It's Still Snowing

A stop in the old town of Murten
The main street of old town was all cobblestone and some of the shops had interesting guild signs hanging above the door of the establishment.
We stopped at a little town called Murten. We found out that it is a mixed region, meaning that it is right between the French and German speaking area of Switzerland. About 80 percent of the people speak German here and call the town Murten on the Murten See. The others, speaking French call it Morat on the Lac du Morat.
We drove back on a country road where the farm houses/barns were just off the road.
This is from the cathedral above the town of Neuchatel
Despite the inclement weather on Saturday we took a car ride to an area neither Steve nor I had yet explored. We traveled north of Geneva to an area called Neuchatel. The town of Neuchatel sits on Lac de Neuchatel. The region is a grape growing area with mountains on one side and the lake on the other. We are right now in a weather pattern of some rain/snow every day. We have none on the ground where we live but there is plenty just a few miles away. Still I am sitting at my desk looking at the snow fly and happy in the thought that I will soon be in Pinehurst.

Looking For . . . .

Knowing how beautiful Pinehurst North Carolina is at this time of year I have been looking for signs of spring. I'm afraid that they are not so overt nor easily discovered. I did find it interesting that many small flowers just seem to pop up in the middle of lawns. A friend asked me if a certain one she had in her lawn was a weed. After carefully analyzing it and showing her examples of the same flower in pots for sale in the market, I told her it was a primrose. Although the picture here is not one of primroses, it is just another example of the "lawn flower". These pictures were not taken this week, but rather last week. This week we have had a return to winter. Actually it is colder than it was in December, January or February. Today, on Good Friday, we awoke to our first snow since we have been in Geneva. It was coming down thick and white, yet none stuck to the ground. A while ago Steve had made reservations for us to go to the Interlaken region to Grindenwald and spend a couple of days. However, we were thinking of temperatures a little warmer than the 30s and with a little less precipitation. We therefore put off the trip until the middle of May. Whenever we sit in our little living room and can hear the wind howling down the chimney, we know that it is a little too raw for an outdoor adventure. We have also discovered that the Swiss take their holidays very seriously. Everything--shops, schools, businesses are all closed on Good Friday. We don't know about Saturday, but definitely Sunday (they are always closed on Sunday). We have not found Switzerland to be devoutly religious-- just devout about time off and holidays.
I will be in Pinehurst from the 28th of March to the 14th of April. I need a "home" fix every so often. Steve told someone this past week that my trips home are the cost of him working in Europe. How true.


Not your typical chocolate bunny. This week when I went to a department store to get a few things I entered on the "food" level. There is a whole section of the store dedicated to Swiss chocolate. There were "Easter" chocolate displays everywhere. The amazing thing however was the crowds of people. I couldn't make it down any aisle and the lines at four different cash registers were 15-20 people deep. It's not like this is the only place to get chocolate in town, or even the best place. I can picture this scene replicated all over Geneva. After witnessing the extent to which people love their chocolate here, I feel that I am on the low end of the scale of chocolate obsession.
This is an apartment building that looks out over the lake. The architecture is pretty typical of the period that many of the buildings in Geneva were constructed. We do not live in this apartment. We don't want any of you to get the wrong idea of our life here in Switzerland

I Didn't Know One Could O.D. on Chocolate---

Did we mention that chocolate was important in Switzerland? This past weekend we experienced the Chocolate Festival in Versoix. The train to Versoix from Geneva runs every thirty minutes and it was packed as I have never seen it. The crowds at the festival were unbelievable. Steve and I visited each vendor and sampled from every one who would offer samples. We bought a lot of very fine chocolate and knew it was time to end the experience when we actually did not want to sample one more item. I really didn't know that I could O.D. on chocolate, but apparently it is possible.
The other fun event of the weekend was to attend the Geneva Auto Show. It is one of the largest auto shows in the world so we had to go, just to say we had experienced it. The concept cars and zero emission cars were quite interesting. The actually had three functioning hydrogen cars. I wonder if we'll actually see them in the future?
Take care everyone, and know that I love and miss you all.

This guy was really interesting. He made the "rats" completely of chocolate before he started the artistic decorations. By the way, they love the movie Ratatouille here, I guess it's the French association.

The train was fantastic and the chocolate was even better. We just kept trying more different artisan's products to find what we considered the best flavor.
Sorry about the double image entry. I'd get rid of it if I could figure out how.
I included the pictures of the trains (both chocolate and other) for my grandson, Andrew. I wished he could have been here to get excited about it.
How's this for a really big car?

Classic beauty never gets old
This is a four-wheeled motorcycle--fully enclosed. What next?
The Geneva Auto Show was very interesting--lots of things to look forward to in the future.

A Visit to Evian

We spent this past weekend in Evian, France. We took an hour train ride to Lausanne, which is about the middle of the Lake. Geneva is at the south-western tip of Lake Leman. In Lausanne we boarded a boat for a ride across the lake to Evian. Evian is famous for (What else?) Evian water. It is also a resort town with thermal baths. It is like Baden Baden in Germany. These places became popular around the late 1800's to early 1900's as vacation spots with thermal baths, opulent hotels and a grand casino. Many of the old buildings remain and the places still draw large crowds in the summer, but are pretty quiet during the rest of the year. The road along the lake is the only flat road in the town. From the lake, the town rises pretty quickly up the mountain-side. It is the site of the Evian Master's Golf Course which hosts an European Women's golf event I believe. On our way over it was cloudy and rainy and we couldn't see just how magnificent the Alps are as they appear to rise up out of the lake. On the way back we were blessed to have a beautiful sunny day.
We stayed here at the Hilton which has a nice spa.
View across the lake to Lausanne (you have to look closely to see the buildings of the town)
A great example of Art Deco--notice the tiled roof and the stained glass windows
Hotel de Ville. In France, the Hotel de Ville is what they call the city hall. It's not really a hotel at all.

Evian is full of interesting architecture from the late 1800's to early 1900's.

These mountains are on the Evian bottled water label. There is another row of mountains behind these, but the clouds kept them hidden for the most part.