Montreux

Despite the windows being open all night and the noise of the close by motorway getting louder as the morning got later we both slept in till 9.30am. The view out our window was incredibly beautiful overlooking the vineyards on one side and down into the town of Villeneuve below us. We were happy to be able to see Lake Geneva and some of the surrounding mountains as the low clouds and rain had lifted. We were amazing that you look across the other side of the lake and that is the French side and then we are on the Swiss side, it must have been strange deciding to split a lake in half letting one country own one side and another country the other side. Whilst eating breakfast we booked some tickets for a boat around Lake Geneva at midday leaving out of the town of Montreux. We left the house at 11am and drove 16 minutes into Montreux on the road around the lake front. We managed to find some parking for free since it was a Sunday and nothing was open in town anyways. We were just outside of town and we found a path that lead us around the edge of Lake Geneva. As we admired the view over the lake and the cities on the edge of it we noticed some cute statues made out of fir tree leaves. Continuing down the lake we found where we catch the boat in 30 minutes and with that extra time visited the tourist information centre behind it. The women wasn’t helpful at all especially when we couldn’t say the name of the town we were staying in - Villeneuve. I spelt it out for her and it’s the only place around the area starting with Vill and she didn’t did get it and just had this big pout as she looked at me trying to say this French town. Thankfully Lew found it on the map 😅 as neither of us can spell it either. She gave us this walk around the city and we left feeling very unempressed, it seems that none of these people working in these shops are very adventurous. Don't they realise that we want to get out into the mud and snow? We sat at the port for 15 minutes watching as the boat went into each port in the distance to pick people up. It wasn’t a typical Swiss paddle steamer unfortunately but it did have an area you could sit outside and inside so we were happy. The lake was pretty rough and the boat despite being large was thrown around a lot against the dock. Sitting outside we were surprised how warm it was today compared to when we were in the mountains around Frutigan. Perhaps we will even find London warm when we get back haha! The boat left the dock at 1240pm and gave us a much better view of Montreux and the beautiful autumn colours of the trees surrounding it. We passed the famous Chillon Castle sitting on the waterfront which is supposedly one of the most visited attractions in Switzerland. Surprising since we didn’t think it looked like anything special compared the Chateaus in the Loire Valley. The boat continued around the coastline stopping in the port of Villeneuve from which we could see our house over the back amongst the vineyards.

We crossed the lake over to the port of Saint Gingolph straddling the Swiss and French side of the lake. By this stage we had come inside since despite all the signs on the boat saying no smoking a women came out and began puffing away where we were sitting ruining our fresh air. I think I made it quite clear I wasn’t impressed but I guess we needed to warm up inside and see what snacks I had brought with me. Heading back across the lake to the Swiss side port of Vevay we hit some decent sized waves making it difficult for the captain to manoeuvre the boat around. It reminded us of the horrific ferry ride across the Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton on our drive home to Christchurch from Auckland. We had huse waves breaking over the front of the ferry and we both felt rather sea sick sitting up the front as the boat reached the top of the wave and your stomach dropped as you went down the other side of it. Thankfully the waves were no where near this big but still large enough that we will be rocking in our sleep tonight. I can imagine how magestic Vevay is with its thousands of year old vines covering the hill top but in the rain it certainly didn’t do them justice. We did like the fact that you could tell how old they were as the lines of terraces were so uneven and these days they would be perfect rows. Next stop after Vevay was Clarens which turned out to be 1 minute away from where we parked the car and we didn’t even realise! It was excellent timing with it being 2.20pm we drove 15 minutes back to the loft to have lunch. Leftover thai pumpkin soup with bread was on the menu and we accompanied it with an episode of Modern Family.

Finishing lunch we left home at 3.30pm to drive into Lausanne where the Olympic Museum is. The the weather had packed in at this point and there wasn’t much point of wandering around in the rain so this was the perfect Sunday afternoon option. The museum was super annoying and didn’t have parking for it and most of the areas around the museum had blue lined parks. We tried to do some googling as to what this meant but we discovered perhaps you need a blue dial thing to put into your windscreen to allow you to park there. We were about to give up and were driving to an underground 5 minutes away when we finally found some white lined carparks which the meter said were free on a Sunday! Success! A day of free parking 👌🏻. As we walked 10 minutes back in the direction of the museum the rain got heavier and heavier as we tried to run to the entrance with one umbrella getting well and truely soaking. Pleased to be inside then museum and out of the rain we purchased our student tickets which were cheaper and since it was a machine they never actually checked your ID cards (which Lew doesn't have). This still cost us 24 CHF ($34.70 NZD) when we initially thought it was free for some reason. The first level of the museum outlined the History of the Olympic games and it's link to ancient Greece in which the first games coincided with the religious festivals and the cult of Zeus. The Olympic Games were first documented in 776 BC but it was thought that they existed before this even. They were held every four years in Olympia, Greece and a messenger travelled between cities announcing the competition dates in which some 40,000 athletes, spectators and merchants attended. The games were eventually abolished by Emperor Theodosius I in 393 AD as he believed they were spreading paganism. Some 1,500 years later a French Baron called Pierre de Fredy revived the games holding the first in Athens in 1896. He himself was a sportsman, visionary and educator that was the driving force that allowed the games to become what they are today. His main philosophy of Olympism which inspires the Olympic Movement seeks to create a way of life based on harmony between body and mind, the joy of effort, the struggle for perfection and respect of others. The museum has the original Olympic flag from 1914 where the 5 intertwined coloured rings that we know today first came into existence symbolising the 5 continents and their destiny linked by Olympism. Something that I never realised was that the colours chosen - red, yellow, blue, green and black are colours that appear on all the national flags of the world at that present time. I can tell you it really wasn't an impressive example of good sewing - perhaps it was sewn by a bunch of men? The museum also contained every single torch used for each Olympics and I was surprised that Lew remembered a few of them that were in the more recent Olympics. Whilst he knew each country who held the games designed their own Olympic torch I always thought it was the same one used each time but they are actually vastly different. I was also amazed that it is a long 10 year process for a host country to be decided on and the committee spends a good 2 years just looking through the files of each candidate country before making a decision 7 years out from the competition. The next level of the building was certainly the most interesting one as it had equipment and clothing used by athletes during the games. I have to admit there isn't really any Olympians that I remember the name of other than the ones of recent times like Usain Bolt. A few caught Lews eyes and these were the shoes of Jesse Owens (USA) who is actually one of the greatest athletes of all times and the guy who made these shoes - Adi Dassler went on to create the brand Adidas. During the Berlin games in 1936 when the Nazi's were ruling Germany and the Olympic Games were expected to be a showcase of German and Aryan supremacy Jesse Owens made his mark on the world. Hitler criticised USA for including black athletes on their rosters and it was the biggest middle finger to the dictator when 6/11 of USA's gold medal were won by black athletes and Jesse Owens returned home with 4 of these for the 100 meter, the long jump, the 200 meter and the 400-meter relay. Another was a pair of shoes by Olympic steeplechase champion Kipchoge Keino (Kenya) in Munich 1972 that had actual sharkskin on the underbelly of the shoes to allow for better aeration and grip. Someone I also should have known about was Dick Fosbury who invented the "Fosbury flop" which is a back curve technique for highjump which we all practice today instead of the stomach curving technique called the straddle technique. His shoes were also there for us to view. Usain Bolts (Jamaica) shirt was on display and in the Rio Olympics last year he put himself into the history books by taking his overall gold medal total to 8. They also included a section for the Para-olympic and Youth Olympic Games and we searched hard in the Para-Olympic games section for anything to do with the 1984 Innsbruck games where Lews uncle Mark won a bronze medal in the Alpine Skiing downhill. We did find the familiar medal of a man Paul Fournier (Swiss) who won gold in Innsbruck, 1988, but he was in the LW4 category for below knee amputations, and Mark's category was LW3. It turns out that Paul Fournier won a bronze medal in 1984 at Innsbruck when Mark competed, i bet they know each other! Still the medal looks the same as Marks one (just a slightly different shade). Another pretty special item of clothing was the jersey from the Ice Hockey goalie James Craig (USA) and if any of you have ever watched the movie "Miracle" you will know who I am talking about. In the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics team USA lead by coach Herb Brooks surprised the world with their team of amateur players to go on and beat the competition favourites and current champions the Soviet Union team which was made up of seasoned professionals. The victory was named "the miracle on ice" and hence that's where the movie gained its name from - honestly if its a rainy awful weekend I suggest you find this old classic somewhere and watch it if you haven't already!

Down another floor focused on the Olympic Villages - the food the athletes ate, the training facilities, their accomodation and also the team uniforms. There were some cool interactive activities and including one that introduced you to the kind of mental preparation the athletes go through. We finished seeing everything just before 6pm when the museum closes and went via the shop to see if they had anything from the 1984 Innsbruck Olympics we could send back to Mark but they didn't have a single thing from any Para-Olympics. Leaving the museum it was cold and dark as we walked to the car and there had clearly been a bit of snow since some of the cars were covered in some white slushy material! A 30 minute drive home in the pouring rain again with barely any visibility and we were back at the loft. Lew got some kindle from the hosts to make a fire again and I went about starting dinner - nachos with left over mince from taco night. I also tried to put some washing on but they had a stupid system where you needed coins to turn the electricity on to get it to work and even my engineer couldn't figure it out and we had to get Sylvie our host up to show us how to do it. Every single place we have been to has some wee quirk we have to work out! We snuggled in with the fire going and watched some more Modern Family. I certainly hope they are bringing out a new season soon as will burn through season 7 in a couple of days! Tomorrow we are heading back into France to Chamonix where no doubt we will be seeing a bit more white on the ground. The forcast does say we will be expecting some sunshine so fingers crossed! I feel as though I am Vitamin D deficient already and it's just the start of another long slog through winter. Goodnight xo