Thursday, April 17
The last day in Switzerland, by this time tomorrow I'll be on a plane enroute for the west. When I woke up, I checked in for my flight, packed up the travel bag, and left my bags with the reception. Since it's another rainy day and I took my time getting out of bed, I only have one activity planned for the day prior to returning to Geneva: Château Chillon.
I noticed this little attraction park in the morning on my way to the castle; it wasn't inflated yet but I did appreciate all the flags draped about.
I opted for a refuel break at the café just outside the castle before heading in; to ensure I have the energy for maximum learning, I had a praline tart with my cafe.
This is a castle that many people have recommended as iconically Swiss: it was built upon a rocky island on the lake and thus has a natural moat, it played a critical for several hundred years of Alpine economics, and serves as one of Montreux's classic attractions. Plus, with my guest card from the hotel, I got a nice discount on the ticket and free bus rides to/from!
Love
me some turrets with machicolations; it doesn't have the same feel as
hoardings but getting the work done in stone is just so much classier.
🤣
Chillon's location was chosen to control the flow of goods and people along the exit of the valley and along the narrow stretch of land between the lake and the mountains. Since it was a popular route, this turned out to be a lucrative choice by the Savoyards.
Lord Byron wrote a poem about a famous prisoner in the basement of Chateau Chillon: Francois Bonivard, a Calvinist partisan captured from Geneva during a clash with the Savoyard. He languished, chained to this pillar, for 6 years. Of note, it was Francois who was imprisoned here; NOT Byron.
The castle is built upon a natural island that has fairly sheer ends, so the castle's foundations basically morphed with the curve of the stone. Being flush against the drop off into the lake, the castle was able to make use of this hidden back door to flee by boat in the dark of night just before the forces of Bern took the castle.
Much of the castle served as a nice museum about life in the medieval era and the exploits of the Savoie in the region.
Logically, aside from keeping prisoners, the best thing to keep in the basement/cave is wine! Especially if people can grow it in the surrounding regions.
The castle featured multiple courtyards as redundant defenses; whether those were actually all needed or not, I don't know. All the same, expanding the castle as a seat of power and to handle increased administration also makes sense.
The self-guided castle tour takes you from the donjon's dungeon and up to the ramparts, there's a variety of rooms to check out along the way.
As I'd said before, the castle foundation basically follows the profile of the rocky island underneath and adds layers of defenses.
Hey, I know that town; that's where I first saw an old map of Lac Leman.
Fascinating how people used to draw their maps N-S; I suppose when you're centering your frame of the world from Bern, then the perspective makes sense. This one really highlights how useful Chillon's position was for taxing commerce along the lake.
It's not just stones their dropping down those machicolations jk jk. Here's ye olde toilet, it comes in two flavors: down a chute or directly over the water.
😂 it's an oldie, but a goodie
This was a neat exercise for improving my vocab: so many diseases that I wouldn't have thought to look up. I do like that chlamydia is simply "hot piss".
There wasn't just generic history here but also a bit of an exhibit about what role Chillon and the dukes of Savoie played in the region. It's so weird to think about noble houses being given, buying up, or conquering land.
Turns out Savoie had a pretty wide range considering much of the area is mountain passes.
I realized when I'd visited the museum in Marseille that I really enjoy these types of maps, which show sequentially how territories and routes spread over the course of different eras.
The heater in the bedroom, serviced by the maid in the waiting area on the other side of the wall.
I'll admit that the castle being built in the lake is a pretty cool concept and the people have done a good job of preserving/refurbishing it. I ended up spending about 2 hours in the castle, I think the exhibition excellently blendes history of the castle, history of the area and Savoy, and medieval life in general.
Based on having just been there, I don't see the resemblance of this with the town of Luzern/Lucerne.
If not already named, I would have dubbed this "the ugly stick"; definitely don't want to get hit with that.
The zweihander; my weapon of choice on my first Dark Souls play through. Nothing quite delivers the satisfying crunch of the zweihander when a well timed overhead swing lands. Of course, I doubt they work like that in real life.
Interesting how all three languages have very different names for this category of arms.
It looked calm over the lake today on watch, it must be fun in the summer time to see yachts zipping around from the castle.
Opposite the chateau is a more modern military fort built into the hill; I elected to skip it to save on time but used the bus stop to snag a selfie.
I eventually had my fill of the castle and made my way back to Montreux to collect my luggage, though not before making a final trip to a Migros to buy some régional items for a late lunch: Zweifeld chips, Thé Froid, and cheese and sausages. I ended up eating (and then dozing) on the train ride from Montreux to Geneva.
On the way back from the bus stop, I saw that the pavilion had come alive, or at least been inflated.
A neat innovation for lowering operating costs and the line at the self-checkout counter.
These little meat sticks were delicious! A perfect snack on the train ride, provided you have enough water handy. The cheese was a moist, fresh cheese but didn't have a lot of flavor to it: it was almost like a tofu.
The view outside of the lake was a bit hazy and clouded; still, I know my time watching the lake is rapidly coming to a close so I still cherished it.
In Geneva, I arrived around 3:30 and I'd made plans to meet a friend for dinner at 5. With limited time, I decided to simply wander a bit: first into the old town and then a fun idea struck me to go visit my company's old site in La Jonction. I'd only visited it for half a day in a previous visit to Geneva, so I wasn't entirely sure what I was seeing but it seems that the city of Geneva hasn't made too many changes to the campus to convert from a chem research facility to offices for social services.
In case anyone's curious, I thought it kinda funny that this was the display of a shop on a main street of the old town.
One last look at Salève, the view has changed so much since I first arrived.
What's a nostalgic view without some cheese?
The old La Jonction site isn't all that far Carouge but is a bit of a hike from the actual jonction of the two rivers.
It was weird to see what parts of the campus had been renovated, repurposed, or simply walled off. Oddly, they kept the plaque on this door of ye olde high pressure lab.
These ones seem to have been coopted into the current purpose of the campus but they still look very industrial (based on my knowledge of European/French chemical facilities)
Having not found any secret emblems left behind in bricks or walkways, I made my way back towards Geneva's train station. I made a quick stop by a small chocolaterie where a man kindly offered me samples of their chocolate (the combo of dark chocolate and basil was surprisingly good). Sadly, I had to abandon purchasing to go because they didn't take card and I wasn't about to take out more cash. So, oops, but in my defense, I had every intention of buying product and there wasn't a sign saying "cash only".
Having just finished work and starting his long (they have Friday and Monday off in Geneva) weekend, I found my friend in Gare Cornavin. We made our way into the Paquis where we proceeded to have a culinary exchange program: dinner was shawarma (Lebanese but he pointed out the similarities and différences with Egyptian cuisine) and for dessert we ended up at an American diner for milkshakes (after striking out on two reputable gelato places closed due to rainy weather). He opted for a chocolate milkshake while I tried the barbe de papa flavor (dad's beard); I'm not sure why it's called that but it ended up being similar to a malty mint, which was better than my joke suggestion of beer and cigarettes 😆
Mmm, shawarma. It's weird that I'd never heard of the dish until the Avengers movie but maybe that's just cause we don't have as many food carts in the PNW as compared to NYC.
It was a fun way to close out the trip, doing a bit of a culinary culture exchange! The place was classic Paquis (as far as I could gather from my assessment of the neighborhood): no frills but clean, cheap, and delicious.
In response to a question of "what is this?", it was fun to explain what the extra milkshake in the steel container was about; such a small thing that I'd nearly forgotten about.
Over our meal together, we caught up on the past week (the flurry of activity in the office vs my own adventures). He doesn't have grand plans to travel this 4-day weekend but many Swiss residents will, given the associated pause scolaire. Having said our goodbyes, we parted ways at the train station: we'll have plenty more to discuss for work in the future and my gut feeling is I'll need him to visit NJ again for a project rollout.
I collected my cached travel bags from Gare Cornavin (Geneva charges 2chf more than most storage lockers AND the lockers are smaller than other stations) before making my way to my coworker who had generously been holding my other suitcase for me. Before forgetting, I offered the box of chocolate I'd brought back from Lugano for them and we stayed up late chitchatting. Turns out my visit to Lugano was the perfect time: the Ticino canton is currently on lockdown under risk of flooding from the snow and rain received over the last two days, and apparently Zermatt is completely out of commission due to a windfall of April snow (1-2 m).
We ended up calling it a night and I prepped my bags for flying before settling in for the night on their comfy couch. I've done my best to spread the weight out, all that remains to see is how the airport scale feels in the morning. 😂
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