Managing Swiss Traffic

It’s my mother’s birthday and I realize how much she would have enjoyed our explorations of Switzerland. She loved learning about different cultures and she didn’t mind a bit of Belgian chocolate or a fine Cabernet from Spain either. I remember her telling me all about her visits with my father to Madrid and Belgium and France when my dad worked for Westinghouse. I’m not sure she ever made it to Switzerland, but I’m positive she would’ve loved it. Not that she had spent a lot of time traveling in her life. She was a coalminer’s daughter from southern West Virginia, but loved new places and, especially, the interesting people she met. Thinking of you, mom.

We use this day to find ourselves a car, because we would be heading along Lake Geneva to Vevey to visit our friends Michele and Silke. We had met them a year earlier in Fez, Morocco, and after many email conversations were finally reuniting.

The rental wound us through Lausanne's streets. There are so many signs and signals when driving in Switzerland it can give an American a case of ADHD as your eyes leap to read lights, flashing yellow lights, green lights with arrows, and imprecations to slow down or speed up and turn this way or that along tight corners or up hills steep enough to choke the throttle on your four-speed.

At the end of town, we swung to a highway that took us near the massive headquarters of Nestlé chocolate. Both Michel and Silke had worked for many years at Nestlé and it was there they learned to sail, the lake being right at their feet. Michele, in particular, had developed a love affair with boating and several years earlier, almost on a whim, suggested they fly to New Zealand, and buy a yacht. A friend of Michele’s had told him that the best sailing in the world was between New Zealand and New Caledonia so he thought it’d be a good idea to sail the thing across the Pacific to the smaller island and back; just he and Silke.

“We almost died,” said Michele.

“Twice,” added Silke.

They were in over their heads, admits Michele, but managed to survive. “I guess memorable is how you would describe it,” he told us.

Today, in Vevey, we aren’t sailing. We’re just catching up and walking the streets around their home, which sits high in the Alpine Hills above the lake. When you look at the view from their home, it's difficult to believe it's real. The lake forms a perfect crescent that is surrounded by the snowy Alps that sit majestically above the dwarfed villages below.

After a light lunch Michele and Silke help us plot explorations around Lake Geneva and its mountains for the next day. The plan comes together extraordinarily fast thanks to their knowledge. In the morning we would walk to Ouchy, one of the many villages along Lake Geneva just south of Lausanne and board the Belle Epoch steamer La Suisse, a ferry that takes you out of the 21st century into another era. From there we would dock at Chállon Castle, a building that goes back to the heart of Switzerland’s history, walk along the lake to the village of Montreaux and take a train into the mountain town of d’Oex to enjoy the countryside until finally returning via the Metro line that would take us back to Lausanne and our hotel.

That was the plan, then we would spend one more day after that with Silke and Michele before heading off to Zurich.