The weather can’t seem to make its mind up today. One minute the sun’s out, the next it looks like it’s going to pour with rain. We ventured out for a walk down to Wengwald. A few snaps of the little hamlet and of the stupendous valley views that you get from there.
If you hadn’t already guessed, my new phone arrived yesterday. Work on the house continues apace. The roof is almost finished, and we have a working laundry and a doorbell!
Today we have a beauty contest for the Wengen cows. They are all washed and brushed. This is taken very seriously by the farmers, and it attracts quite an audience. I’m not sure what the cows think of it though, but I guess it’s a nice day out in the sunshine.
Needless to say, Central Sport have a nice souvenir of the event.
Tonight we had a lovely dinner at the Eiger, followed by cocktails at the Crystal. A good night out.
For the first day since we arrived in Wengen, it isn’t raining. We head out towards Innerwengen.
There’s snow above about 2000 metres, but down here it’s quite nice. We arrive at the farm, to find all the goats, ducks and horses absent. There are still a few chickens though.
We continued our walk up the hill, and spotted some creatures that we’ve not seen before here.
We weren’t sure whether they were Llamas or Alpacas, but Google says they’re Llamas. Either way, they’re friendly and curious animals, and they seemed to look forward to seeing passing walkers.
Back at Chalet Iltis we have almost completed our work to move back into the house. The internal renovations are absolutely lovely. Our heating is now supplied by an eco-friendly air-source heat pump which will apparently save the planet all on its own. It certainly works well – our biggest challenge is keeping the temperature down to a comfortable level. The new solar roof is almost complete, and we have an oven and dishwasher that are connected to the internet and can be operated from anywhere in the world (why, you might justifiably ask). There’s still absolutely tons of work to do on the exterior of the house, and we can only hope that it will be completed before winter arrives.
Today we caught the Montreux to Interlaken train. It’s not the fastest way to get here, but it’s certainly the most scenic. Great views of lake Geneva.
The train meanders its way across the mountains. We pass celebrated resorts like Chateau d’Oex and Gstaad.
Eventually we arrived in Wengen. Work is still ongoing on our house.
Despite the ongoing works, we had a cosy home to move back into. We had dinner at Sina’s with a few friends, followed by beer in Rocks and cocktails in the Tanne bar.
As we feared, it’s a wet day today. Nevertheless we caught a bus a few stops along the lake. We’re here to see Chateau de Chillon. It’s Switzerland’s most popular historic attraction. A few photos.
It’s a really impressive castle dating back to the 11th century. It was so well fortified that it was never taken by force until the invention of heavy cannons in the 16th century, when soldiers from Bern managed to eject the Counts of Savoy.
Another bus ride takes us to the nearby town of Vevey. It’s a really nice place, with lots of attractive cobbled streets.
By the lake we found a series of sculptures of a girl riding a seahorse.
The lovely old paddle steamer ‘La Suisse’ approaches the quay.
We had lunch and caught the bus back to Montreux. The rain got a lot heavier, so we retreated to our hotel. Wengen tomorrow.
Today we are bound for Switzerland. Our first stop is the town of Montreux on the shore of lake Geneva. It’s a lovely afternoon.
The lake is quite choppy.
The famous statue of Freddie Mercury.
Lovely old market hall.
Like most Swiss resort towns, Montreux has a casino. You can wander in and watch the gamblers playing roulette and blackjack.
We’re not here for gambling however. British rock band Queen did a lot of their recording here, and there’s a Queen Experience exhibition in the casino.
There’s lots of memorabilia, and a tiny theatre where you can watch a film about the band.
You can even have a go at mixing a Queen track yourself. Here’s Val in the studio.
After all that excitement we were hungry and thirsty, and we found a splendid pub for dinner.
Tomorrow is looking like a wet day, but we’ll try to get out and about nonetheless.
We’re off to visit Emily as we haven’t seen her since April. First stop is Brockham in Surrey to collect Colin. We stayed at a super little b&b overlooking the village green.
We had a lovely dinner at one of the village pubs.
And a few beers at the Tap House.
The next morning the three of us set off for Fareham in Hampshire. We met Emily and caught a bus to nearby Gosport, where we caught a ferry.
The boat takes us across the water to Portsmouth.
From Portsmouth we walked around the coast to Southsea. There’s a really good museum here which tells the story of the allied landings in Normandy in 1944. This landing craft took part in the invasion. It still carries its Swiss made anti aircraft guns, visible pointing skywards at the far end of the vessel.
A long beach leads towards Southsea pier. I was surprised at how few people were around on such a nice day.
We had ice creams on the pier and headed back to Fareham by taxi. We enjoyed a night out with a Chinese buffet and a few beers. A very nice couple of days.
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