals every so often.
So many plates came out, and we ate and ate and ate, until we were so full for our walk back up the hill.
Suzy took us for a walk down into Montreux to see the unbelievable Freddy Mercury statue. As many people know, I think that Freddy Mercury had the greatest voice the world will ever hear and I was so excited to see this statue. He faces Lake Geneva, so if you are standing anywhere but the footpath on the edge of the lake, his back is facing you. He is doing the classic one arm in the air pose and people have put roses and photos and poems by him as tributes.
We saw swans hiss at Moby (the family dog) as soon as he went anywhere near them, and looked at some expensive shops, whilst walking past a hotel where the lowest class of car was a Mercedes.
A few days later Suzy and her friend Alix took us to Gruyere where the famous Gruyere cheese is made. We learnt all about the process of how the cheese is made, as well as see them do this process whilst we were in there.
A hall of cheese wheels stretched on forever, yellow wax semi-circles peeked out of shelves, aging for the appropriate time.
We drove up the road a little bit until we got to the Callier chocolate factory.
The chocolate factory wasn’t much of a visitor attraction apart from the cheap chocolate at the end……and the free chocolate tasting inside, rows upon rows of different flavours, strengths, colours of chocolate all available for tasting.
Our last full day in Switzerland came and Suzy and Sean took us up a mountain and we had Rosti, which is a traditional Swiss food as far as I am aware, the only way that I can explain Rosti is that it is quite similar to a hash brown, except massive and the one I had included bacon, egg and capsicum. Although I can’t explain it, damn was it delicious, and it went down very nicely with a nice cold beer.
The drive back down the mountain was amazing, the steep, extremely narrow roads wound around the mountain, autumn had truly hit up here, leaves covered the ground like a red, orange and yellow carpet. Rivers flowed through the middle of the leaves breaking up the colours and creating some of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.
We said our goodbyes to Sean and the kids and Suzy drove us out to the airport to catch our flight to Greece, we told her that we would see her in a month.
Before the riots and long after the original Olympics, we arrived in Greece.
We checked into our hostel, feeling pretty crappy we went to bed.
The next morning we had awoken feeling pretty good so we decided to go to where the flea market was and have a look around there.
We found that most of these places sold the same things and weren’t very good prices at all. The shops that lined the streets sold better things, but the tourist targeted souvenir shops were so overpriced it was outrageous.
We found a really old church, undergoing major reconstructions, but we went in and EVERYTHING was made of marble, I have never seen anything like it, it was cool inside the church as outside was fairly warm. I dipped my hand into the holy water and flicked it into Megans face, yelling out ‘BE HEALED!’ which she wasn’t impressed with at all.
We finally found a supermarket and purchased a few strange Greek things to try.
The next morning we were on our way to the Pantheon.
We found a tiny little shop down a side street selling really cheap Gyros, so we sat down and ordered, thinking it was going to be a tiny little Gyro for the price of it. What came out was packed so full of meat that I had problems finishing it, this Gyro was one of the most delicious things I have eaten in my entire life and it sustained me for the next part of our journey.
Finding the Pantheon was harder than originally expected. There is one sign for it on the main road and its pretty damn visible being a HUGE structure on top of a mountain. So we started our walk up the mountain, thinking how simple it was going to be to get to the top. We walked and walked and walked, no signs could be seen anywhere, so we winged it, we could see the Pantheon from where we were, however we could still not figure out how to get to it.
We found a little set of stairs, the sides of which housed restaurants with waiters out the front trying to get you to sit down and have a massive feast, some going as far as following you up the stairs and stepping in front of you.
We walked for about another 25 minutes with a few breaks for water on the way, we turned a corner and had finally found the entrance!
Once inside, the view from the top of the mountain, sitting on the marble overlooking Greece from 360° was amazing, white and cream coloured roofs as far as the eye could see, a mountain directly in front of us split the white in half with its lush green.
The next morning we awoke, packed all our things and caught a train to the edge of Greece where we got on a ferry and made our way to Italy.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
BJ
