Monday, August 22, 2011

Daytripper

One of the wonderful things we have discovered about Lausanne is that there are a large number of day trips one can take from here.  And, by day trip, I mean an hour or less drive or train trip.  There is certainly much more to do outside this range.  We'll be discovering that in the weeks to come!

We've been taking advantage of that luxury and getting out of town fairly regularly.  Here are some of our recent exploits:


Chillon Castle.  I know we've already written about this trip (http://nagle-chaves.blogspot.com/2011/08/thanks-for-party.html ) but I could not resist putting up one more photo.



Avenches.  Since our guys have a deep love of all things Ancient Rome, we made our way to Avenches.  Avenches, we now know, was the Roman settlement of  Aventicum, the capital of the Roman province of Helvetia. By 15 BC, Aventicum had developed into a major commercial center with 20,000 inhabitants.  The city has gone to great lengths to preserve and restore the ruins.  Here are Christopher and Matthew at the ancient Roman amphitheater that is still used for concerts today.


Lake Neuchâtel.  After visiting Avenches we drove to Lake Neuchâtel.  We let the GPS guide us to a little Plage Communal that was very, very far off the beaten path. After a convoluted drive on very narrow roads through farmland, everyone was a little skeptical of what we'd find.  As we walked down a long boardwalk through a marshy area Mark wanted to give up.  He thought we'd never find the beach.  Alas, we did!  We changed into our suits and went for a dip.




Related to swimming, we've been surprised by how hot it is here.  One doesn't normally associate the phrase "unbearably hot" with Switzerland, but it's been 90+ degrees and very humid, day in and day out.  Nothing, including our apartment, is air conditioned.  We have fans, and it cools off at night, but we look forward to a break in the heat wave.
Geneva.  We took the train to Geneva on a Friday after lunch.  We made our way from the train station (in the sweltering, 90 degree, heat) to the Jet d'Eau.  This tremendous fountain is at the juncture of Lake Geneva and the Rhone River.  It pumps 123 gallons of water into the air per second.  The water rises more than 450 feet into the air.  They let you walk on a narrow jetty right out to the fountain.  The spray is incredible.  We all got soaked!


We made our way to the Saint Pierre Cathedral (Calvin's church) and headed right to the basement to see the ruins.  There we found an incredible museum that showed the archeological roots of the Cathedral, and even of the city itself -- buildings built upon older buildings, which were built on still older buildings.  The space under Saint-Pierre Cathedral contains the remains of the many churches that preceded the current structure, the oldest of which dates from the late 4th century.  And even that structure was built on top of a second century BC tomb that seemed to be used for ceremonial purposes.  It's not unusual here to be at sites that have been continually occupied for thousands of years, but that deep history was especially well presented in this museum.
After a long visit to the museum, we went upstairs to the modern day (meaning dating from the 12th century or so) church.  Here is Mark by Calvin’s chair. 

We even made it to one of the oldest homes in the city and the location of the museum of the history of Geneva.  All kinds of cool things here.  Perhaps the display that most caught our attention were the remains of a guillotine from the time of the French Revolution.  It was surprisingly small.

Grandson Castle.  Another drive in the Swiss countryside to see a castle.  Grandson castle is a  medieval castle (11th to 14th century) overlooking Lake Neuchâtel.  This castle came to our attention becuase Matthew was asking about all the people buried in the Cathedral at Lausanne.  After doing a little research, Mark found out that one of the most famous people buried there was Otto of Grandson, a 13th century knight. We thought we should check out his home.

Our visit to Grandson Castle was particularly fun as we happened to go on the day of their annual medieval festival.  There were lots of folks in costume doing exhibitions of medieval archery, cooking, sword fights, juggling, dancing, etc.  They even had costumes for the kids to dress up in so they could be part of the action.




I wonder where our next adventure will take us?



1 comment:

  1. Love the boys' costumes! And the layers of civilization are beyond fascinating. Your days sound wonderful...

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