Day 16
Unfortunately we did not get too much accomplished today, even though we drove around all day.
We left Goldswil under blue skies, and headed towards Montreux. Our goal was to see the Chillon castle in Montreux, dip into France for a moment, and spend the night in French Switzerland.
We stopped at Chillon just before noon and toured the castle for about 1 ½ hours. It is on an island separated by a small bridge from the mainland.
I had seen pictures of the castle before but never knew it was so old. Major portions were constructed in the 1200’s, 1300’s and 1400’s. It was a lot of fun to walk through the buildings, passageways, stairs, etc. They also had a lot of the old furniture, tapestries, and wall and ceiling art still intact.
We then ate a picnic lunch on a bench overlooking the shores of Lake Geneva.
We then drove around part of Lake Geneva, but unfortunately it was quite built up and the weather had clouded over. We headed north to Neuchatel but found ourselves out of the Alps in much more modern and crowded surroundings. We decided to head back east – past Bern. We are now about 10 miles north of where we stayed last night – in the town of Langau in the Emmenthal region (Emmenthal as in the cheese).
We are in another nice, recently renovated hotel – the Hirschen – which claims to have a 15th century wine keller. Maybe we’ll find it.
We walked around town for about an hour after checking in and will go to dinner shortly.
Day 17 >>>
We left Goldswil under blue skies, and headed towards Montreux. Our goal was to see the Chillon castle in Montreux, dip into France for a moment, and spend the night in French Switzerland.
We stopped at Chillon just before noon and toured the castle for about 1 ½ hours. It is on an island separated by a small bridge from the mainland.
I had seen pictures of the castle before but never knew it was so old. Major portions were constructed in the 1200’s, 1300’s and 1400’s. It was a lot of fun to walk through the buildings, passageways, stairs, etc. They also had a lot of the old furniture, tapestries, and wall and ceiling art still intact.
We then ate a picnic lunch on a bench overlooking the shores of Lake Geneva.
We then drove around part of Lake Geneva, but unfortunately it was quite built up and the weather had clouded over. We headed north to Neuchatel but found ourselves out of the Alps in much more modern and crowded surroundings. We decided to head back east – past Bern. We are now about 10 miles north of where we stayed last night – in the town of Langau in the Emmenthal region (Emmenthal as in the cheese).
We are in another nice, recently renovated hotel – the Hirschen – which claims to have a 15th century wine keller. Maybe we’ll find it.
We walked around town for about an hour after checking in and will go to dinner shortly.
Day 17 >>>