Germany to SwitzerlandSep 27, 2009
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Royal Alpege condo
walk behind the condo
our neighbors
From Freiburg, we took the train to the Geneva, Switzerland Airport where I had rented a car for the week while we had our timeshare trade. The train stops right inside the Geneva Airport and the logistics of Train- Airport- Car Rental couldn’t have been easier. Another irony- some things that you anticipate being simple are a royal pain i.e. changing trains in the same station but different platforms… especially when there are no escalators/elevators. And some things that I worry will be hard end up being simple, like renting a car in Switzerland. I barely signed for it and they handed me the keys. Forgot it was a manual. Killed it pulling out of the parking space. Luckily, my first car was a stick and it came back pretty quick but those darn round abouts!!!! After about 3 days when we went around the 100th round about Carson said “mom, you didn’t swear that time.” Our condo was in the ski area of Portes du Soleil- the TINY village of Champoussin to be exact. It is 35 minutes outside of Montreaux, high above Lake Geneva, just next to the French border in the Alps. The rode up the mountain is windy, slow and in some places only one car width with shear drop offs on the other side of the guard rail. The last 10 miles take 25 minutes. When we started up, it was so foggy that we could hardly see 10 feet in front of the car so we had no idea what the surrounding area looked like. We unloaded in a drizzle. It felt so good to actually unpack!! We took everything out of our suitcases and HUNG THEM UP!! Oh, the simple pleasures. We had our own kitchen. We went down to one of the two restaurants open in the village and had fondue for dinner and went to bed. A whole week in one place- luxury!
We woke up the next morning to an AMAZING view. You’ll have to see the pictures. Words don’t do it justice. The pictures don’t even do it justice. We hiked and learned that Swiss cows really do wear bells and they echo across the mountains. They are deep and melodic, not annoying and clangy. All I could think of was how much Mike would love it there and how awesome the skiing would be. It really was like something out of a storybook… Heidi came to mind.
