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Colleen & Tom's Explorations
So today we packed up our penthouse suite, as we have come to affectionately call our spartan hostel room (well gosh, we don't even get foot mats in the bathroom!). After a leisurely lie-in this morning - no timetables for today - and the lovely sleep with no noisy neighbours last night, we had brekky quite late and trundled over to catch the bus to the train station. It's very quiet today, with a religious public holiday happening.
But not so quiet at the train station - the lines for ticket sales were quite extensive, but the Swiss are calm, competent and efficient. Sunday is Mothers Day in Switzerland (as well as Australia), and people are travelling to visit their mums. We just had to have our 1st class Swiss Rail Passes validated, being our first railway station for their use.
The trains to Montreux run every 30 minutes so we didn't have long to wait, and the trip only took an hour to travel to the other end of Lake Geneva. It was incredibly smooth, quiet and fast.
Once we arrived in Montreux it was just a matter of trundling across the road to our hotel, where we arrived 2 1/2 hours before check-in, but they said our room was ready. Two villages are across the lake from us - one in France and the other in Switzerland.
We were able to freshen up (and do some washing) before venturing down to their restaurant for lunch - Parisian-cooked steak with seasonal veggies (and the second time during this trip that we've had radish served up as a hot veggie), followed by lemon-lime sorbet for me, and caramel ice cream for Tom. It was a lovely meal.
So, the Rhone River flows from the Rhone Glacier in the Swiss Alps into Lake Geneva at this end, and then continues out the Geneva end to make its way to Arles (where it was painted by Vincent van Gogh in Starry Night Over the Rhone - hanging in Musee d'Orsay) where it breaks up to form the Carmargue Delta and flows into the Mediterranean. They say it takes 11 years for a drop of water to enter the lake, travel through it, and leave. It used to take 3 weeks by barge to travel down (major transport route that it was) but now takes 3 days by motorised boat.
Temperatures for our trip have generally been around 19 degrees. Our tour guide yesterday was saying that winter in Geneva usually has temps around 5 or 6 degrees, but last winter it got down to -12, and -10 the winter before. They didn't like it much at all.
There is a statue here of Freddie Mercury. He used to spend a lot of time over here - Queen recorded a couple of their albums here and one of them has the cover artwork taken from the Lake House where he used to stay.
The stairwells in this restaurant (from what we could see from the lift lobby) have Ansell Adams prints on the walls, as well as leadlight windows. Very pretty.
But not so quiet at the train station - the lines for ticket sales were quite extensive, but the Swiss are calm, competent and efficient. Sunday is Mothers Day in Switzerland (as well as Australia), and people are travelling to visit their mums. We just had to have our 1st class Swiss Rail Passes validated, being our first railway station for their use.
The trains to Montreux run every 30 minutes so we didn't have long to wait, and the trip only took an hour to travel to the other end of Lake Geneva. It was incredibly smooth, quiet and fast.
Once we arrived in Montreux it was just a matter of trundling across the road to our hotel, where we arrived 2 1/2 hours before check-in, but they said our room was ready. Two villages are across the lake from us - one in France and the other in Switzerland.
We were able to freshen up (and do some washing) before venturing down to their restaurant for lunch - Parisian-cooked steak with seasonal veggies (and the second time during this trip that we've had radish served up as a hot veggie), followed by lemon-lime sorbet for me, and caramel ice cream for Tom. It was a lovely meal.
So, the Rhone River flows from the Rhone Glacier in the Swiss Alps into Lake Geneva at this end, and then continues out the Geneva end to make its way to Arles (where it was painted by Vincent van Gogh in Starry Night Over the Rhone - hanging in Musee d'Orsay) where it breaks up to form the Carmargue Delta and flows into the Mediterranean. They say it takes 11 years for a drop of water to enter the lake, travel through it, and leave. It used to take 3 weeks by barge to travel down (major transport route that it was) but now takes 3 days by motorised boat.
Temperatures for our trip have generally been around 19 degrees. Our tour guide yesterday was saying that winter in Geneva usually has temps around 5 or 6 degrees, but last winter it got down to -12, and -10 the winter before. They didn't like it much at all.
There is a statue here of Freddie Mercury. He used to spend a lot of time over here - Queen recorded a couple of their albums here and one of them has the cover artwork taken from the Lake House where he used to stay.
The stairwells in this restaurant (from what we could see from the lift lobby) have Ansell Adams prints on the walls, as well as leadlight windows. Very pretty.
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