Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard

On Sunday the weather cleared up a little bit from a week of drizzle and clouds but it wasn't hot or dry enough to go for a picnic or to participate in any other summery activities. The temperature was still well under 20 degrees - 12 degrees on the sign that we passed as we drove through the valley in Martigny which was rather amusing since it's still the middle of summer. I looked at the temperature on the internet of Brisbane earlier that day and it was well above 20 degrees... sigh... But I guess there is nothing I can do about the climate except take it for what it is and enjoy the warm days that we do have here and there.

We've been watching the mountains around us gather a sprinkling of snow in the past week. Winter is coming - hopefully not too soon though, I still want some more days to laze in my hammock. We decided to hop in our little Panda and take it for an adventure up a mountain. We'd thought about going up the Furka pass, which I've heard has some spectacular views but since it takes a couple of hours to reach the top of the pass we decided to leave it for day where we had many hours to explore the pass and enjoy the drive over the other side to Lucerne or Spiez. We thought we might go to Lac d'Emosson to admire the magnificent feat of engineering that is the dam. Apparently there was a smaller dam which was built in 1925 but was later flooded to make way for another dam in 1974. Unfortunately on our way there we were held up in traffic resulting from an accident - or at least we thought that since the traffic definitely wasn't moving either way. We turned our little blue car around, headed back down the mountain to Martigny and went up another big mountain to the Grand Saint-Bernard Pass which is the third highest road pass in Switzerland. An interesting excerpt from wikipedia - Great St. Bernard is the most ancient pass through the Western Alps, with evidence of use as far back as the Bronze Age and surviving traces of a Roman road. 


The pass links Switzerland with Italy and at it's highest, reaches 2,469 m. For majority of the year the pass is closed (wiki - only passable June to September) due to heavy snow, so in the colder months people can use the tunnel to get through to Italy instead. The snow in the pass in winter may be as much as 10 metres deep. The temperature may drop as low as -30°C. The lake in the pass is frozen for 265 days per year. So it wasn't much of a surprise when we got to the top and were surrounded in ice.

The Grand Saint-Bernard pass is historically known for being the home of a hospice for travellers which was founded in 1049, famous for it's use of St. Bernard dogs in rescue operations. It is often said that they carried small casks of brandy around their necks (although this is only legend) - perhaps where the stereotypical image of a St. Bernard with the cask around it's neck came from. There was no shortage of souvenir, stuffed St. Bernards around - even on a Sunday.

A view of the Rhone Valley, looking towards Sion. 

It was cold... brrrr...

A view from above the Hospice of an Italian hotel just over the border.

Icicles 

So now we're in Italy! 

A view looking back at the hospice from over the Italian border.

We didn't venture too far into Italy because it was getting late but there were some beautiful mountains sprinkled with snow.

It's still such a novelty to cross into another country on a day trip. I only wish we had more time to explore the other side of the pass. Hopefully it won't get too snowy before we get the chance to go up again. We've got until September (hopefully) before the snow gets too heavy.

Paléo Festival

In the first half of this year - around April, I think, Roy and I bought two tickets for a music festival that was held in Nyon, near Lake Geneva. We'd seen advertisements about this festival and thought it might be fun to go and when we saw the line-up we decided to get tickets for the Thursday night. We were both big fans of PJ Harvey in the early part of last decade (wow we're getting old) and since she hadn't been touring for a while we thought it would be a great opportunity to catch her while she was here, plus we wanted to see how the Swiss do summer music festivals. The Strokes were also on the line-up who I was keen to see. We eagerly waited for the time of the festival to come and seeing the rain and the temperature drop in the days leading up to the event, we were starting to wonder how much of a "Summer" festival it would be. We knew that we would have to wear warm clothes since the temperature was well under 20 degrees (cold by Aussie's standards). What I neglected to take was my ever-so-trusty hiking boots which are waterproof and perfect for stomping around in mud. Roy was smart but hey, most of you guys remember that he got the highest possible grades in high school, I on the other hand, didn't. So here's me, in my Birkenstocks (perfect summer shoes if you ask me) driving up to the parking lot watching the countless amounts of people walking past in their gum boots. I cursed myself many a time but soon realised that there wasn't anything I could do to remedy my situation - besides driving the hour back home to get my boots. Going back wasn't really an option I wanted to take so I sucked it up, trudged through the mud to the 'sloshy' festival grounds and avoided the giant mug puddles on the way.

I envied the gum booted people as I avoided many paths to get to the food stalls for my rather tasty vegetarian burrito and copped stares from the same people as they wondered why on earth I had chosen Birkenstocks to wear to a mud-filled arena. I didn't let a little bit of mud get in the way of having fun though. I was just more careful about where I put my feet.

Most of the other acts on the line-up I hadn't really heard of so I did a bit of research earlier on in the day and decided on which bands to avoid and which not to. I'm glad I did because the bands we saw were really, really good! We first saw a British chick called Anna Calvi which rocked our (I can't really say socks because as I have plainly explained, I wasn't wearing any) ears off with her booming voice. One of our favourite songs of her set was a fantastic cover of Edith Piaf's Jezebel - definitely worth a listen.

We had to leave her set early because we wanted to get to the main stage to catch the start of PJ Harvey. The crowd anticipated the entrance of the eccentric songstress and before too long her and her rather surprising band of middle-aged, classical-looking men came onto the extremely, minimally set stage. One of her road crew geared her up with an autoharp and she started her somewhat uneventful set with a song from her new album. Having not listened to any of her new stuff and being a strong fan of her old stuff I was a little taken a back at how different she sounded and how unexciting she sounded. I guess it's not her fault that she is extremely introverted but a little bit of crowd acknowledgment would have done her wonders to get the crowd excited - or me at least. We decided not to stick around and as soon as we had left the audience she played one of her olders ones which made me happy. Her new stuff is nowhere near as raw as her old and I'm not convinced that she can pull off a polished style of music.

Our next stop was The Dø. They were perhaps my favourite act of the whole night. They are a french/finnish band with a rather uncategorisable (not really a word but I think you understand what I mean) genre. Their music was fresh, upbeat and considering that we didn't have a very good view, they were really entertaining to watch. I highly recommend you check them out!

Unfortunately a downside to Europe is the amount of places people can smoke. I didn't really realised how much I appreciated Australia's smoking (or anti-smoking if you will) laws until we moved to Europe. You hop off a train in Switzerland and all of a sudden your nostrils are filled with cigarette smoke. So you can imagine what it was like at this festival. Under the huge tents people were lighting up all around us and I'm not the shortest person around and I was finding it hard to catch a whiff of fresh, smoke-free air. So I couldn't hang around in the tent watching The Dø much longer with the amount of cigarette smoke wafting around. So we ducked out of the tent and went to secure our spot ready for The Strokes. I'm not the HUGEST Strokes fan (don't own CD's and such) but I enjoy their music and also the music of the lead singer's (Julian Casablancas) solo releases so it wasn't long before Roy and I, along with the crowd were bopping our heads along to the music.

Unfortunately the cigarette smoke was getting to me again so we opted to leave. My throat was hurting from inhaling secondhand smoke. Plus we wanted to take advantage of being some of the first people to leave so we could get our car out before the masses decided to. We didn't escape the crowds though, we still had to wait a while to get our car out of the muddy pit called a car park. It seems that we weren't the only ones to try and escape before the night ended.

Despite the mud, the few showers of rain and a little disappointment with the set of someone who I was really looking forward to seeing, I had a great night out with Roy and the crowds. The food and drinks weren't too over-priced (amazing for Switzerland), the crowds weren't too rowdy (besides the drunk guy that decided to pee whilst standing in the audience for The Strokes and proceeded to jump in it to demonstrate that his pee was just a part of the mud) and it wasn't too hot (which is always a downside to Australian summer music festivals). I was even congratulated by a guy as we were leaving on the cleanliness of my Birkenstocked feet - which made me happy.

Some rather dodgy photos - taken on my phone of the night.

PJ Harvey

Anna Calvi

Montreux Jazz Festival

Ever since we moved here - about twenty minutes drive from the famous Montreux, I have been anticipating the Jazz Festival. The time finally came! For a little under two weeks, the shore of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) at Montreux is transformed into a bustling festival full of people, food and music. There are rather expensive (worth it for fans I guess) concerts which feature quite famous people - Sting, Carlos Santana and a regular, BB King to name a few. There's also some not so expensive concerts featuring not-so-famous acts and there's even a heap of free concerts in the 'parc'. I was lucky enough to go to the festival twice. I went with Roy on the Sunday and then again the next day with some friends. I've got to say that I rather enjoyed the Monday, not that I didn't enjoy Roy's company, it was just less crowded and the free concerts were better. The Sunday was extremely crowded. I guess it's the day that people choose to go because no one works on Sundays and all of the shops are shut - so why not hey?

We had some very nice weather which was lucky. There were paragliders, sailing boats and people swimming. It almost reminded me of the beach.

My good friend, Freddie.

BBoy dance-off 

Plenty of food around for a great feast.

A fruit cocktail in a coconut!

A feast of fresh coconut once the juice had run out. I knew my little Swiss Army Knife would come in handy one day.

A nice refreshing drink of cool water from the fountain.

A souvenir of the event.

Roy and I had planned on seeing a band that we both like, for free but the crowds got a little too much, plus the fact that the concert didn't start until 10pm and it was a work day for Roy the next day. So we caught the bus back to where we parked our little Panda and went back home for some dinner and a relax.

The Monday was much less crowded and we got to see a Jazz ensemble from an Australian all girls school. It was nice to sit on the grass with a cold beer and enjoy the free, live music. It was a bit of a novelty seeing a high school band from my home country.

My friend's dog Tobias enjoying the music.