Lausanne and Mt. Saleve

We (a Spaniard and an American) started a sunny Saturday taking the bus south out of Geneva to Mt. Saleve in France. From there, we took a cable car to the top and had some fantastic views of Geneva and the valley. We arrived early enough in the morning to have the entire summit to just ourselves and the tram operator for a good two hours. The "half-hour" trail loop to the east of the summit was deceiving - the "trail" was even more so. If you ever decide to go "off piste" and walk around the summit, just realize it takes you twice as long to ascend as it does to descend. We learned this the hard way. We glimpsed a vision of our early deaths at the slope where hanggliders conduct lessons and decided to take the tram back down.

We were looking to get into some more trouble and decided to hop back into Geneva and take the train 50 minutes east, along Lake Geneva, to Lausanne. We had a quick lunch on the lakefront (which I would say kicks the Geneva lakefront's butt) and a siesta on the cement retaining wall, surrounded by rollerbladers and skateboarders. We woke up an hour and a half later hungry and slightly sunburned.

We stumbled towards the bus to catch towards the old town and in 5 minutes found ourselves overlooking the entire city from the Cathedral of Notre Dame - by far the nicest example of a cathedral I've seen thus far. The expected narrow, cobble-stoned streets adorned the old town area and were a pain in the gluteus to walk around. Definitely more of a vertically-challenged city than Geneva. Before catching the night train back, we topped off the day with a waffle smeared with Nutella at the local kiosk that was blaring Bob Marley. Perfect end to a perfect day.

Just returned from a ski trip to Klosters - working on post. Leaving tomorrow for Easter holiday in southern France (Die, Bourdeaux, Crest).