March 20-23
3 nights in
Lausanne, the fourth most populous city of Switzerland, located on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Accommodations: My mom’s friend from high school, Sheila, lives in
Pully, a small city just outside of Lausanne. Shelia, her husband Pierre,
daughter Jeneya, and son Christophe, were nice enough to let us stay for 3
nights, and take great care of us. Without a doubt, this was the best accommodation yet.
Day 1
Our train
arrived in Lausanne at around 5:45, and Sheila and Pierre came to pick us up at the train station. They drove us around the surrounding area of Pully, through some gorgeous
mountain vineyards. We were planning on going skiing, so Jeneya helped us plan
our transportation and lent us warm clothes for the next day. For dinner,
Sheila made raclette, a traditional Swiss dish where the cheese is melted under
a grill and scraped off over potatoes. We had a lot of fun, and Pierre gave us
some amazing wine to accompany it. For dessert, we had meringue with cream and
strawberries – so yummy.
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| Raclette |
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| Meringue & Cream |
We woke up at 5:45, put on all of our layers and took 3 trains to
eventually arrive at Le Chable, a village just below the ski resort of Verbier.
Here, we rented ski equipment, put our stuff in a locker, and headed up the
gondola to Verbier. It was an incredible day of skiing with gorgeous views,
warm sunny weather, and close to empty slopes.
We got lunch, burger and fries,
at the top of the mountain and lay on the lawn chairs in the sun.
At the end of
the day, we went to a bar towards the bottom of the mountain for some ‘après
ski’ drinks.
We were enjoying our beers so much that we totally lost track of
time. Our ski rental place closed at 6:30, and the time when we realized we had
to leave was 5:40… we still had to ski down the rest of the mountain, get our
stuff from the lockers, and take the gondola down to Le Chable. On top of that,
the lifts were all closed so we had to take an alternate route down which left
us in the wrong area, forcing us to take a bus to get to our lockers. By the
time we made it to the ski rental place, it was 7pm. LUCKILY they were still
there and when we knocked on the door they let us in to return our things. It
was a slightly stressful way to end an otherwise perfect day, but we were able
to laugh at it right after. We got back (exhausted) around 10 pm, and went
straight to bed after a late dinner of delicious pasta (thanks to Sheila, once
again).
Day 3
We had a
much-needed sleep in, and headed to Lausanne to explore the city for the day. It
is a beautiful city, one I could picture living in, with gorgeous scenery, and
lots of people just walking around the shopping streets enjoying the sun. We
met Jeneya after she finished class, and she showed us around for the
afternoon! First we went to the Lausanne Cathedral, and then we took the metro
to a Le Flon, a newer, artsy district of Lausanne. Next, we went to Ouchy, a
popular tourist area at the edge of Lake Geneva, south of Lausanne.
We spent
the afternoon at home doing our nails and drinking wine, and then had delicious
homemade falafel for dinner. Sheila had made Katherine a birthday cake, since
tomorrow would be her 21st birthday!! We spent the evening in,
drinking wine and playing card games with Jeneya and Christophe, and planned to
catch a train to Lyon, France in the morning.
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| Lausanne |
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| Lausanne Cathedral |
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| Monica, Jeneya, Katherine and I at Le Flon |
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| Happy Birthday Katherine! |
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