Our Rainy Vacation in Switzerland’s Lake-Geneva Region, August 5-14, 2002

By Russ Laher

August 18, 2002

With the recent news of the devastating rain-induced flooding in Salzburg, Prague, Dresden, and certain neighboring regions, you might wonder whether there’s somewhere you can go to enjoy a European vacation without the floodwater. Well, my wife, Mami, and I just returned from a week’s vacation in the Lake Geneva region of Switzerland and, although it rained off and on for most of the time we were there, we experienced no problems with flooding of any sort. This is my account of that rainy trip, which turned out to be quite enjoyable, as rain can be quite a treat for someone who has to put up with the “boring” dry weather of Southern California.

We took a United Airlines flight operated by Lufthansa Airlines from Los Angeles to Frankfurt, Germany and then on to Geneva, Switzerland. Do not make the same mistake we did at LAX of trying to check-in at UAL’s international terminal, because Lufthansa’s check-in counter is in the Tom Bradley terminal, a different building! Within the Geneva airport there is a train station, which proved to be very convenient, as we then took the train to the city of Montreux, located at the eastern end of Lake Geneva, where we planned to spend most of our vacation.

We took a room at the Montreux Suisse Majestic Hotel, which we found on the Internet. It was advertised as a “Bell Époque” hotel, and indeed it was. The design simplicity and colors of the large stained-glass windows in the stairwell impressed me, which were made by a Lausanne craftsman in 1902. Our fifth-floor room had a small balcony and a commanding view of Lake Geneva and Montreux, which I had requested when I reserved the room. In my opinion, the room was all right for the money, which was 230 CHF per night (1.5 CHF equals approximately one U.S.D; Swiss francs, not the Euro, are used in Switzerland). Mami, on the other hand, was not pleased with the maid’s daily cleanup of the bathroom. We also dropped our jaws over the fact that the maid’s normal practice of coming in the evening to turn down the covers and leave a chocolate on the pillow was followed only for the first two nights we were there! And on one of our days there, the maid even neglected to clean our room. I would probably stay there again, but Mami definitely would not. I found the hotel’s location of just across the street from the train station very convenient. Also, the front-desk clerks could speak English (French is predominately spoken in this part of Switzerland), were generally helpful, and one even negotiated for us a fixed price for the taxicab ride back to Geneva airport when it was time for us to leave.

Incidentally, a huge mainly jazz music festival is held every July in Montreux, which explains that Freddie Mercury statue on the shoreline walkway not very far east of the hotel. I also heard later from a friend that Deep Purple’s “Smoke on Water” was inspired by a view of Lake Geneva, which I found interesting because I like that song.

After checking into our room, we went down to the lobby to use one of the hotel’s Internet stations to send an e-mail home. The hotel charges 5 CHF per 15 minutes for this service. We soon found out that there is another Internet station in downtown Montreux that allows an hour-long session for that same price. Once we stopped there ten minutes before closing, quite by accident mind you, and they let us send an e-mail for free!

If you are on a budget, you should rule out a Swiss vacation because everything there is expensive, except for Swiss Army knives, which are about 25% cheaper than in U.S. On one day, we decided to picnic in our room, and spent about 30 CHF on just some bread, ham, cheese, a small package of potato salad, and a “cheap” bottle of local wine at a nearby convenience store. Travel by train is also very expensive in Switzerland. For example, a one-way, second-class ticket for the little over an hour’s ride from Geneva to Montreux costs 26 CHF. I’m not sure about the cost of train travel in other European countries, but, based on my extensive travels in Japan, I’d say train travel is at least four times more expensive in Switzerland than in Japan. If you plan to get around a lot by train in Switzerland, make sure you purchase a half-price voucher, which gets you half-price on all train tickets for the next month. A passport picture must be affixed to the voucher if you plan to make use of it for more than a week.

We visited several small towns in the area. From the train, we took in beautiful mountain views on one side of the train and idyllic views of Lake Geneva on the other. The region along the north shore of Lake Geneva from Geneva to Montreux and beyond is wine country, and we saw many vineyards with neatly arranged rows of vines on terraced slopes. Our day trips by train farther from the lake rendered views of valley fields of corn, clover, sugar beets, and sunflowers, not to mention apple orchards, against the backdrop of magnificent snow-covered mountain peaks.

Our first excursion was on the GoldenPass Line Panorama train to a mountain village north of Montreux called Chateau d’Oex. The ride up into the mountains had a nice view of Lake Geneva, as well as awesome mountain scenery. The village turned out to be a quiet place that is off the beaten track – a few but not very many tourists head there. Mountains, forests, wild-flower meadows, farms, green clover fields, and grazing cows surround the village. There is a cheese factory that you can tour if you arrive early enough in the day (we were too late). There is also a small ski lodge and lift. In the summertime, when you buy your lift ticket, you can also rent a mountain bike with big fat tires and coast down from the top. We just rode to the top and enjoyed the fresh air and the views. Before riding up, we had a nice lunch at the restaurant right next to the train station. Afterward returning to the village, we strolled about window shopping while waiting for the next return train to Montreux.

One of the few tourist attractions that Montreux has to offer is the Chateau de Chillon, which is often called Byron’s castle because the poet Lord Byron stayed there, wrote “Prisoner of Chillon”, and even scrawled his name on a stone column in one the castle’s prison chambers. One rainy afternoon, we donned our umbrellas, slickers, and hats and walked the three miles along the lakeshore from the hotel to the castle. We spent a couple of satisfying hours going through the chambers and courtyards of this small but quite interesting little castle on the lake. Afterwards, the rain let up a bit, and we walked back to the hotel.

Lausanne, a larger city that is two train stations west of Montreux on the route to Geneva, has many museums as well as a university. We spent one day walking about Lausanne and visiting a couple of its museums. We enjoyed an exhibition of American Impressionism at the Fondation de l’Hermitage, which continues until October 20 of this year. The collection of paintings we saw were mostly impressions of European landscapes, including Giverny and Monet’s garden, by American artists such as Chase, Singer Sargent, Breck, and Robinson. Although there were none of my favorite nudes in dappled sunlight, there were many lovely works including Mary Fairchild MacMonnies’ colorful “Roses and Lilies” rendering of a mother with her child in the garden. Since the Hermitage museum is several miles uphill from the Lausanne train station, we had a good walk getting there. After the exhibition, we were hungry and decided to have lunch at the museum’s restaurant. Mami had a ham sandwich and I had the standard steak and frites (French fries). We ate outside in the restaurant’s verdant garden patio. When the rain started pattering lightly, I opened the table’s umbrella, and our lunch continued effortlessly in this most quiet and relaxing setting.

Just a couple of hours by train from Montreux are two important ski-resort villages, Zermatt and, just across the Franco-Swiss border, Chamonix. Zermatt is just six miles from the Matterhorn, and Chamonix lies at the base of Mon Blanc. Both villages are tourist traps in the summer, filled with droves of backpackers and seekers of views of these world-famous mountains. There is a good infrastructure of hotels, restaurants, shops, and cash machines for all kinds of visitors. While I’m not sure of Mon Blanc, I do know that summer skiing is possible on glaciers near the Matterhorn. We traveled to both villages on separate days by train, which took us through miles of picturesque scenery of craggy, snow-capped mountains and quaint mountain and valley villages. Although I am an avid backpacker and Mami and I both love skiing, we decided to simply stroll about, take in the views, and enjoy shopping and eating at local restaurants. Our day in Chamonix was rainy and the view of Mon Blanc was shrouded in fog. Our excursion to Zermatt, however, was on a beautifully clear and sunny day. We took in the splendid classic view of the Matterhorn from the village. We also rode a series of three tram lifts, which took us to an elevation of about 12,500 feet for a much closer view of the 14,691-ft. majestic peak. From this vantage, we could also see the surrounding glaciers, as well as clearly Mon Blanc in the far distance.

One of Mami’s objectives of this Switzerland trip was to purchase a music box. While browsing at a souvenir shop near our hotel, we had the good fortune to meet a store clerk who suggested that we visit the music-box museum in Saint Croix. The lady said she was going to spend her weekend there on unrelated business, and was kind enough to write down for us directions for getting there. We had to change trains in Lausanne and head northward from Lake Geneva ultimately up into the mountains. Since Saint Croix is a small mountain village, we easily found our way to the museum, which is formally called the Centre International de la Mécanique d’Art (CIMA). Although the museum tour was in French, we were given an English booklet read as we went along. The tour included a mock 19^th-century steam-engine-driven machine shop for making the small music box parts, displays of the different music-box designs that were employed over the years, and working demonstrations of several music boxes of all shapes and sizes, from a small music box with mechanical moving and chirping birds to a player piano. Some of the music boxes we saw had yard-long cylinders capable of spanning several octaves for playing complex music with rich sound. The museum is a tribute to Swiss ingenuity, and their technology of that era was quite ahead of its time. It was fascinating for both of us (Mami is an artist, and I am a scientist and engineer). Before we left, Mami bought a music box in the museum gift shop, which had quite a selection, including some rather expensive ones. Mission accomplished.

We both love Chinese food and ended up trying two different Chinese restaurants in Montreux during our stay. One evening at the Wing Wah Chinese restaurant, we had hot and sour soup, twice-grilled beef, and a spicy shrimp dish, all for about 100 CHF, Tsing Tao beers included. The food was good and on par with our favorite Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles, albeit at twice the price. Another evening we splurged and ate at the much fancier Kwong Ming Chinese restaurant. We were actually stunned when we saw the prices, but somehow we were able to quickly justify the expense (“we don’t do this kind of thing very often”). We ordered the “voyage through China” for two, which consisted of several courses of the most amazing food, served with class in small quantities. The parade of culinary delights that followed included fried wontons with curry-spiced meat filling, hot and sour soup, barbecued pork ribs, pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings, a spicy beef dish, a shrimp dish, fried rice, and fresh lechee fruit submerged in a sweet sparkling wine. Although the damage ended up being 287 CHF, the food was absolutely delicious and the service was flawless. It was truly a meal to remember.

We spent our last afternoon shopping in Geneva for Swiss watches. I ended up buying for myself a relatively inexpensive “official” Swiss-railways watch to remind me of the pleasant train rides we took during our week in Switzerland. Swiss trains are famous for their punctuality, and both Mami and I became rather adept at reading train timetables. The day was relatively clear, with only an occasional light rain to hinder our meandering about the city. Our walk across the bridge over the Rhone River that flows through the city’s center was uneventful – there were no signs of eminent overflowing of its banks. For dinner, we ate at the Les Amures restaurant, as recommend by Mami’s guidebook. The food was wonderful. I had a grilled Swiss sausage and rösti (hash browns), while Mami sampled their raclette, a uniquely Swiss dish of melted cheese and potatoes. The air was filled with the pungent odor of the cheese fondue, another popular Swiss dish, being eaten by other diners there. We ate comfortably outside under a large patio umbrella, and it didn’t start raining again until after we had finished our meal.

One final note: if you are relying on train transportation between the airport and your hotel like we did, it is best not to schedule a return flight that is earlier than the first train of the day. In our case, our 7 a.m. flight required us to leave Montreux at 4 a.m., exactly one hour and 39 minutes before the first train bound for the airport! We had no choice but to take an expensive taxicab.