05-21 Lake Geneva Boat Ride

Should we or shouldn't we? That was the question that plagued us all morning. It had rained last night and the forecast was for more and heavier in the late afternoon. Sometimes they get it right. We discussed it over breakfast and then in the room and with the boat leaving in an hour we walked out of the room and headed for the water.

Picked up some food at McD and ate it so we weren't hungry on the boat. Got to the dock 15 min early and paid for our tickets ($92 Swiss Francs) then remembered to ask about Eurorail Pass discount. "zee boat ride is free then, mosieur", he replied. The passes were in our room. Karen, always thinking, asked if we could get a refund if we went and got them after the cruise and he said to come see him. WE WILL. Great news. Best decision of the day was to go on the boat ride at THAT price.

Well, the weather turned out to be just fine. At times we were even on deck without our coats on.

We enjoyed the Swiss hill country views from the boat.

We docked about 7 times going north along the lake.

The views of the huge mansions and their hillside, terraced vineyards was awesome.

We passed community after community perched on rocks and those that were down in the valley areas lined the lake.

There were large beautiful hotels everywhere.

At 1:30 we arrived at the Chateau Chillon and stopped for a few minutes. Everyone got off but us and only a few got on.

I met two ladies doing Pilgrims Walk from Canterbury to Rome getting stamps on their map along the way. They will end in St. Peters Square in Rome and they will get a certificate. 1200 miles of walking. They got off the boat in Montreaux to continue their walk. On our return down the lake they waved to us from the shoreline walkway. Here is a link to the wikipedia article on the walk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Francigena

We spied two funiculars on the hills that carried people from the shore to high in the hills.

Seeing trains along the shore was fun too. They would blast their horn and our captain would toot his in reply.

On the return trip we picked up a tour group of 60 Romanians and the boat was noisy now.

I blogged some on my iPhone as the scenery repeated itself from what I saw on the way up the lake.

This is such a pretty area but not a place for middle class Americans to move to. It is the most expensive place to live that we've been to so far. Two McD meals cost us about $28 US for lunch yesterday. A Cheeseburger Happy Meal is $7.60 US. Save your pennies as there are pretty places to live in the US also.

The countryside and the time rolled by and we arrived back at our starting point at 3:15pm.

We decided to say YES from now on when we'd rather just sit and be lazy. We had a great ride and were able to still relax - a great combination.

Still left to do today: get a box from the Post Office and mail some stuff (souvenirs) home, check and see if we can upgrade our 2nd class tickets to 1st class (laptop power), and take our pass back to the boat guy and get our $100 refund. YES!

Oh, and yesterday's blog entry about the Giant "C" in the harbor on the breakwater...this one.

It's a huge weather vane!