Vroom Vroom

Parlez Vous Francais?

by Lauren Byrne on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 6:03am ·

We were so excited to have a home base in Switzerland, a place to fall back to, cook our own meal and wash our clothes.  So much gratitude for our community, and especially grateful for Suzanne Muller, Stefan Heinz, and Suzie and Jerry Dackerman.  What unexpected richness!  From Zurich we traveled to the french speaking Geneva, Lucern and Lausanne, and later Bern and Lugano.  

Richard loves Paris, and this was our first foray within Switzerland so we chose the French speaking cities.  We used the now tried and tested Rick Steve's guide book and had a lovely walk through the old town of Lausanne.  This was really our only rain for the trip.  Lausanne however, is beautiful in the rain!  The wet, glistening cobblestones reflected a rainbow of colors and the church bells ringing in the back ground were the perfect music to walk through glistening trees on our way to our hotel from the local metro.  We can almost bet that there will be a Starbucks at large train stations, so we always stop there, get our bearings and decide on a city plan.  Once we booked the hotel we were off on our exploration.  

One of our best meals was in Lausanne, and we almost didn't eat there.  It was a recommendation from the Rick Steve's travel guide, but it wasn't at the location it was supposed to be at.  Or at least we didn't see it the first time we passed it.  In wandering the beautiful old town, we then passed our old apartment's namesake, the Captain Cook Pub!  So we both took quick shots of that and stamped on through the rain in search of our restaurant.  Even the smallest passageways have street names, and we were clearly lost.  Circling back around we noticed the night club looking place actually had two names on the sign and one of them was our goal, The Blue Lizard!    Without reservations. Oops.  But they were kind enough to fit us in, just cautioning that we only had one hour at the table before the couple who had actually reserved it showed up.

And what a meal it was.  Richard had venison with a balsamic reduction that was melt in your mouth fabulous.  There are pics up of that one.  Lovely house wine, and a delicious creme brûlée to top it off.  The only reason I don't weigh 50 pounds more is the non stop walking we did.  It was a good 20 minute walk back to our hotel, this time in a straight line.  We had walked 40 minutes circling in search of The Blue Lizard.  So it all worked out!

Lausanne has a waterfront and the old city on the hill and a vast and boring industrial and residential area separates the two.  So we skipped the water here and stuck to the old town.  

The next day we rode into Geneva on the train.  Just to say we've been there.  Had a glass of wine and a sandwich in a neat little Gazebo on an island in the river.  It was their final day before closing for the season, another one of those serendipity moments we love about traveling.  We looked lamely for the local Apple store without success and then turned around and went back to Lausanne.  Richard is a die hard Apple fan, so we have now been to Apple Stores in Paris, London, Zurich, and Milan.  They really are all very similar:)

Back in Lucern we stopped for dinner and had a lovely walk through their old town, stopping in for dinner in a very quaint restaurant.  So many of the cities are on rivers or lakes.  Again, Switzerland is a country where water is important.  Then back to Zurich for some clean clothes.

Switzerland; watches, banks, cows, chocolate, water, trains, church bells, gadgety knives, Vatican guards and alps.

by Lauren Byrne on Monday, November 26, 2012 at 3:48am ·

Those few words barely begin to express what is Switzerland.  To understand this magical country you need to know a tiny bit of history.  

From Wikipedia: "In 1291, the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden united to defend the peace upon the death of Emperor Rudolf I of Habsburg. Their union, one nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy, is recorded in the Federal Charter, a document probably written after the fact in the early 14th century. At the battles of Morgarten in 1315 and Sempach 1386, the Swiss defeated the Habsburgs, gaining increased autonomy within the Holy Roman Empire.

By 1353, the three original cantons had been joined by the cantons of Glarus and Zug and the city states of Lucerne,Zürich, and Bern, forming the "Old Federation" of eight states that persisted during much of the 15th century."  There are a couple dozen now in modern times, but the core was those three.

So the original Cantons were from France, Germany and Italy.  They worked hard ever since to maintain their cultures and diversity and even today all signage is in not one or two but three or four (French, German, Italian and English or Romansch languages, as a fourth unique language called Romansch, derived from Latin is also spoken in a small area of Switzerland.  

Train announcements are also repeated in multiple languages.  Is it any wonder that most Swiss speak multiple languages?  They have been exposed to them from birth on trains!  This is a country that respects diversity.  It was evident everywhere from shopkeepers to strangers on the street.  Polite to the core, they do demand certain customary societal rules.  Trains are ON TIME.  There is silent zone on trains.  Everyone runs to get to THIS train even if another one is coming in ten minutes.  Time of course, is sacred here.

I did not see anyone without a watch on.  We of course abandoned our watches to iPhones some time ago, so it was weird seeing all the watch wearing citizens.  And watch STORES!  On every street, and every corner, I have never seen so many different watch stores.  All beautiful in their engineering and design.  Almost made me want to repair and wear my old watches, or buy a lovely new one.    Instead I bought:

CHEESE AND CHOCOLATE!  Cows are darn near sacred here and are well cared for.  Renowned for their quality milk, it is little wonder that the swiss make great cheese and then turned around and invented milk chocolate!  Of course!  They love their cows and milk.  Callier is the oldest brand, although the kids these days call it "grandmother's chocolate", we decided to try this revered original milk chocolate.  It's gorgeously velvety, lovely tasting chocolate.  Their are kirsch "batons" and wine filled truffles and nutty chocolates.  Nougat filled and caramel filled and curry flavored chocolates.  The same wide range and flavors available here, and then some.  

Hazelnuts are a particular favorite here and there are some great varieties.  Thanks to Stefan Heinz and Suzanne Muller for introducing us to a couple of them while we were visiting them.  

The cheese is incredible, we loved the Raclette, which we bought sliced, but is traditionally served in a two foot wheel, held over a torch and then you use pickles, bread and other yummies to scrape the melting cheese off of the wheel table side.  What we thought was fondue last year in Paris was in reality Raclette!  And we found that out reading wikipedia the night before our flight so I will HAVE to return to Europe to order Raclette!  We did order Fondue, which was fabulous of course, and also Rosti, a traditional Swiss dish.  It is the best hash browns I've ever had, served in a round patty about the size of a pancake and sometimes topped with more cheese.  Our favorites were a gorgonzola and parmesan reggiano, but more about those two later.

I skipped banks, not much to say there, we did not open a swiss bank account, just to say we have one.  They are plentiful and everywhere.  They are also currently under fire for not disclosing their German citizen patrons to Germany for tax purposes.  It may be the end of their private banking enterprise but we'll see.  They kept out of the Euro and use a Swiss Franc, so the coinage is all different here, much like the UK.  Most everyone else uses Euros.  The best way to get local currency is from the Bankomat or ATM machines.  They are plentiful in all of Europe by the way so don't worry about getting local currency.  Most everyone uses Visa cards too.  Our biggest issue is to use it up before you leave.

You must take trains, they are the best way to get everywhere in Switzerland and some of the most scenic rides of your life are up into the Alps.  So we did that and took hundreds of pictures.  Beautiful towns tucked into little valleys with snow capped mountains towering over them.  I kept looking for Heidi but didn't see her.  I did see a shepherd with some sheep once.  Heidi today wears fabulous boots and coats, carries a lovely briefcase, wears a Hermes scarf and talks on an iPhone.  She may be one of the engineers designing the hydropower that lights up Switzerland.  Most of their power comes from water.  Much of their water comes from glaciers.  And they are melting.  It's a serious concern for not just Switzerland, but all of Europe.  Venice is building the "Moses" project to erect large sea gates to limit the annual winter flooding that is getting worse with global warming.  We rerouted our trip and skipped Venice this year due to five feet of water in St. Marks square.  And no one doubts that global warming is real.  Europeans in general are heavily investing in alternative energy.  We saw windmills galore last year, solar as well.  Swiss has a mix of hydropower and nuclear and they are investing in more new technologies with the questions about hydropower 30 years from now if the glaciers are all gone.  It will also affect their water supply of course, but of equal importance is that it is their energy source.

Last year we were exposed to the frugal energy footprint of Europeans.  Auto dimming lights, small convection ovens, few microwaves, tiny sinks and low energy washers and dryers.  This year, in a country filled with inclines and the miraculous machinery that gets people up and over hills (funiculars, trains, escalators, lifts, etc), we noticed almost all trains are electric powered as well as engine powered.  And that the escalators sit still until the motion sensor picks up that someone needs a ride up!  It was fabulously smart, why don't we do that?  I truly feel we are energy hogs.  And the world needs us to get that and take action now.  Okay, enough soapbox and I just took a 12 hour plane ride, so I'm a hog too.

The swiss army knife.  Nuff said.  There must be over 40 different combinations and sizes.  Two companies are authorized to use the name.  From wikipedia: "Originating in Ibach, Switzerland, the Swiss Army knife was first produced in 1891 after the company Karl Elsener, which later became Victorinox, won the contract to produce the Swiss Army's Modell 1890 knife from the previous German manufacturer. In 1893 the Swiss cutlery company Paul Boéchat & Cie, which later became Wenger, received its first contract from the Swiss military to produce model 1890 knives; the two companies split the contract for provision of the knives from 1908 until Victorinox acquired Wenger in 2005".  There were still both stores in the malls, Victorinox and Wenger but they are all the same now.

The Swiss Guards were known for their mercenary capabilities in the 15th century.  At that time Switzerland was poor and many young men went abroad as mercenaries.  So the pope used one of the Swiss Guard troops for security.  Now they are the only Swiss Guards left.  They look mostly ceremonial, but we saw one step into action quickly at the Vatican when someone tried to enter without permission at the drive in gate.  The Swiss do have a military now, we saw several young men in uniform in train stations.  They are still a neutral country and don't participate in armed conflicts, but provide peacekeeping support around the world like medical care, etc.  

The Alps were just gorgeous.  Visible from almost all of the places we visited, they are a durable landmark of Switzerland.  St. Moritz and skiing, lovely train rides and all that they provide wouldn't be possible without one man with a vision.  (Isn't that always the case?)

From Credit Suisse website:  

"Alfred Escher (1819–1882) recognized that the only way for Switzerland to avoid economic and cultural isolation was to build an extensive railroad network complete with a route traversing the Alps. The monument in front of Zurich's main station bears witness to the successful completion of his life's work, which paved the way for modern-day Switzerland.  (We saw this, it's a huge monument and an enormous train station)

Switzerland is truly the land of railways. On average, each inhabitant travelled 1,751 kilometers by rail in 2003. No other country comes near this figure. In neighboring France, the average is 1,203 kilometers, while in Austria it is 1,008, in Germany 842 and in Italy 811. Switzerland is also the land of tunnels and bridges: it has a total of 671 tunnels and over 6,000 bridges. The railway network extends to more than 5,000 kilometers. This means that Switzerland also has the densest network."

Alfred Escher was a geologist by the way....

Back to the way Switzerland was founded...that diversity means that you can feel like you're in France (Geneva and Lausanne speak french), or Germany (Zurich), or Italy (Lugano)!  And still all be in Switzerland.  Next up, the magic of Lugano.....

Paris

by Lauren Byrne on Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 4:57am ·

We have met the nicest people in France. We ended a dull day at the louvre having missed our last train back to our apartment and the nicest man helped us find and understand the taxi stands and make it home. The food is amazing but you walk it off and no one here appears to have a weight problem. We met a nice student from USC in the Starbucks who wrote out her two day Paris plan and we are following that with great enjoyment. What a gift to be here! Today is the Musee l'orange and a fantastic restaurant Megan recommended. Tomorrow we hope to connect with old friends

Vroom, vroom, skiddledee adle, beep-beep!

by Lauren Byrne on Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 12:30pm ·

We opted to drive across Europe, staying on the fly with the aid of priceline.com, bookings.com and hotels.com.  Thank you Les Fafard for this awesome advice!  This gave us tremendous flexibility and we got to do some amazing things, like zoom down to Venice at 6PM one Sunday night because Salzburg was mostly closed.  The English version GPS in the car was rented in Paris, we took a flight from London down and back again at the end so we could do the left side steering.  Plus they really don't like their UK cars going over the channel.  With four travelers this also proved to be the best priced option despite high gasoil (petrol, aka gas) and some toll roads.  Train tickets get pricey once you're more than two people. 

Things I liked the best.  Tough list to pare down, but here goes!

• Richard doing his car noises while driving on the autobahn at 180kph, pretending to speak Italian by saying every Italian word he knows, e.g. "Cincacento, Venetzia, area servicio, la bella luna, cappacinno, mocchiato and "It'sa ME, MARIO!" all in a string with much enthusiasm.  Freaking hilarious:)  Turns out Italian IS mostly phonetic with LOTS of animation, but still....
• The Paris breakfast....a baguette, smear of really great butter, and some soprasetta on top.  Mmmmm.  We bought some here and had it this morning in the states.
• Getting to know my daughters boyfriend at a level that is not possible without two solid weeks of travel together, some in shared hotel rooms.  Steven Rigby is a great guy, truly adores my daughter and is funny as hell.  "That's what SHE said...." after every possible wink-wink-nudge-nudge comment, became a joke for all of us on the entire trip.  Plus he does a really good "Itsa ME Mario!"  And "AREA SERVECIO"!  More fun with Italian.
• Finding Evie and Hana in a little tiny town in Bavaria.  Such sweet people!  We had a home away from home, next time, I'll know to ask her to do my laundry while I'm there.   Alter Wirt near the Neuschwanstein Castle and Ludwig's one finished castle, Linderhoff.  www.alterwirteschenlohe.de Evie told us to go inside Linderhoff but only do the outside of Neuschwanstein because he only finished four rooms.  There's also a waterpark nearby that we didn't make it to.  The drive was gorgeous, beautiful lakes.  We liked them so much, as well as the bedrooms, bathrooms and food, that we came back again 30 min out of our way coming north from Venice!   They were so happy to see us again after a one day absence!  Friends for life, we are already on FB with Hanalore:)  And Evie wears CROCS from Denver!  
• Venice, Venice, Venice.  Just Venice.  So amazing.  We did tour the Murano glass factory, which for me was like seeing Van Gogh paint.  Beautiful place, beautiful buildings, and it was so great to see the Church in San Marco Piazza.   Continuous use from the 1500's no wonder the floor is a bit uneven.  And it was a feast day, so there were crowds despite the cool weather and fog, which eventually lifted.
• Waking up in the random London (Kensington) hotel we booked, taking the train the next day and seeing someone with a bag marked "The Dr. Who Experience".  Hmmm.  We are huge Who fans, looked it up and the dang thing is WALKING distance from our hotel!  Serendipity was everywhere but this was the biggest bang for us:)  Daleks, getting a ride on the Tardis, etc.  Yup, ultimate geeky.  Bought Nicho a sonic screwdriver and everything!
• Indian food on Thanksgiving near Harrods.  Best food ever at most of the restaurants, but this one was tops in my view.  Wrong Indians, but we couldn't resist:)
• MIND THE GAP, dang those Brits are funny:)  Riding trains everywhere was great fun, and I enjoyed the low energy commitment of all of Europe.  Loved seeing the wind farms in France and the solar farms in Germany and taking public transport in both London and Paris.
• The random cafe in Salzburg that hushed up when we stepped in at 6pm.  Literally.  Everyone stared at us.  We asked if they were open, and did they have beer and food?  Yes, said the proprietor, so we were shown to a small table.  Eventually the ALL MEN group started to cheer the footballers and drink their beers again while smoking non stop.  So we loosened up as well.   THEN......Corinne was admiring a fish tank and the proprietor (who spoke almost no English) came down on his knees next to her, prayed for forgiveness, and dropped down under the table!  All the men in the bar began to laugh, we were smiling but perplexed, until TA DA!  The light in the fish tank came on.  Turns out the switch was between Corinne's legs:)
• Megan, the American in Paris sitting in the Louvre Starbucks missing home.  We were enchanted, she was darling and put together the two day Paris trip which we followed almost to the letter.  Seeing the L'Orange museum for the Monet Water Lilies was a memory for all time.  Moved me to tears.  And the view of the Eiffel Tower from the Sacre Coeur was worth the climb!   Would have loved to have known about that dang furnicular before hiking it though:)
• The Louvre.  Unbelievable, unimaginable beauty of the building as well as the art.  After two days in Paris, I understood the arrogance of the French. 

There's much, much more, but these are the first that come to mind.

Trip, Travel, Togs, and Toilet Tales

by Lauren Byrne on Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 6:12am ·

After 16 days, we got used to the seemingly infinite numbers of toilet configurations.  Our first bathroom stop in Paris after landing at the airport there were NO buttons, hand wave sensors, or levers of any kind.  Hmmm.  After a full minute of scanning the completely tiled stall I noticed a two inch metal button on the FLOOR.  That's right, a step on toilet flusher!  Brilliant!  I hollered over the stall to Corinne so she'd know too and she claims she wouldn't have ever found it on her own, it really was almost invisible. 

You'd think that would mean Parisians are concerned about sanitation.  After all a foot button is such an amazing way to keep the hands out of it, right?  Except I began to notice no one seemed to wash hands after using bathrooms in Paris.  It was rare to have anything other than electric hand dryers (Dyson's IS the best), no paper towel dispensers in any of Europe, and you MUST dry your hands or they'll remain wet for some long while in the high humidity.  So we noticed, no sink water, no hand dryers going off. 

The humidity also lent itself to beautiful skies.  Those of you who see my wall know how many sky pictures I take, I love me some good clouds and colors:)   Having lived most of my life in arid climates, this was an incredibly long period of time with clouds, mist, fogs, etc.  My skin loved it.  Next vacation there will be beach.

Walking, walking, everywhere!  Loved the public transport Tube, Metro, Buses and Trains.  Really fantastic and it's a reflection of my own personal energy commitment.  We are such gluttons with energy.  In most areas of Europe the switches were timed to go off if no one was in the room.  Many of the lights are now LED.  Public hallways, bathrooms, everywhere we went that wasn't packed with humanity, the lights were on timers.  The cars were almost exclusively diesel fuel and were manual transmissions.  Our rental was too.  Although ours was probably much larger than many of the cars we saw.

Mashed peas.  Really?  In the UK they apparently always serve them with Fish & Chips.  I never knew that and we only experienced one dish that actually tasted good, the rest were one step above baby food.  Yuck.  But I loved the Coleman's Mustard!  No vinegar, just pure mustard.  And HP sauce, and Sticky Toffee Pudding and the "Pies".  Beautiful crusts, luscious gravies and stout ingredients.  Lovely.  Steven Rigby has mastered gravies and it truly was a joy to watch him corral the sauces of Europe and finish up exactly with the right amount of food vs. sauce.  Masterful.

Catherine Board was right, you pack more than you will need.  I "needed" three pairs of jeans, ten shirts (for layering), 8 socks and underoos, one pair of shoes and a wash half way through.  I took a "shit-ton" more than that.  Next time I'm packing black long yoga pants and calling those my "fancy pants" for dinners out, although we were not once refused service for our jeans I was clear we were under-dressed more than once.

Rick Steves travel advice is spot on for us.  We loved it when we found the UK hotel he recommended was truly a budget find in a great neighborhood.  (Down the block and walking distance from Buckingham Palace, I don't think you get "better neighborhood" than that).  Plus that fantastic bakery with "sticky toffee cupcakes" was one block away and Victoria Train station just two.

Rick Steves also recommended taking some older clothing/socks, etc and throwing them out at the end to make room for your goodies.   We took one suitcase each and they were carryon size and it all fit with one additional small duffel.

It felt good to be prepared.  We went with travel laundry soap (not powder, but soap sheets that you can pop into a sink basin, and are usable in a machine as well), travel sewing kit (pulled out of it's box and popped into the travel first aid box to save space), copies of all credit card info on the "cloud", copy of passport, copy of eye glasses Rx and copy of all medication Rx  in luggage "JUST IN CASE" and photos of same on our phones.  And we only needed the laundry soap.

Use the GPS locator to find food.  We had several "bests" as a result of randomly seeing and stopping, or using the GPS locator. We will return to Paris to visit Megan's "favorite restaurant", which we didn't get to on this trip. 

Siri doesn't do France.  Those of you expecting your iPhone to do it all, watch out.  "I'm sorry Richard, I cannot find restaurants in France."  "I'm sorry Lauren, I cannot find gas stations in France".  Bah Humbug Siri.

When you do have wifi, use google translate to memorize some needed phrases in the language, it helps, even though most of the folks we met spoke English. 

More on technology: Buy a good universal adapter and a "travel size" power strip.  Do NOT get the SIM cards anywhere but UK for UK only.  Those worked. We unlocked our iPhones for this and it only worked for the first few days in the UK.  Every other country has a two day wait for DATA usage.  Thanks France for not telling us that before we bought them.  We ultimately called Verizon back and humbly asked for the business international plan for the remainder of the trip.  (We have a business account so it was NOT the horrifyingly expensive trip it would have been if we had personal Verizon accounts).   While there is WiFi available in many areas, there were fewer free spots and more pay spots and it never ran quite as fast as we are used to in the states. 

Speaking of free vs. pay, always have change on hand.  The public toilets or WC's (water closets) are all going to cost you in the range of .50 Euros or pence.  And expect there to not be MANY public options in the UK.  Stiff upper lip indeed.  Long hikes down into tube and metro stations, no bathrooms down there folks.

Travel with people who are easily amused and are self-entertaining.  This was the best gift of the trip, that we could find simple things hilarious.  Thank you Siri, we did enjoy stumping you with the "how much wood could a wood chuck chuck...."

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