It is day 5 of our European adventure. Nine o’clock AM local time finds John and me comfortably settled in a first class coach on a EuRail train bound for Milan, Italy. We enjoyed every minute of our time in Lausanne and Montreux. At the same time, we are extremely excited to experience the energy, pace, fashion, and cuisine of Milan. While there, we’ll also take a day trip north to Italy’s lake region. Most likely we’ll take a train from Milan to the city of Varenna which sits on the eastern shore of Lake Como. After exploring Varenna, we’ll board a ferry and float south back toward Como where we can take another train or a bus back south to Milan.
Another highlight of our time in Milan will be our attendance at a Pat Metheny concert on the night of the July 13. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we’re big Metheny fans so this concert is a very special treat. Another reason we look forward to our time in Milan is that we’ll be rejoined by our dear friends “Chuck” and “G” who flew with us from the States to Geneva, but then boarded a train for Paris on July 8th. They will go with us to the concert and hang with us for some sightseeing on the 14th. They’ll remain in Milan for one day after we leave for the Music and Stars Festival across the border in Locarno, Switzerland. Then, we’ll be reunited one final time for a train journey to Nice. We’ll spend 3 nights in Nice checking out Monaco, Cannes, Antibes and the countryside of Provence. Then on the 18th we’ll board an easyJet flight back to Geneva for a final night before returning by airplane to the US.
Seeing as I have not posted an update since our first day in Switzerland (July 8), I will provide a recap of the time John and I spent on the Swiss Riviera (Lake Geneva, also known as Lac Léman locally). We were eager to explore the city of Lausanne on the morning of July 9th. We did not have to deliberate much on how to dress, given that we only had the outfits we’d flown over in. Our bags had been lost during our trip and would not reach us until later in the day (first John’s suitcase was delivered around 10am and mine showed up in our room sometime between the hours of 5pm and 3am while we were in the nearby town of Montreux at the world-famous jazz festival). After showering and donning our hand washed undergarments and our sole outfits, we headed out into the sunny, warm weather. Our hotel, the Angleterre & Residence, is located in the Ouchy district (the waterfront) of Lausanne. There’s a ferry dock, paddle boats and bicycles for rent, a lovely public garden with a play area for children, loads of restaurants, hotels and an Olympic festival area in this part of town. As I mentioned earlier, the International Headquarters of the Olympics is located in Lausanne.
We walked around for a while and then made our way up to Old Town on the Metro (funicular) that runs every 10 minutes. We wandered around in search of an inexpensive clothing shop. By this point in our day, we’d received John’s suitcase, but had no idea if mine was going to reach us prior to our departure for the evening’s concert in Montreux. I’d been in my travelling clothes since 6am on July 7th, so I was ready for something different to wear that night. We were also looking for crêpes for late breakfast or lunch. We found both in the old town. First, we had a delicious meal at a place called Chandeleur on Rue de la Mercerie.
The food was not what we expected. For example, I ordered my crêpe with fromage (Gruyère cheese), saucisse (sausage) and œuf (egg). I’d imagined the sausage would be browned, cut into bite sized pieces and mixed in with a scrambled egg. To my surprise and displeasure, it was more like a steamed hot dog sliced lengthways and laid atop a sunny-side-up egg which rested on a generous amount of cheese all of it inside a buckwheat pancake. The crêpe was open in the middle rather than totally enclosed the way I usually see them in the States. It struck me as funny how that undercooked egg yolk was featured as a treasure in the crêpe opening like a pearl is displayed on an open oyster. I'm sure the presentation was intended to dazzle me. Unfortunately, I'm no fan of undercooked egg yolks.
Not wanting to make an ass of myself by playing the fussy, touriste américaine, I sucked it up and adapted. The buckwheat crepe was still steaming from the griddle so I quickly flipped it in half in an attempt to trap the steam and use it to cook the yolk more to my liking. It worked well enough. In the end, the meal was satisfying. I wish I’d taken a pic of the thing when it first arrived. And John wishes he’d snapped a shot of my facial expression when I first saw it.
Another good find in old town Lausanne that day was an English language bookstore aptly named “Books, Books, Books”. I went in and with the help of the American expatriate clerk, selected a French phrase book to help us make our way for the rest of our time in French-speaking Switzerland and Nice. After leaving the bookshop, we began the walk back to the Metro stop. Along the way, we happened upon an H&M store. They were having a great sale, so I went in and purchased a new top for the bargain price of 10 CHF (Swiss Francs; ~$9 US). Fiercely independent, the Swiss have not adopted the Euro as their national currency. After my shirt purchase we headed back to the hotel to rest a spell and freshen up before the concert. Our evening in Montreux was eventful, memorable and just plain great. I’ll write about it in a separate post.
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