It’s Friday, August 2 and tomorrow we leave Spiez for our honeymoon hotel in Vevey, Switzerland, on the slope of Mont Pelerin and overlooking Lake Geneva. I haven’t done any writing this past week, but Judy has. What follows is her description of each day’s activities.
Neither of us stopped taking pictures. It’s our way of remembering what it felt like to live each day and experience the things we did. So, after each day’s description you’ll find the corresponding pictures.
I’ll add one thing to what Judy has written: We are so fortunate to have chosen Spiez as our rest stop. Having visited Interlaken at one end of the lake and Thun at the other, Spiez, in the middle, has turned out to be a delight. Interlaken is thoroughly tourist driven. Thun impressed us a Germanic working town. Spiez accommodates tourists like us but not in an in-your-face sort of way. We had no idea we’d be living, literally, in the middle of a vineyard. And we had no way of guessing we’d witness the harvesting of “our” grapes firsthand. Our walks around town, through the vineyards, up and across the ridges of hills, and along the lake have been perfect. We even enjoyed learning about 16th and 17th century life as a Baron of the castle we looked at each morning as we ate our breakfast.
So on to Vevey for two days and then Geneva for three and finally Israel for our tour there. Vevey and the Le Mirador hotel was, you’ll recall, the site of our honeymoon 59 years ago. We look back and wonder how we ever did that trip. No Internet, No GPS, No cell phones. I remember thumbing through a hotel guide in a travel agent’s office (“I know nothing about Switzerland,” the agent said). Why I picked that hotel. How we figured out how to get from the Geneva airport to the train station and figure out which train to take to Vevey. I remember so well the feeling of confusion when we got off the train and couldn’t find the funicular and then dragging the suitcases from the funicular to the front door of the hotel, later learning they would have picked us up in the hotel limo at the Geneva airport. And from there another series of travel miracles as we continued on to Stuttgart and London. Babes in the woods but somehow we made it and lived to tell the tale 50 years later.
I suppose blogging on your honeymoon isn’t the thing to do, even if it’s your second honeymoon. So ,we’ll be off the air for the next two days and will pick up again when we reach Geneva on Monday.
Monday, August 29, 2022 in Spiez, Switzerland
This is our week in Spiez, Switzerland when we are relaxing and resting. The idea in my mind is that we are doing things more like with would when we are home.
First, we did not get out of bed until 9:30 AM, well that is even later than home but it sure feels good. We had breakfast of toast and Orange Juice. So far there are no toasters that we can find in Switzerland, so Jon uses the broiler, I think. After breakfast I found my way to the laundry area in the basement. While there Christine, the neighbor on the first floor, happened by and asked how we were doing. She then helped me get the washer and dryer into English mode and get the two washers going. She is very nice and does speak English. She lives here with her husband and two sons, ages 11 and 8 and a daughter.
Christine told be about the hiking trails around our house so I decided we should do one of them while the wash was going. This trail she said had views so off we went. Another thing I had learned from her was that the vineyards behind the house belong to them, Simon, who we are renting from and Elizabeth who rents out the apartment above us. There is a company that manages the vineyards and they receive bottles of wine as payment for their crop.
This trail had 12 signs along the way telling us all about the growing of the grapes for the wine making. We traveled up the hill and in a big circle reading the signs and the benches along the way. The benches were dedicated to Rebbau Speiz 1927 – 2017 and had poems which Jon translated with his google translate. They were fun poems about wine. Part of this hike took us to the other side of the point where we could see the town across Lake Thun.
We returned home around 1:30, had a little chocolate to keep us going and headed for the Coop, food store to buy some food. This morning Jon had googled Swiss recipes and made a list of the ingredients we would need to make two dinners, breakfast and some lunches. Before we left there was a group of kids, either a camp or class, who came up and Christine was with them beside the house where the chickens live. She had served them something to drink to. It just occurred to me that we are staying on another farm of sorts with the chickens and grape fields.
At the Coop we parked in a garage over the store and had to pay parking and put the coin in for the cart like we do at Aldes at home. The store was just like home and we got our food and paid around $100 francs. Jon did not find the wine he wanted, which was the local Spiez wine, so we headed to a wine store. It did not appear to be open. I decided we should stop at a cloths store we had passed on our way there. I had left me raincoat in Salzburg, Austria and we had decided to have it shipped to Melrose just in case it did not get here before we leave. I am excited to say I found a raincoat and got one for Jon too so that mission was accomplished.
Back at the apartment about 3:00 we had lunch of cheese and crackers before Jon walked down to see about buying wine at the restaurant we had eaten at the first night and he also got the boat schedule for Lake Thun. I took care of the laundry while he was gone and after he returned we both took a nap. Jon is planning to start dinner at 7:00 PM. So, this has been a normal day with laundry, grocery and cloths shopping, and a hike!
These were posted earlier, but here they are again:
Tuesday, August 30,2022 Boat Ride on Lake Thun
Well, we left Spiez at 9:26 AM and returned at 7:26 PM but we did have a fun day and it was what Jon and Judy call relaxing. Of that time 5 hours were spent on a boat which, if you know us, you know we love being on boats and find it to be very relaxing. The other 5 hours we toured Interlaken and Thun. In Interlaken we had lunch. We had a Swiss dish called Rostts. It is hashbrowns topped with melted cheese. One of them had bacon, pickle and vegetables and the other had ham, pineapple and candied cherries. We really liked them and ended up sharing them. Jon says he can make this at home so some of you may have it sometime. We also happened to pass by, well pass by is not exactly what we did, since we stopped and made a purchase at the Laderach Chocolate store. Yes, same as in Zurich. I believe there is an island in Interlaken since we walked along may canals and enjoyed seeing the Swiss houses. It was an enjoyable morning.
The other town we visited was Thun at the other end of Lake Thun. It again has lots of canals and covered bridges throughout the city. At these bridges we enjoyed watching people surfing or wake boarding in the waves that came over the dams. The first place there was a rope tied to the bridge and they would hold it like water skiing and then let go and surf for a little. Here there was a couple taking turns. I know that because when he got in the water they kissed before he headed for the waves. The second bridge they were surfing without any rope. They lined up and waited their turn. There were probably 6 people doing it.
In Thun we intended to go to the castle but it was late in the day and we had a rainstorm. We were glad we had purchased our raincoats yesterday. When it started raining, we went for a restaurant that we could sit under their umbrellas. We had already planned to have ice cream in Thun and the place we were near had not only ice cream but also crepes! I love crepes so had a strawberry and Nutella one. Jon had a crepe with two kinds of ice cream so we were both happy. Since it was raining, and we wanted to stay put I ordered a Chi Latte, and it was delicious. Jon got one too. It did stop raining before we had to return to the boat.
About the boats, we rode on three different boats. We purchased first class tickets and determined it was well worth it. We like to be up top and outside and you had to have first class tickets to be up there. Our last boat was a side paddle boat with a steam horn which I spent quite a bit of time getting a video of the horn when it blew. The final boat served a fancy dinner, but we waited and came home for leftover from last night.
While we were on the boat, I kept thinking about how beautiful everything was around us. We are staying in a beautiful spot with the lake and all the wonderful mountains. The villages are picturesque with lots of beautiful Swiss chalets and even in the cities we would find areas with these beautiful chalets. We are very blessed to be staying in one of these old Swiss chalets on a hill with the wine vineyards and hiking trail behind us.
As I mentioned before they do not have toasters and they do not have microwaves! We have become very dependent on our microwaves in the USA. We had to warm it in the oven and that took what seemed like forever.
As we ate dinner Jon said he did not feel like processing pictures tonight and just wanted to go to bed and read. That sounds good to me too, so I am going to go join him. Maybe the day did tire us out even with the boat trips. Or maybe we’re just being lazy as we were told to do.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Well today was truly a R & R Day. We did not get out of bed until 10:00 AM. We both enjoyed reading in bed. We had a call from Rebecca, Griffin and Esme and later a call from Jeff. We ate our lunch of crackers, cheese and oranges while we talked with Jeff. Oh yes, we did have some chocolate too! I worked on a video I am making for Carter’s trip and Jon processed the pictures from yesterday. Around 3:00 I decided to take a nap before we go to the wine tasting at 5:00 PM.
The wine tasting was fun as we learned about the local grapes. They also said the picking of the grapes is supposed to happen tomorrow up on our hill. We are looking forward to watching that. Jon tasted six kinds of wines and I stopped after four. They could not produce Riesling this last year because the grapes had a fungus. We did buy one bottle of white and one of red. We will need to drink them before Israel. We both felt a little tipsy after, probably because we drank them too quickly.
We went to the fancy restaurant in town and they could not serve us until 6:30 and it was pretty pretentious . Neither of us felt good about the place so we headed down to the waterfront and found a nice café on the water where I had fish from the lake and Jon had veal wienershnitzle
We hiked back up the hill. I took several pictures of our chalet for you to see. I will include them.
Thursday, September 1, 2022
I enjoyed sleeping until at least 8:30 and then read until around 9:00 this morning. Jon made us eggs, potatoes, onions, and bacon for breakfast. It was wonderful.
We decided to take a hike up the hill to see the grape picking operation in our backyard. We took lots of pictures and I took some video. I am hoping to make a video for you to see. Fingers crossed! The pickers appeared to be volunteers and older, as we had read on one of the signs the other day. I watched one older lady as she was slowly cutting the bad grapes before she put them in the crate. Everyone had the clippers and clipped off bad grapes but most were pretty fast about it. We watched from below and then walked so we were above the pickers. A couple of the men were happy to hold up the grapes for us to take pictures. The operation reminded me of the blueberry picking in Aurora. Maine. The fruit is put in crates and then hauled off for the processing.
From there we went in the woods and climbed in the direction of the church I had wanted to visit. We were successful in finding it as we came out of the forest. The church bells were ringing and since it was noon they rang for a long time. The church is a Reformed church and very pretty in its simplicity. While we were there, we found a pamphlet about a concert tonight at 7:00 PM so that was added to our plan for the day.
We headed back to the house and had lunch before we headed for the castle, the one we have been viewing from our porch but not been to yet. It was a very interesting and beautiful castle. It has lots of carved woodwork and a beautiful ballroom, The tower stairs kept going up and up. I thought I would never get there because it was at least four flights of stairs after the third floor of the castle. On those flights there were opportunity to dress in period costumes and Jon mounted the horse with a spear.
While we were in the castle we mentioned the concert to an English speaking staff person. She said she thought it was at the Castle. She went and checked it out and it is at the Castle and not the church we had been at. Glad we mentioned it to her.
We went in the chapel which is small and all stone. The organist was practicing while we were there. After, I suggested we stop for a little something to drink in the relaxing castle garden. On our way out we discovered large metal containers with the grapes they were picking this morning. The wine is made in Spiez Castle. We saw the first press they were going to put the grapes though. It was going to be 30 minutes before they did it, so we did not wait. It has been fun today watching the grape harvest in our back yard and then seeing the grapes ready to be pressed.
Back at the house I took a nap and we made dinner with the summer squash our neighbor had put out for us to take, onions and bratwurst. Then it was down to the castle for a wonder concert.
The concert started precisely at 7:00 and ended at precisely 8:00. It was Baroque music with the organ, a violin and a soprano. They were all wonderful musicians and the acoustics in the building were fantastic. We had a wonderful time! I wished I could have recorded some of the music for you to hear.
Friday, September 2,2022
Well today is our last day in Spiez and we are both sad to leave it. It has been a lovely town and we have enjoyed our hikes, boat ride, wine tasting, the concert in the castle and touring the castle as well as watching it all week. We were most happy to be here to observe the picking of the grapes in “our vineyard”!
Today I got up early, 7:30 to work on a video about our house and time here in Spiez. The video is done but we are having trouble getting it to upload on Zenfolio. We will let you know when we are successful.
While I worked on the video and started the laundry going Jon took a hike this morning. The laundry is a slow process here. It takes at least 2 hours to do the wash and close to 3 hours to get it dry. Most people hang the laundry out to dry and I think today the lady who hung the sheets out had dry laundry before I did.
After lunch we went for a hike through the vineyards to the beach, up through the castle and around the harbor area before we continued along the water toward the next town a few miles away. Before I know it we were 2/3 of the way to the town and I decide I wanted a Coke Zero. The next town was closer than Spiez so we trudged on. The first thing was came to was the boat landing and a ferry boat was just arriving. Turns out its next stop was Spiez so we paid the price and hopped on the boat. Turned out to be a good thing as we observed the dark threatening clouds. By the time we got to Spiez the clouds were closer and there was thunder in the distance. We decided to get my Coke Zero and our ice cream and head back to the house. It was a good thing because it was a down pour by the time we hit our street. It must have been divine intervention that the boat was there, and we decided to take it.
Jon made a nice dinner from a Swiss cookbook with leaks and rice. We have clean laundry and are all packed for our trip to our honeymoon hotel. They have us scheduled for the spa at 6:00 PM tomorrow so we will be having more fun and relaxation as we remember the things we did here 50 years ago.
