Sunday, March 16
Given the recent snow that was received in the mountains last night and the relatively cold weather outside, today became a museum day. I'd originally thought to go to Gruyère to do a hike but I'm glad I'd checked with my friend about if it was a worthwhile hike: she quickly checked and found that given recent warm conditions, the hike could be at risk of an avalanche if it had received snow (and at its elevation, it most certainly received snow). So that's the story of how I ended up at the Lac Léman museum in Nyon today.
Spotted this very well-behaved dog on the tram; either the Europeans have better trained city dogs or they hid the poorly trained ones well.
I'm not sure I'm completely vendu (sold) on this whole making other pastries from layered dough and adding a "cr" prefix; don't get me wrong, the cruffin was delicious but you're on notice.
Before meeting for lunch in Nyon, I took a quick walk about the old town. It's not a terribly large town but it does have Roman roots and a castle overlooking the lake. From a pamphlet outside the closed office of tourism, I learned about a hiking/biking trail in the area called Le Sentier des Toblerones. During lunch with my friend, I learned about her experience riding this trail (traversing from the foot of the Jura mountains to the lake), which was primarily dominated by trying to rush home before a major storm made riding impossible. I'm not sure what her story had to do with a trail lined with chocolate bars but it made for an interesting lesson on listening to weather reports regarding mountain sports.
The castle of Nyon has been many things: government offices, a defensive structure, a prison, and a school. I'm hoping the prison and school didn't happen at the same time, but I suppose there's not much of a difference if you ask some students.
Apparently, Nyon's emblem is that of a generic fish; it's a much better generic fish than I would've drawn.
There was once a Roman forum here, I don't know why it's weird for me to think of the Romans living in the Alps; maybe my perception is skewed from all the Roman ruins and learnings I did near the sea.
It's not the ocean, but rather, the lake that starts here.
A quick check of property prices; yup, that's Switzerland 😆At least you're getting some decent area for your million swiss francs. I wonder how much adding a new level on top of an old building costs?
After lunch, she showed me the port of Nyon where one can apparently buy freshly caught fish from the few professional fishermen active in the area. It's not too far from where the ferry to Yvoire would dock in the summertime; I can't imagine why, but there's a big difference in lake usage between winter and summer 🤔
My first choclate chaud this trip! Turns out it's a simple recipe: take a glass full of milk, add in a few spoonfuls of chocolate chunks, then steam the whole thing till hot, smooth, and foamy! 😋
Chapeau to whoever came up with this design for Nyon.
I suppose the generic fish emblem is growing on me, but the I💓NYon could also serve as a good flag for this statue.
Regard, ye olde harbor. I didn't get a close up of the fisherman shacks, I'm just glad I was upwind of them.
It's quite picturesque out there, I like the way the light reflects off Salève.
I had worried the museum could be a bit on the boring/underwhelming side (like my experience with the Red Cross Museum), but was pleasantly surprised at the museum's layout, quality of items, and informational plaques. Not all the French plaques were translated to English but a good 75% or so were, which was a helpful way to avoid getting stuck reading slowly. If anyone has the time while in Switzerland, I give the Lac Léman museum two big thumbs up 👍👍
The first thing in the exhibit was about fishing; a logical starting point since that was probably man's first interaction with the lake. There's currently ~150 active, professional fishermen harvesting from the lake year-round. I was surprised to learn that there's still fish in the lake considering how barren & squeeky clean the shallows I'd seen were. But all those waterfowl must be eating something. The waters feature (but are not limited to) crawdads (écrevisses), trout (les truites), arctic char (les ombles chevaliers), roach (les féras), and perch (les perches).
The next room was about boat festivals, which started out as military exercises (it's funny to imagine a lake navy until you take in consideration the advantages of controlling shores) but was revived in civilian life. We were trying to decide if the description on this meant that racers would use these as buoys to mark the course or if they were meant to paddle around in a bucket (while avoiding being knocked over the head by competitors).
This one caught me by surprise: a water bicycle! And not Squidward's version with paddles for wheels, no this one has a proper propellor at the back.
There was a couple rooms dedicated to the history of steam-paddle boats (un bateau à roue à aube), featuring a sizable amount of original parts salvaged from a scrapped ship. Some of these are still kicking and giving tours around the lake! I'll keep that in mind for my week off in April.
In French, it's Lac Leman but in English we simply say Lake Geneva; however, the lake is actually divided into "Little Lake", "Big Lake", and "High Lake". Given the needs of tourism and trade, ferries were constantly traversing Lac Leman; it was the chic thing to do in the summer.
It took us more attempts than I'd like to admit (and kept a 5-year old child waiting their turn) but we did eventually get the proper heading for our ferry from Dransi to Territet. It's a fairly sophisticated toy and I was impressed with the real rolodex signs.
With boats and people on the lake, there's also a lifeguard/rescue service. Sometimes this mannequin still gives me nightmares...
The special exhibit was "Ceci n'est pas une carte" and it featured a plethora of maps of Lake Geneva. This was a very interesting exhibit: following the development of maps over the course of time and how names around the lake shifted (sometimes Nyon, othertimes Nion). We took a good 5-10 minutes looking over the first map, which was drawn by the Romans with a perspective that we weren't used to: it's all relative to the boot of Italy since a big 'ol Rome featured much further along to the right.
The amount of detail put into the hand drawn map was simply incroyable. Not only did they draw the surrounding mountains with little trees and houses, but the corner included a closeup of ye olde Genève and Lausanne.
Unlike the Scottish (Écosse) lochs, there haven't been too many concerns about monsters in Lac Léman. There was one story about a fisherman not giving enough thanks to the divine after bringing in a great haul of fish from the lake, his cat then ate a huge fish, turned into a monster that ate the fisherman and his family, escaped into the mountains and eventually needed to be slain by King Arthur, but I don't think that counts as a lake monster story.
This is a relatively new discovery (it made the headlines in 2012), but Lac Léman experienced a tsunami in 563 AD! Based off of geological data and historical transcripts, it seems an earthquake caused a huge landslide near the inlet of the Rhône to the lake. The peak that disappeared was called Tauredunum and it landed with so much force that it not only obliterated all those living at the mouth of the river, but created a huge impulse in the Haut-Lac. The lake is shaped like a bit like a boomerang and is widest at it's center; in fact, the lake has sheer walls aside from whatever silt has deposited over time, but as you approach the exit of the lake, it begins to shallow out. With this, the wave of displaced water propagated across the lake: entering the Petit Lac's shallows is exactly what was needed for a monster wave that devastated Genève.
Today must be an off day for my French cause I started repeatedly making the mistake of saying "non plus" (neither) instead of "aussi" (also). I don't know why it started happening, I'm hoping it all resets when I sleep tonight 😆
We ended up having to skip the exhibit on submarines (there were submarines in the lake at one point!) because the museum was closing. This is basically the same view of the lake from before but, now, with a different perspective 🤔
I grabbed a glimpse of the Jura mountains. Things are looking snowy up there.
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