GENEVA (NIGHT)

After hiking fondeu dinner, then a stroll through Geneva’s old city center at night. Rosseau, Borges, Calvin, Voltaire all lived here at one time or another. Top photo is where Matt Damon’s character in Syrianna supposedly lived.

MINIATURE PORTRAITS (ROCHER-DE-NAYE)

ROCHER-DE-NAYE

Feeling a bit under the weather (a lot actually) from last night’s over exposure at Paleo, I still wasn’t about to pass on the opportunity to hike in the Alps, or the pre-Alps as Maria called them. Trapped in the city I never get in terrain like this, and if I were in Seattle I’d be in the mountains as much as possible this time of year. Maria suggested Rochers-de-Naye, as the closest place, so she took the day off work and we traveled up to Montreux again where we caught another train leading above the town.

From our station stop, the train headed up to the summit and we began our hike, walking through neighborhoods above Montreux filled with those ridiculously quintessential Swiss chalets just about everywhere. With incredible, unavoidable views, Maria claimed homes here weren’t that expensive. At the end of the road was the trailhead, and from here we made our way through lush forests wondering to ourselves about an abandoned rail line that seemed to head into the forest and straight up the mountain. We’d hoped the storm from the night before would have blown out, but as we climbed higher cloud cover obscured the peak above, and eventually we were into the mist ourselves. Feeling feverish earlier, the cool air revived me and up we went through a rather perilous scree-covered chute, hearing an eerie cow bell tinkling in the mist. We eventually reached a notch, and found ourselves at a stone cottage in the middle of nowhere we thought was abandoned until we noticed an old man emerge to cut wood as we ate our lunch nearby.

From there it was a short jaunt to the top, where we followed a spur trail to an amazing terraced alpine garden, where Maria looked for the elusive edelweiss flower. Our train had arrived while we weren’t looking and we ran to the station at the top of the peak just in time, riding down the mountain with even more spectacular scenery with the clouds burning off just as we departed. Remarkable.