The largest underground lake in Europe

Last Saturday the weather was fairly overcast in our little part of the country so we decided to head to Europe's largest underground lake - Saint-Léonard for a tour. Once we drove past Martigny on the autoroutes the skies opened up and gave us some sun which was quite nice. It was no coincidence that we went to the sunniest part of Canton Valais. With the weather warming up we are enjoying the sun which is a nice change from the bitter cold winds.

We met up with our friends at the lake, bought our tickets and waited for the next tour which we were told would be taken in English. The tour guide came and spoke to various people in three different languages. The tour was actually being taken in French, Swiss German and English which made it quite interesting to listen to. I'm not sure how the guy managed to get his story across because he had to switch between the three languages the whole time.. it would have been rather confusing for the poor guy. We hopped into our big row boat and settled in for a leisurely half hour boat ride to the end of the lake and back. The water was beautiful and clear which made it really easy for us to spot the trout that were introduced to the lake to keep the health of the water nice.

Gruyères

The thought of cheese, chocolate and double cream with meringues was drawing us to Gruyères in Canton Fribourg. We jumped into Mitch and Lu's little red car and headed to the district of Gruyère up a hill which had a castle perched on top. The town of Gruyères was a quaint and inviting little town full of little cafes and boutique grocery stores which were all selling mountain-loads of cheese, chocolate and any other local tasty treats. We wandered the cobbled street until the thought of double cream and meringues enveloped our brains until we couldn't function until we ate them (well mine anyway). A friend had told me about this local speciality and said that we must try it! I didn't need much convincing really..

We waited in anticipation until the waitress brought out two plates which had two lovely, rose coloured meringues and a little pot of the magic cream on them. I almost jumped off my chair in excitement and almost bit Roy's hands off when he started to eat them. They didn't last very long and soon we were fighting over the dregs in the little red pot. If we weren't amongst company then I probably would have licked the pot clean.

It sounds like a fairly simple thing really but they truly were very tasty! It's dangerous that they sell that stuff in the shops ten minutes drive from our place and now that we have our own set of wheels... eep! I'm sorry pants.. you may have to be traded in for a new pair.

After we finished off those tasty treats we explored the little town some more. We decided to avoid going in the castle (I think we've seen our fair share of castles) and opted to walk around it instead and admire the surrounding mountain view.

As if the feast of meringues and cream wasn't enough, we went to the factory where Gruyère cheese is made. It was pretty interesting but a little underwhelming with a little steam-sealed packet of Gruyère cheese to sample and a rather annoying audio guided tour.

We were itching to go to the nearby town of Broc to have a tour of Maison Cailler which was much more satisfying than the cheese factory. The tour was really quite interesting. It's a well thought out tour with great visual aids to tell the story of the history of chocolate and how Cailler chocolate came to be. After seeing the history of the company, we got to watch a machine create mini bars of Branches (a hazelnut chocolate bar). We then came to a tray piled with Branches for us to sample. We were like kids in a candy store and since there wasn't anyone monitoring the tray we took a few more than we probably should have.

We were pretty proud of ourselves after we gobbled down the handful of chocolate treats that we took until we came to a room full of trays of different Cailler chocolates for us to sample. At first there was no one there watching so we took our time and sampled each and every chocolate until a uniformed lady came and told us to move along so we just started taking one of each chocolate and putting them on our hand to eat outside at our own pace... until we got in trouble again. We all felt like little naughty children with melting chocolates in our hands. To our defence, there wasn't a sign telling us that we couldn't sample one of each. There was just too many nice ones to pass up.

Gruyère is definitely a great place to go to check out what Switzerland has to offer in terms of cheese, chocolate and more tasty treats. If anyone is planning a small holiday in Switzerland then Gruyère is a great place to start.

Grindelwald

A couple of weeks ago Roy went skiing with some work friends so I jumped in the little red car with Mitch and Lu and we went for a nice scenic drive to the mountain town of Grindelwald. The drive there was really beautiful! I take mountains for granted now that I live amongst them but I found a new appreciation for them after this drive. There were some rather spectacular views from the windy, steep roads. My photos don't really do it justice but it gives you an idea of the beauty of the snowcapped, gigantic mountains that inhabit this little, landlocked country.

In the town of Grindelwald

It was quite touristy but a nice little ski village. I had to watch what I was saying because there were a lot of English tourists who could understand my strange stories.

See the strange, wooden bike/ski/sled on the right of the picture? There were quite a few people with these things in this town. I've never seen them before in any other ski village.

Definitely worth going to again. Now that we have our own set of wheels I daresay that Roy and I will go there to admire the views.

A walk in the forest with a friend

My friend Annabelle has been living in Switzerland for a fair while longer than me so she knows all of the good spots to go and since she has a lovely doggy called Tobias, she knows the best places to go for a walk. She took my to a really nice forest called Finges (French) Pfyn (German) which is on the border of where the language changes from French to German (hence the two names). It was a lovely, warm day with nice blue skies so it was a perfect day for a leisurely walk.

I think Tobias would have stayed forever in this icy, cold lake had we given him the chance. He just didn't seem to mind the cold. I think he was hunting for fish.

There's a nice cafe on the outskirts of the forest so we couldn't resist an afternoon coffee and a sit down after a nice walk. Tobias had fun socialising with the Westie too. He's such a big sook!

More Carnival fun!

Carnival runs for four days in Switzerland and each day is filled with confetti, guggenmusik and costumes. On Saturday 5th March we went to Sion with Mitch and Lu to watch a big parade go through the main street. When we arrived there wasn't too much happening throughout the city except for the usual Saturday lunch crowd and since the temperature has been rather pleasant and the sun has been kind, there were plenty of people taking advantage of the outdoor seating at the cafes.

We heard some music in the distance which we followed to find where all of the carnival action was happening. There were food stalls, costumed people and a few carnival games and rides. We sat on an empty stage, ate our greasy carnival food and watched as kids threw handfuls of colourful confetti at each other.

Once we gobbled down our food the time was getting close to parade time so we headed out to the main street to join the gathering crowd in finding a good viewing spot to watch the floats and guggenmusik bands go past. While we waited we were bombarded by kids setting off firecrackers around us which incidentally resulted in me getting hit in the leg by a flying piece of firecracker. I whinged a little and it made me a little shellshocked for the rest of the parade but it didn't stop me from having a good time. I bruise really easily, so I still have a bruise, albeit a rather tiny one.

The parade was made up of lots and lots of guggenmusik bands marching past playing crazy music, a few random (strange) dressed up people walking past and big trucks with confetti cannons blasting confetti out into the crowds of onlookers. The street was littered with tiny circles of coloured paper ready for kids to run out and pick up handfuls to throw at the next lots of bands to come by. 

After about thirty marching bands and eight or so confetti trucks we decided that we had seen enough of the parade so we wandered off to find Mitch and Lu (who were having a rest at a nearby cafe because Lu was feeling a little under the weather). Mitch and Lu went home for some real rest (a carnival crazed town is not the best place to be while one is feeling a bit crappy) and Roy and I went to our favourite drinking hole, Les Divins Brasseurs (The Divine Brewers) for a pint of tasty brown beer. They also have a "biere speciale" which varies in flavours. Since it was carnival time the flavours were rather festive - Banana (not so nice - although Roy didn't seem to mind it) and passionfruit and mango (I think that was what it was - it wasn't too bad. A little too fruity for me). I'll stick to my "biere brune". We parked our butts on the only chairs we could find (it was rather busy because of the festivities) and watched as the carnival went on around us. The whole pub was taken over by Guggenmusik bands a couple of times which was quite fun to be amongst.

Some friends who live in Sion met us for a couple of drinks and once our tummy's started grumbling we decided to head to where all of the greasy, carnival food was for a bit of dinner. We stood and ate our fried morsels and watched as all of the crazy carnival folk milled around us. Our friend had a bit of a face-off with a zombie who was eyeing off his food.

Since this was our first carnival I didn't want to go too crazy with a costume so I went for the more conservative approach and adopted a hairy upper-lip.

Carnival time in Switzerland is fun! Living in a small town where the people are usually quite reserved and conservative, it was lots of fun to see everyone let loose for four days of craziness. I can't wait until August 1st for Swiss national day. Imagine the craziness then!

It's Carnival time!

Last night Roy and I went out for dinner in Martigny for a friends Birthday and when we arrived back in St-Maurice at 10:30pm the little, normally quiet town was well and truly alive and rockin'. We had both watched during the week as they slowly set up some carnival decorations and we'd received letterbox loads of flyers about various things happening in town but we didn't quite know what to expect when it came to our little town at carnival time.

The main street was full of people, there was food stalls, a wig stall, a carnival fishing game and even (and this excited me the most) a dodgem cars set. We slowly made our way down the main street observing the locals as they got drunk and had a fun time. For some reason there was a Japanese theme to the whole event, with Japanese banners along the street, Japanese paraphernalia in the pubs and a lot of people were dressed in Japanese costumes. The extent of the costumes was amazing! We walked past samurai's, ninjas, geisha's and we even walked past a group of ladies dressed as Japan Airlines flight attendants - complete with a drinks trolley. After marvelling at the fact that our quiet ol' St-Maurice was no longer quiet, we headed to the food stall to sample some delicious, fried, sugary festival food. We sat and munched on our Churros and watched as people threw confetti at each other and then the Guggenmusik bands started playing. Check out this video of some Guggenmusik that I found on youtube. There wasn't just one band.. there were two! The first band marched up through the street and continued around town and the second was set up on a small bandstand surrounded by drunken, dressed-up locals dancing frantically to the music. Our little town was going crazy for carnival! Who would have thought it had it in it? We're off to Sion tonight for more carnival fun!