Montreux Jazz Festival

An adventure of a more cultural variety this weekend!  On Friday afternoon I took off for Montreux, a little town in the far west of Switzerland, in the heart of the French speaking region of Switzerland (called Suisse Romande).  About 25% of the population of Switzerland lives in the French speaking part of Switzerland, but I haven’t yet spent a great deal of time in this region except for a few hikes and a long ago city visit to Geneva.  Montreux is a gorgeous spot on the Swiss Riviera, and has quite a similar feel to its French counterpart.  It is on Lac Leman (better known as Lake Geneva to English speakers), and mountains and vineyards stretch in every direction.  The border between Switzerland and France goes right through the middle of Lac Leman, so you can gaze across the lake right into another country.  I still get a kick out of this.

The geography of Switzerland gets a little weird in the French part…

Montreux is most famous, however, for its annual Jazz Festival.  I had a few vague preconceptions about this festival, mainly that it is $$$ and maybe a little too classy for the likes of me.  I am happy to report back, though, that not only is it doable on a PhD salary, the level of class was quite manageable.

relief at last

So, we arrived on Friday around 7pm, and immediately fled the stifling train and jumped into the lake.  I should probably mention something here.  It has been a high of 97-100 degrees Fahrenheit every day for the past week.  And it seems that Europeans have a thing about air conditioning.  And by thing I mean nothing, because they don’t like it.  There is air conditioning NOWHERE.  Not at work, not at home, sometimes on public transit but only to the point where you are only sweating profusely instead of passing out from the heat.  Even grocery stores seem to just gently chill the air around the cheese.  There is no such thing as the arctic blasts you get from some American buildings, it seems.  All this to say that the only way to really cool down is to jump into a lake or a shower.  This is probably great for the environment, but really bad for work productivity.  A lot of my coworkers jump into the lake at lunchtime, since it’s a tempting five minutes away by bike.

heaven

My first money saving tip for this festival is to use airbnb (duh), as you can easily blow over $1,000 in a very basic hotel anywhere near the festival.  We stayed in a little apartment attached to the house of the cutest little French couple I ever saw.  The husband, a jolly man of maybe 60 or 70, met us at the train station in Clarens and guided us up the tiny woodsy footpath (with 100 steps, he says!) and through their lovely garden to the nice little apartment where we would be staying.  We spoke a mix of French and German, with a smattering of English and Spanish thrown in there.  A language salad, as so often seems to happen in Switzerland!

the view from the airbnb

The Jazz Festival name is a bit of a misnomer, as it seemed to be just a plain old festival with all types of music to me.  There were a lot of big names playing, like Lady Gaga and John Legend, but we stuck with the free concerts that were going on constantly.  I was blown away by a band called Gingkoa that first night especially, that seemed to be a combination of cabaret, big band, and pop.  One of the more fun shows I’ve ever been to.

montreux jazz!

end of the set on stage fun, that creepy man kept trying to kiss the singer

The next day we awoke late, puttered about getting tickets for the Brasil Boat happening later that day, and wandered Old Town Montreux.  We managed to work ourselves up quite a hunger, so that when we finally sat down around 2pm we ordered half the menu of the cute little bistro we found: beef tartare, a garden salad, a salmon quiche, a ham and gruyere crepe, something called pate that turned out not to be a spread but an enormous biscuit with meat inside, etc, etc.  And of course a few glasses of rose were the only thing in that heat.  It was, no joke, one of the better meals I’ve had in Switzerland.

the haze is representative of the heat factor

beautiful view of the lake from the steeply slanted old town

Delightfully full, we headed to the Brasil Boat.  This is a 3 hour party boat that has multiple floors of Brasil music, dancing, drinks, and hoses while cruising Lac Leman.   Perhaps no further comment needed.

dancing and drumming interlude

dancing under the hoses

pre-boat, in my fourth of july outfit of course

After a bit too much fun in the sun, we headed straight to the lawn next to the disembarque point to take a snooze in the shade.  I fell asleep solidly for close to an hour, as far as I can figure.  Then it was to the lake for a swim in one of the most gorgeous swimming spots I’ve ever swum.  We lingered there for hours, watching the sunset and drinking another bottle of rose.

lovely swim spot

I watched every second of this sunset and it was glorious

After another evening at the festival, we had grand plans of hiking the Lavaux vineyards, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that I’ve been dying to visit forever.  However, our hosts strongly advised us against it in the heat and after melting for a few minutes in direct sunlight we reluctantly concurred.  Instead, we took a cute little train up into Les Avants, a tiny little mountain town directly above the lake, and ogled the views.

relaxing in Les Avants

However, there was no food available in the entire town, so after yet another glass of rose, we headed down for lunch in Montreux.  Quickly all plans were scrapped in favor of being back in the lake as quickly as possible.  We headed to the Chateau de Chillon, a gorgeous old castle on the water (records date it back to 1005 AD).  We then spent a few glorious hours swimming, including a swim around the perimeter of the castle, which was quite fun.  I think I frightened a tourist peering out one of the castle windows.

Chateau de Chillon

After a final stroll back down the promenade to the city center, it was back to the Gare and Zürich for us.  It was a little funny to spend America’s birthday so far away from home (my first outside the States!), but it was one of those weekends where I came back completely at peace and tranquil with the world, the universe, and everything.  There is something about these Swiss lakes and mountains that just does that for me.  What a beautiful part of the world.

Aletsch Glacier (Halbmarathon)

Woohoo!  More spontaneous (painful but fun) decisions this past weekend!  I mentioned this amazing half marathon a while back as being on the agenda for next year, but decided to just go ahead and do it this year, despite the fact that I am not really trained for these mountain races at all.  I figured I would just take it easy, take lots of photos, and slow down as needed on the insanely steep parts.

The reason this race is so cool is that the course climbs up a hiking trail next to the Aletsch glacier, the largest glacier in the Alps.  It is another UNESCO World Heritage site, and you better betake yourself to the site soon, as it is disappearing rapidly.  As of today, though, it is still 14 miles (23km) long and around 3,300ft (1km) thick at some points.  It’s really a thing to see.  I guess the stripey look is from multiple glaciers smushing themselves together.

my fav glacier shot

A running group I am part of in Zürich had organized a nice little mountain hut stay for Saturday night, so we all took the train and then the gondola to the tiny town of Riedmeralp in canton Wallis (south of Switzerland).  It was around a 3 hour commute, which by Swiss standards means we are practically at the other end of the world.  We picked up our numbers and generally lounged about enjoying the sunshine and the views of the Matterhorn along with a whole host of other peaks that my handy new app identified for me more or less accurately (peakfinder!).

hanging in Bettmeralp with the Happy Runners

I’m always intrigued by these tiny mountain towns.  How do people get food up here?  What do they do for fun?  I chatted up the waiter at the chalet where we had drinks, and he seemed pretty bored by the whole scene, saying that the views get old after awhile even if the skiing never does.  It’s a smaller town, so doesn’t get the massive influx of tourists that say a St. Moritz does, but commented that for some reason a lot of people from the Netherlands show up.  They can always tell when the Dutch are there, he said, because mass shortages of mayo immediately ensue.  Kind of like Americans and ketchup, I guess.

pre-race ice cream and beer by a mountain lake

Anyway, on Sunday I lined up with a bunch of massively fit looking people.  We got there extra early, so I had plenty of people watching time, and I have to say this crowd had a very distinct look in a way that a road race usually doesn’t.  I would describe the general demeanor as badass with a side of massively muscular.  Seriously, there were few of those wispy types that you see gliding around at road marathons.  This is a whole different type of event.

a nice distraction from the pain about to happen

a ladies shot stolen from happy runners, a chipper “pre”

I’ll spare you from too much dithering about the race itself, except to simply point to the race profile itself below.  I love mountain races for so many reasons, and I have to say I had a blast hopping over rocks and tree branches and enjoying the views and nature for the first 16km or so.  It’s tough to really “race,” since a lot of it is single track and you are stuck at the pace of the person in front of you, but that suited me just fine.

the best cheerers were high fiving us at riederalp here, complete with cowbells

This is definitely one of the most beautiful races I’ve ever done, and if you’re going to do a destination race in Switzerland I can’t recommend highly enough.  Some of the terrain we went through:

pleased to report these smaller hills barely even phased me

random isolated mountain chateau i spent a good hour of my life pondering as we came ever closer

saw quite a few falls on this narrow and rocky bit

and my first view of the glacier!

eventually we were jogging through snow fields

Well, I was trotting merrily along thinking that this was the most delightful run of my life when the final 5 km happened.  No more photos to share because every ounce of my energy not being sucked away from the relentless uphill and increasing altitude was used for putting one foot in front of the other.

the first half is not flat. It only looks flat because of the mountain that follows. Almost 4,000 ft in elevation gain.

Finally, after 3hrs and 29 min, I crossed the finish line, where most of the speedy happy runners were awaiting me in the mountaintop sunshine.  I didn’t feel so bad, though- a 1:30 half marathoner had finished around 2:10, so I was OK with a full 1.5 hours added to my half time for this mountain newbie.  However, I apparently had done a terrible job fueling myself.  After downing 3 cups of Iso, I was hit by the most incredible wave of nausea and made it through one photo before prostrating myself on the ground hoping to not throw up in front of hundreds of burly mountainpeople.

face a lovely shade of pea green, stolen from my friend Rachel

finish!

Well, I have survived to do stupid things another day.  Onward and upward!

Bern City Visit: a 10k, Getting Naked with the Swiss, and the Coldest River I Ever Swum

I’ve lived in Switzerland for almost a year now, and have not yet visited the capital.  Whomp, whomp.  Luckily, this situation has now been fixed, thanks to the Bern Frauenlauf that happened on Sunday.  Yes, another race.

Watching the kids race while feasting on Tibetan momos

A note about Swiss races: they embody almost everything I love about Switzerland.  They are impeccably organized, filled with people who know what they are doing, and usually take place in a beautiful setting.  This was an all women’s race with over 15,000 participants through the cobblestoned streets of old town Bern, and it was one of my favorite events I’ve participated in thus far.  Two days after I registered, I got a train ticket valid from anyplace in Switzerland to Bern. The day before I started, I got a text message from the race informing me that I would be starting at 9:02am.  You bet I was crossing that start line at exactly 9:02 the next morning (they went in waves of exactly two minutes).

The race itself was only a so-so effort for me.  I was a bit tired from biking 40km and swimming the day before, and the temperatures were blazing hot.  After the second round of what my friend Sarah and I called the bridge of death, I stopped and dunked my head in a bucket of water and walked for a minute or so, which always feels like defeat in a race. I turned in around a 56.50 10k (9:08 mile), which was pretty far off my best time, but reasonable for the conditions.  Jogging by all the spectators and musicians was fun, though.  I always particularly enjoy the alphorn, mostly because I always wonder how on earth the little old man playing it managed to transport it to that spot.

Zytglogge, ancient clock from 13th century and bearer of a name I had to google twice to get right

I don’t know about your experiences in foreign countries, but I’ve found that most of the time it’s the small things that really get me.  On this particular day, it was taking a shower.  See, I wanted to sightsee with my friends Sarah and Heidi, one of whom ran the race and the other of whom patiently bore our endless runner speak.  Swiss races handily offer showers, seemingly because people are expected to not walk around sweaty on the streets after a race.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t an enormous outdoor tent room with hundreds of women of all ages lathering up with the provided pump bottles of soap dangling from the ceiling.  SO MUCH NAKED.  I might be wrong and many of you are mass showering with other people, but I personally am labeling this my European moment of the week.

Fun fact: you can drink from any of the jillions of Swiss fountains. No more water bottles!

Anyway, the town of Bern itself is peaceful, slow-paced (the slowness of all things Bern-ese seems to be the butt of many a Swiss joke), and utterly charming.  The old town of Bern is a UNESCO world heritage site, and I loved it.  All the buildings are so fat and squat and medieval and cute, you just want to pinch their cheeks.  The dialect is also different than in Zürich- slower and perhaps a bit more appealing (hides under rock).  Bern is west of Zürich, much closer to the French speaking part of Switzerland, and I noticed even more French words in the mix than in the rest of Swiss German.

The River Aare, subject of later adventures.

The city is also known for its bears, and their images are plastered everywhere.  Why?  Try to ask this question of a Swiss person and they will look at you like you are crazy.  Bears, of course bears.  There are even some “bear pits” in the middle of town (I kid you not) with real brown bears.  Sadly, when we went to visit it was under renovation and there were only images of fake bears telling us in a multitude of languages to take a half hour walk to see the temporary bear home.  We declined and wandered off in search of brunch instead.

Bern, the capital of quaint.

After quite a bit of leisurely strolling and exploring, we discovered a nice little riverside cafe, where I feasted on an Eis Kaffee, one of my favorite new discoveries.  This is not an iced coffee in the American sense, which I dearly miss.  Instead, it is a giant scoop of ice cream in a sundae cup with espresso poured over it.  IT IS DELICIOUS.  As we relaxed, we observed both people floating by at seemingly impossible speeds in the Aare and a precipitous temperature drop.  This looked like something I should do on my Bern city trip, but it looked 1) a bit dangerous, and 2) ridiculously unbelievably frigid in there.  However, after seeing a pregnant lady and small children float by, we decided to suck it up and check it off the Bern bucket list.

IT WAS THE COLDEST THING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED.  For a full minute after jumping in, it was hard to even take a breath, it was so cold.  When I finally could breath again, I started yelling about how cold it was at the top of my lungs, drawing looks from passerby.  Meanwhile, the crazy fast current was pulling me downstream fast.  We hit the second to last railing to pull ourselves out and began the hard work of removing ourselves from the river.  My flailing quickly dislodged Heidi from the steps, but luckily she is more coordinated than me and was able to hold on with her hands until I could lend her a hand.

Of course, the only thing to do was do it again.  Meanwhile, we began noticing that everyone else had long ago vacated the premises and the skies were looking stormy.  We managed to extricate ourselves from the river after one more exhilarating ride, then shivered into our clothes and up the hill back towards the Bern Bahnhof.

More Bern wanderings.

On our hour long train journey back to Zürich, we were treated to the lovely Swiss German chorus of a club of older Swiss hikers, which I would share with you if I could figure out how to upload an iphone video to WordPress.  Sigh.  Regardless, it was a lovely day and I am already looking forward to doing it again next year!  Cheers to a new Swiss city!

surf and turf

I have a huge, completely non-secret crush on Swiss trains.  Imagine gliding through the mountains silently, floating through tunnels and over aqueducts with barely the slightest hitch, the loveliest of mountain and lake vistas unfolding endlessly before you. It goes without saying that everything is spotlessly clean around you, down to the crystal clear windows that lack the slightest smudge or scratch.  Now imagine you can plan your train trip to wherever your little heart desires down to the minute, including any necessary transfers (and of course you won’t need more than 3 minutes to make said transfer) simply by pressing a few buttons on your handy SBB app.

That, my friends, is the delightful reality of the Swiss commute.

There are, however, a few trains they’ve made especially special for touristing purposes.  A  couple weeks ago Miguel and I decided to book the Bernina Express, one of these trains, as a special dual birthday weekend celebration.

First, the facts: the train goes from Chur/Davos/St. Moritz to Tirano in Italy.  This leg of the trip takes just about 4 hours, and goes through pretty much all the types of landscape that Switzerland has to offer, using 55 tunnels and 196 bridges in the process (we tried to count, but I at least got hopelessly muddled around the 30th tunnel).  The railway itself is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which I don’t quite understand, but regardless: the views are pretty great.

photos on photos. The Landwasser Aqueduct.

The ride itself is a slow roller, starting out with bucolic rolling landscapes and ending with some really stunning high alpine scenery.  The BEX left Chur at around 8:30am, so we were a bit drowsy from our early morning train ride from Zürich to Chur, although it was quite nice to wake up to lovely views along the Walensee.  The first hour or so was more green and rolling lower mountains and vineyards as the sun burned away the low hanging clouds.  I also became aware that everyone else on the train around us had at least 40 years on us.  Apparently my birthday desires align quite closely with those of the geriatric crowd.

typical Swiss town close to Chur

Despite the fact that it was quite early in the morning, there is nothing so satisfying on a long train ride as breaking out a nice bottle of wine and some bread and cheese.  I’d saved a nice crisp Räuschling for the purpose, and we were soon toasting to the mountains in springtime.  It was kind of tricky snagging photos from out the window of a moving train, but I did my best.

Oh hey, mountains. I like you.

The train slowed a bit as it began chugging to the top of the Bernina mountain pass, and the views became just jaw dropping.  My heart will always belong to the high alpine.

On our way up to Alp Grüm

glacial lakes!

Finally- to Italy!  People living in Switzerland love to dip out into our neighboring countries because it feels immediately like you have become a high roller.  Bottle of wine with dinner?  Don’t mind if I do!  Try every type of cheese at the local grocer?  But of course!  Two tequila shots with lunch?  Why not!  (This really happened, and it was amazing.  Until we almost missed our bus.)

Alp Grüm photo stop, where we made friends with some American tourists.

Dropping back into sunny Italy, somewhere around Pontresina?

One of the fun things about living in central Europe is that if you ever get tired of the status quo, you can just hop on a train and be immersed in a whole new culture in just a couple hours.  Tirano is a lovely, atmospheric little town in the northern Italy lakes region.  It is literally surrounded on all sides by mountains and climbing vineyards, the pace of life is slow, and the food is delightful.  I also heard my first ever cuckoo bird, which I didn’t even know was a real thing.  I thought they were made up for the clocks.

Peeling palazzo.

Beautiful Tirano churches.

After a day of relaxed wanderings through decaying palazzos and fascinating cemeteries, we continued back into Switzerland to bask in the perfect weather around Lake Como and Lake Lugano.  We rented a boat and chugged around on the water, making two important life discoveries: 1) making panoramic photos on a moving boat leads to some…interesting…results, and 2) house keys do not know how to swim and Lake Lugano is 200m (650ft) deep.

He didn’t need that shoulder anyway.

I’ll really have to talk some other time about Ticino, the Swiss Italian region.  It is interesting and almost uncanny how drastically the character of Switzerland changes when you stray too far to the west or south, but yet isn’t quite Italian or French either.  There is the obvious of the language, but really the entire mindset and lifestyle seems to change as well.  It makes Switzerland a very interesting place to do health research.

Anyway, after mourning the keys and strolling around under the palm trees with gelato in hand, it was time to return to less exotic Zürich.  But I know it won’t be long till the Italian sun reels me back in.