Switzerland in a Day

Yesterday we travelled to Geneva, which is about 45 minutes from Talloires. Our first hour in Geneva was spent window shopping at Cartier, Hermes, Chanel, Bulgari, Longines, etc where Kate hopes Martin will bring her to actually shop on their next trip. Then we wandered through the old part of town, very beautiful and also merits another, longer visit. Headed to Starbucks to use the Internet, as we know our blog updates are essential to your daily routine. There were learned the hard way about the exchange rate and verified our previous conception that Switzerland is expensive. We were happy to pay almost 8 Swiss Francs for a grande vanilla latte, assuming that it would be similar to the cost we pay stateside in American dollars. Unfortunately for us, this was not the case... After checking our credit card statement, the two vanilla lattes, scone and muffin ran us over $24. We have decided that MacDonald's is the better option for wifi, as a delicious McFlurry is only 2€.

After getting our full value's worth of the "free" Internet, we hopped in the car and began our travels around the north side of Lake Geneva. We originally thought it would be quaint Swiss towns perched on the mountainside with vineyards occasionally; however, it was mostly flat, agricultural lands with rather average towns... Nothing to write home about. We decided it was necessary to get our fix of adorable Switzerland. So headed an hour past the lake, up into the Alps through endless switchbacks and one and a half lane roads to Gstaad and Villars-sur-Ollon. We were too stubborn to change Euros into Swiss Francs, so we slight difficultly in Gstaad trying to find non-metered parking. On top of the currency issue, we don't speak a word of German. Eventually we parked in what we assumed was a "customers only" parking for 30 minutes at a bank. We walked around the ritzy streets lined with nice shops.


On our way out of town, we noticed rather odd contrast - three car dealerships: Porsche, Bentley, and Land Rover placed next to a dairy farm.

We headed to Villars (per Corinne's suggestion) and walked around the town which was surrounded by stunning, snowcapped mountains.

Unfortunately, by the time we made it back to the lake, it was dark, so we couldn't see everything on the French side. Made it back to our apartment around 8:30pm and enjoyed a homemade omelet.

- Martin & Kate

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Location:Geneva, Switzerland