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Lake Geneva, Switzerland
I'm just action and other times reaction
For a thousand years there has been a castle here on the north shore of Lake Geneva (or Lac Leman to locals). Located near Montreux (less than an hour walk along the Lac if you're up for it), the castle stood guard as a sort of toll booth, attacking all of the merchant traders who did not pay tribute. Today it is tourable and, once inside, you can easily cross its moat, walk its rooms and climb its tower as long as you pay an admission fee. Just keeping up traditions I guess.
On the edge of the city of Geneva, on the French border and not all that far from the airport, is a big giant wooden sphere (about 7 stories high) that was relocated from the 2002 Swiss National Exhibition. It stands as a landmark and as the public face of CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research (somehow that works out in French as an acronym to CERN, not sure how exactly). Not only is it the place where the world wide web was invented in 1989, it is also home to the world's largest super collider, a mammoth continuous tube that is 300 feet underground, crosses the border into France and has a circumference around 16 miles. It is where the Higgs boson (also kind of known as the god particle) was officially discovered and seems the place most likely to mistakenly destroy the fabric of space time and the universe itself, although hopefully I'm wrong about that.
So while particles accelerate underground at near unimaginable speeds, above ground the giant wooden sphere has free public galleries to calm the public and try to help explain what the hell is going on. Green glowing balls and spherical chairs from the future (or possibly from some sort of really fun Swiss furniture store) help to set the mood and also hold nearly unintelligible exhibits about bosons and antihydrogen and neutrinos and the end of the world. All thanks to the good people at CERN.
Fifteen years ago in 1997, I took my first trip to Europe and my first trip to Lausanne. I had known enough to include it on that first all railpass, all hostel, no showers (ok, almost no showers) trip, but did not spend an awful lot of time there. I remember staying at a hostel along the lake, riding the metro, seeing the old town and watching the sun set from Ouchy. The next morning I had boarded a local train bound for Montreux and eventually the mountains. From the window of the train I remember seeing terraces spilling down to the lake and thought it might have been one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Right then, right there I made a promise to return one day.
Ten years ago in 2002, I visited Switzerland to see the Expo and the Diller + Scofidio (sorry Renfro) Blur Building. During that trip, I saved some time for Lausanne to see the terraces, to see up close what had captured my imagination so many years ago. The time I spent in Lausanne that time was marked by an unusually heavy rain storm, one that I almost ignored but one that I finally gave into. I renewed my promise to return one day as I cursed the same weather that kept me inside and away from my destiny.
Two and a half months ago in 2012, ten years after I was thwarted by the weather and fifteen years after I first saw it from a train window, I finally walked those terraces, a place as perfect as I imagined and even more beautiful than I hoped.
The area of the terraces is called the Lavaux, a twenty mile stretch of lakefront that for well over a thousand years has been home to vineyards. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is dotted with small towns and wineries and served by two commuter rail lines, one at the top of the hill and one below. Between them there are many marked walking paths along side the stone walls that allow you to easily see the Lavaux at your own pace and allow you to wander off in whatever direction you want. I roughly followed a path that was recommended to me by the woman at the Lausanne TI office, one that started at the railway station in Chexbres and then went to St Saphorin and Rivaz. At every step there was another amazing view of and from the terraces, as the lake and the mountains and the view toward Evian (France) all tried to steal my attention.
This all too short slideshow comes to an end at the lake and at the Lavaux, one last view of Switzerland as the water and the mountains and the sky do their best to blur together into one.
