Cheese plate on the Glacier Express

Olympics and cheese – what more could I want?

I think I may be conducting a human experiment on myself – how much cheese can my body really tolerate? I have been in Switzerland for four days and have had fondue twice, raclette once, a cheese plate once and some amount of cheese with every other meal that didn’t consist nearly entirely of cheese. So far so good though! Which is just encouraging me further. Hmm….

Day 32 – Arriving in Lausanne (click here for more photos of Day 32)

As I had implied in my last post, the overnight train ride from Budapest was a bit more exciting than I had anticipated. The trip was supposed to take 15 hours and pass through Vienna, Salzburg, and Innsbruck before heading into Zurich. Imagine my surprise when I woke up at 5am in Munich! I considered panicking a bit but no one else seemed fussed and I figured at worst I was only about 2 stops away from my brother’s house on the S-Bahn (hows that for a really easy fix if needed?). I sat in my little compartment (still thrilled that I had it all to myself) and waited. I tried to sleep some more but I was still a bit nervy. When the train started again I was pretty happy. I learned later that there had been a train accident in Austria that we had to go around – hence Munich (and a four hour delay!).

Anyhow, I did make it to Lausanne safe and sound, just a bit late. I got on the metro and then onto a bus to go to my hostel and drop off my bags. Transit is really efficient in Lausanne, and better yet, as a tourist you get a card for free access to the transit once you’ve checked into your hotel or hostel! I certainly appreciated it and think that there are a lot of towns that could benefit from a similar policy. The hostel was… well… a bit of a bomb shelter. It looked like wood from outside but was cement on the inside, a lot of cement! And a lot of children, several football (soccer) teams worth of them.

I wrote my blog for a bit and then had to go find food. I ventured into town and found a brasserie that was open and serving food. And they had fondue on the menu! I ordered the fondue (the servers looked at me a bit funny as it was 4pm, not fondue time, but I explained that I was very hungry and they brought it to the crazy Canadian anyway). The fondue was delicious. I burnt my mouth a little until being shown how to control the heat on the fondue pot but generally had a wonderful time, that is until a guy from a nearby table made sure that my server and I knew he was leaving the restaurant because of the smell of my fondue. I was a little crushed. Luckily my server was nonplussed and waved it all of, even cheekily asking for a kiss when I found out they had free wifi and were happy for me to stay and use it. Thank goodness for nice people, they erase the bad so quickly.

Day 33 – Lausanne and the Olympic Museum (click here for more photos of Day 33)

Woohoo! Olympic Museum!

The day I had been waiting for – time to visit the Olympic Museum! I switched hostels early in the morning (I had heard that the Guesthouse was much nicer but they were booked up my first night in Lausanne). It was much nicer, and the lady at the front desk was very sweet and helpful. I bought my ticket to the Museum at a discounted price from her and then followed her directions to walk down to Lake Geneva and then over to the Museum. “Oh no! Don’t take the bus, it’s much nicer to walk!” She was right. I had a lovely walk and got to stroll past all the statues and sculptures that the Museum has on its grounds – including a lovely totem pole by Haida Artist Jim Hart.

Olympic totem pole by Jim Hart - the Raven has a copper shield with the Olympic Rings on its chest.

The Olympic Museum is split into two parts – the permanent exhibit and the temporary exhibit. The permanent exhibit has displays on the ancient Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin – founder of the modern Olympics, host cities, sports from the summer and winter games, medals, torches and more. They have the only full set of Torches from the Olympics in the whole world, including Vancouver’s. The exhibit is wonderful. I guess my only disappointment was the lack of material on the Vancouver Winter Olympics. I understand it must be difficult to keep the Museum up-to-date without it looking like it’s in a constant state of construction but all they had for the City section on Vancouver was a set of the Mascots – Miga, Quatchi and Sumi – which is great but we were still listed as about to host the Games. Ah well. If you get to go definitely get yourself an audio guide for lots of extra little bits of information. Unsurprisingly to those that followed my adventures on 2010vanfan I cried a lot while going through the permanent exhibit. It was really moving and did reinforce my love for the Olympics.

A Vancouver 2010 banner flying at the Olympic Museum.

The temporary exhibit was dedicated to Science and Athletics while I was there. It was quite interactive, having you weigh and measure yourself, determine your ability to jump and balance, your ability to function under low oxygen conditions (5 minutes on a bike at Lausanne’s elevation ~300m and then 5 minutes on a bike in a room duplicating being in Colorado at ~1700m), your visual acuity, memory and more. The tests and information they have set up are wonderful. Unfortunately they really only have one, or at most two, of any of the machines that you need to do the tests and fill in your little book. This means some lineups (I shouldn’t be surprised right?!). If they could add a few more it would be great.

Tara Lipinsky - figure skater, 4'10" and Lisa Leslie - basketballer, 6'5" - yup, physiology can make a difference in your sport.

I also had lunch at the Museum. And for me this was probably the funniest part. After just having come from the Vancouver Winter Games where food at venues was usually chips, hotdogs, soda, Molson Canadian, and if you were lucky maybe some poutine or something, the restaurant at the Museum is super posh! I had a salad with chicken, radish and goose liver (no hot dogs, not even on the kids menu). Yes, I do amuse easily.

I walked back down through the gardens and sculptures of the Museum to Lake Geneva and towards the metro station in the part of town called Ouchy. With the World Cup on they had a huge screen up and all sorts of food and beverage vendors around. And the food was quite reasonably priced. I grabbed a waffle for a snack (yes Vancouver – a waffle – not a hot dog – I’ve heard the street food laws in Vancouver are changing so maybe we’ll have waffles there soon too!). After my snack I headed back to the hostel to check in. I met Jacqui, from Australia, who wanted to join me down in Ouchy to watch football later that night (after a nap, her trip to Lausanne was much harder than mine!). I also met Adam and Jen, both from the US who invited me along on a walk through town. We had a good walk but I left them early so that I could try to get a hold of my dad’s for Father’s Day.

The Cathedral in Lausanne.

Ouchy was a blast. Jacqui and I took the metro down and grabbed a beverage before heading into the crowd (we were hoping they would block the wind, which was relatively successful). The game was Brazil versus Cote d’Ivoire and it was pretty raucous. The Brazilians in particular were quite loud though I suspect the Cote fans would have been too but unfortunately their team didn’t score any goals. Part way through the second half Jacqui and I left to find some fondue as she’d never tried cheese fondue before. Though it wasn’t especially to her taste I enjoyed some more cheese!

Brazil - Cote d'Ivorie game in Ouchy.

Day 34 – The Glacier Express to St Moritz (click for more photos of Day 34)

I had no idea the Swiss made so much wine!

You may have noticed that I’m a bit enamoured with the Olympics. Besides Lausanne Switzerland has another Olympic City – St Moritz – host of the 2nd Winter Olympics in 1928 and the 5th Winter Olympics in 1948. With my Eurail pass I figured there was no reason to not go visit while I was in the country. I boarded a train just after 9am to catch the Glacier Express in Visp. I had had no problem booking my seat at the train station so I was a little surprised when the conductor looked at my ticket and told me it wasn’t valid for part of the trip. What?! I figured that this was going to be expensive. Luckily, it wasn’t nearly as expensive as I had expected it to be, so I worked at letting my annoyance drain away and instead focus on enjoying the beautiful scenery and a very nice lunch (mmm… cheese plate) aboard the train.

Scenery along the Glacier Express route.

The panoramic train cars are great to look out of but unfortunately are not so good to photograph out of – especially as I did not have a window seat. But I got a few photos that were okay. About 9 hours, three spiral tunnels, two helical tunnels, several viaducts and a cog wheel lift, after leaving Lausanne we arrived into St Moritz. Now somehow I had thought that my B&B wasn’t far from the train station (the only hostel in town was not actually ‘in town’ that’s why I chose the B&B instead) so I started to walk. Well, it isn’t really all that far, but I took the longer and much hillier route to get there. Ah well, I did make it and that’s what counts. The B&B, called the Garni du Piz (or just the Piz) was wonderful. The staff were great, the room was sparkly clean and just perfect for me. There was free wifi, a bar, a restaurant and of course breakfast. I managed to get myself cleaned up and went to the front desk to ask if there was somewhere to get raclette (yes, more cheese). She happily directed me back uphill at which point I considered staying in the hotel. She assured me it wasn’t far, and offered instructions for the bus. She seemed so adamant that even though I was tired I figured I’d give it a go. I’m glad I did, once I was outside I perked up a bunch. It was definitely cool out, but I was pretty comfortable in my flipflops, capris and a light sweater. This apparently shocked a lot of people though as I got baffled looks from passers-by (who were often wearing parkas). It wasn’t that cold!

A view of St Moritz as I walked to dinner.

Dinner was at Restaurant Engaidine. I was a little crushed when I looked at the menu and found out that raclette was for two or more people. When my server asked if I knew what I wanted I replied “I don’t know, I had come specifically for raclette.” I was about to ask what she recommended but instead she disappeared into the back. When she returned she said it would be no problem for me to have raclette on my own. Woohoo! It was a lovely meal, though a confusion of German, Italian, English and French. St Moritz is in the German part of Switzerland but it seems that the locals mostly speak Italian. I speak English but tend to reply in French when asked a question in any other language, which really doesn’t make any sense, especially since I really don’t know that much French. Anyhow, it was lovely. I had my first raclette in Switzerland in St Moritz and had a very enjoyable evening.

Raclette at Restaurant Engiadine.

Day 35 – St Moritz to Bern (click for more photos of Day 35)

The Leaning Tower in St Moritz

I went to St Moritz because it was an Olympic City. When I got there and looked at a map of town I was reminded that it is also the home of the Cresta Run – a 3/4′s of a mile long tobogganing track built originally in 1885 that is one of the birth places of luge and skeleton. I had written a bit about it on 2010vanfan but here I was in St Moritz and about to see it. I was pretty stoked. I walked up the hill, past the Leaning Tower (Pisa isn’t the only one) and onto the Cresta Run. I walked from the start gates to the end of the course, marvelling that people would ride this slope on toboggans. How exciting! The really fun part is that at the bottom of the hill the Cresta Run links up with the Olympia bob run used for the 1928 and 1948 Olympics. So I decided to walk up the bob run. There are trees and rocks, and rock walls and crazy old wooden walkways above the track. I contemplated how the difference in sleds must have resulted in a difference in how tracks are constructed, and wondered what it would have looked like when it was in use. And then I found a sign listed recent course champions: Helen Upperton, Lascelles Brown, Pierre Lueders, Jeff Pain and their teammates were all listed.

Looking downslope from the starting gates of the Cresta Run.

Our current Canadian champions hold records on this course?! That looks like it hasn’t been used in decades?! My poor little brain. I continued walking up, past stone walls on corners (how do you bobsleigh around a stone corner?) and up to the part that passes through a golf course and beside a driving range (originally the Olympic Stadium!) to the starting gate. It most certainly is still used. They had some merchandise on display, but as it is summer everything was closed. There was a little sign though, that indicated if someone was interested in merchandise to call the number or go upstairs to the office. I went upstairs, and I’m so glad I did. I got to buy a pin from the course, and learn that the Olympia bob run is the last natural course in the world. It is still on the World Cup race season and the bob, skeleton, and lugers all like coming as it is so different from anything else they get to race. I’ve never been on any of the equipment for sliding sports and I had a huge rush just from seeing the place. I can only imagine what it would be like to see and race in the birthplace of your sport. Anyhow, I’m going to come back in winter, maybe watch a race or two, but also I definitely want to go on a guest run. They do about 100 per day down the Olympia bob run. It would be stellar!  If you don’t believe me that they still use the track then check out this video!

The closest I've ever gotten to bobsledding!

Umm... isn't that a lot of rocks and trees for a bob run?

Horseshoe corner - yes, I'm serious, they do still run this track!

Though I’m sure there’s much more to see in St Moritz I didn’t have much time left and I didn’t want to come down off of my high from seeing the Cresta Run and Olympia bob run so I picked up my bags and hopped on a train back down out of the mountains. I was on my way to Bern to meet up with my brother for a few days. I have no idea what we’ll get up to (he will be working during the days for the most part) but I know we’ll have a good time.

At the winner's podium for the Olympia bob run. What a great day!