The Captivating North Shore of Lake Geneva
Lake Geneva is listed as the largest
natural lake in western Europe, 45 miles long and nearly nine miles
across at its widest point. But I don’t measure it linearly; I say it’s
about an hour and a quarter long—the time it takes to ride a high-speed
train from Geneva on the western end to Montreux on the east.
It is an all-too-short period of time,
because there is so much to see along the spectacular route along the
Swiss northern shore. And so much to remember, so many segues to the
past.
Starting point of my recent journey was Cointrin airport, oft-visited by me in a half-century love affair with
the Alps. A brief stop in Geneva reminded me that the cultural city is
headquarters of many international organizations and has many fine
museums.
On the second day of spring
I was glued to a right window. On the lake that never freezes a solitary
rower rippled the blue water. One of us was out of season. I was
circling the lake to get to Champéry to ski in famed Portes du Soleil,
the international domain that Switzerland shares with France. Behind the
man in the boat, across the lake, snow-capped mountains caught low-lying
clouds---puffs of cotton in the couloirs.
Between Geneva and Lausanne I was a bobble
head, bouncing between the lake on the right and extensive vineyards on
the left. What wines would flow from them in a few months? Behind the
yellow apartment buildings I could picture the Olympic museum and its
outstanding exhibits, not only of all the achievements of the modern
Games, but of artifacts dating back to their Greek origins centuries
before the Christian era. A great place for a skier to visit on a bad
weather day.
I wondered if the ladies who relieved me
of a few francs were still playing bridge in their posh hotel. When we
stopped briefly in Vevey I remembered a visit to the home of Charlie
Chaplin where a group of writers met with the family of one of his sons.
A bronze statue of the Tramp on the lawn overlooking the lake was a
reminder of the magic of the famous comedian.Vevey’s cemetery holds at
least two other prominent actors, Audrey Hepburn and Richard Burton.
Our group also spent an evening with the
son of Russian novelist Vladimir Nabakov; he had created a career out of
reading from his father’s works.
When I wasn’t staring at the lake, I
scanned the hills for castles and saw an occasional one. But at Montreux
I jumped up from my seat as the train
breezed by the 13th century castle of Chillon, featured in
Lord Byron’s famous poem “The Prisoner of Chillon.” I knew that it
would be in view for only a minute or two as we arced around its
location on a tiny island.
When the lake disappeared, there was water
still to be seen. The Rhone River flows into Lake Geneva at this end,
emerges on the west and enters France to become its third largest river
(after the Seine and Loire). I am always fascinated by the fact that
three major rivers, primarily associated with other countries, originate
in tiny Switzerland. France’s Rhone, Germany’s Rhine and Austria’s Inn
all have their sources in the Swiss Alps.
My memorable train ride ended shortly
afterward in the town of Aigle, where I made a connection for my
Champéry destination. But if I were going farther on this express train
toward Sion and Brig for a visit to Crans Montana or Zermatt, there
would have been many more vineyards to marvel over and castles to
romanticize.
These Were Not
Railroad Signals
Sometimes there can be
distractions, interruptions in reminiscence. During an earlier train
ride from Geneva to Zermatt I heard a voice over my shoulder. "Are you
an American? You were talking to the conductor in English."
She was blonde and pert,
wearing boots and a leotard and looking like Janet Leigh with a few
miles on her. Let’s call her Janet. I did not notice her when she came
aboard. When a passenger across the aisle left the train, Janet slipped
into the empty seat.
Thus began a three-hour
encounter in which Janet flashed more signals than there are stoplights
on Broadway. She was a widow from Australia, who didn’t miss her husband
or his kids from an earlier marriage. "Isn’t it interesting that you and
I are both going to Zermatt," she said. "Do you believe in fate? It’s
such a romantic place, especially with new friends. I know you will be
skiing, but what else are you going to do?"
She probed for areas of
mutual interest. Did I like Hemingway? Wasn’t it a shame about Scott
Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda? Whenever I tried to point out something in the
passing landscape, she had a different frame of reference. The vineyards
along the Rhone River didn’t interest her, but she wanted to know my
preferred wine vintages.
I deftly worked into the
conversation that I had served in World War II; she could easily
calculate my age. I mentioned that I usually travel with my fiancée
Connie. Janet ignored the irrelevant clues.
A horse drawn carriage from
a top hotel was waiting for her at the station in Zermatt. I purposely
avoided telling her the name of my hotel, but as we parted I said that I
might call. Maybe we could have a drink.
"That would be truly
lovely," she said.
I never did call. The brief
encounter was good for my ego, even though it did nothing for my id.
Long ago in B.C. - Before Connie - I might have had that drink.
I hope Janet liked Zermatt.
Along the Rhone and Rhine
I had another great train ride and nostalgic binge last winter. Armed
again with a Rail Europe flexible pass, I was able to pause along the
way to ski in eight major resorts and jump back on the train a day or
two later. In a three-week journey I saw much of the Rhone and Rhine
rivers, even when they were young and tiny brooks in the Alps of
Switzerland. Memories poured through the train window as amazing
landscapes whizzed by.
This Swiss trip started in Martigny, after I had skied several days in
Chamonix, France. The impressive Verbier resort, where I had been a year
earlier, was a tantalizing, short distance away, but I was headed for
Arosa and Davos in the Graubünden canton of eastern Switzerland.
Between Martigny and Brig I was blinking at the same scenery mentioned
above in the north shore story. Vineyards, castles, white-wigged
mountains, a major highway---and the Rhone River on its way to Lake
Geneva and into France,
As we paused in Visp, I regretted not having in my plan a detour south
to Zermatt to waltz again on the glacier beside the Matterhorn, the
world’s most distinctive rock. Zermatt is one of my favorite areas, for
its ambience, beauty and vast terrain that spills over into Italy.
In the large city of Brig I remembered its many cultural activities that
made the aprés-ski scene more than a night at the bar. After changing
trains here, I was glued to the window at Bitsch to see if I could spot
where Connie and I spent two weeks a dozen years ago. High on the
mountain in a chalet for which we had made a vacation-home exchange with
Swiss friends. It was our base for skiing in Rieder, Fiescher and
Bettmer Alps, three interconnected areas not seen often by Americans.
They overlook the awesome Aletsch, at 14 miles the longest glacier in
the Alps.
(I returned several years later on a press trip to ski with Art Furrer,
trick ski artist of the 1960s who is now a prominent hotelier in
Riederalp. In his mid-70s, he still does javelin turns, with one ski up
behind his ear.)
When the train stopped briefly in the colorful village of Münster, I
remembered a bit of its history. It was the birthplace of Césare Ritz, a
17-year-old peasant who started in Paris as a waiter and became an
international hotelier. His hotels were noted for elegance, hence the
word “ritzy.”.
During this part of the journey the train seemed to jump over the
valley. We could look directly across the way to the side of another
mountain, where we had just been. The flip flop was possible because of
bridges and tunnels.This is the route of the famed Glacier Express
between Zermatt and St. Moritz; in its eight-hour ride the train passes
over or through about 300 of them.
Between Münster and Oberwald I enjoyed watching and envying hundreds of
Noridc skiers sliding or skating along 60 miles of groomed trails, some
of them within 50 yards of the train tracks. In brilliant sunshine
skiers were showing off their “Cross Country Paradise.”
We needed tunnels to get over the Furka and Oberalp passes, which are
closed in winter. At one stop we watched patient travelers put their
cars aboard trains to be ferried through the passes. The Furka squiggles
past the Rhone glacier, where the river gets its start.
The train made a longer stop in Andermatt, which sits on a plateau
between the two passes. It is a well-known ski resort that I have not
tried in winter but have hiked around in summer. That trip also included
trekking up to the source of the Rhine, just north of the Oberalp pass.
The river begins as a trickle in a cliff and forms tiny Lake Thoma. The
stream that comes out of it grows and grows, enters huge Lake Constance
on the Swiss-German border, goes through Basel, forms a boundary with
France, ends up in Rotterdam, Holland, some 800 miles away.
I dangled a sore ankle in the frigid water of Lake Thoma---for about 20
seconds. “How cold is this?” I asked the guide, who had been explaining
how he rappels down the cliff in search of semi-precious stones,
something other collectors are not brave enough to do.
He held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “This cold,” he
smiled.
Between Oberalp and Chur, capital city of the canton of Graubünden, the
train on this trip passed through Sedrun and Disentis, two resorts that
I have sampled on skis. The slopes were visible from the train. Some
distance from the valley and beneath an imposing mountain range were
Flims, Laax and Falera, whose sking “circus” is affectionately known by
natives as the White Arena.
It is an area that I have visited often in the past40 years, primarily
because of Swiss cousins who had a vacation home in Laax. It is another
great area that, sadly, still needs to be discovered by Americans. (See
the Flims page here in the book.)
Some of my visits were in summer; an exciting one found me whitewater
rafting on the Rhine.
The cultural city of Chur, with an old part of town that is straight out
of the Middle Ages, holds a bundle of memories, too. My older cousins
and I used to dine here in romantic surroundings. In a popular guild
hall they managed to convince me that a heavy meal of fondue or raclette
needed an after-dinner Schnapps “to make the cheese less binding.”
On this trip I flashed my Rail Pass in Chur as I changed trains, from
the Swiss national system, to the small Rhaetian railway for the amazing
switchback ride to Arosa, where new adventures awaited.
For a brief account of Arosa and a subsequent visit
to Davos with a later generation cousin, visit their respective pages.
