Tuesday - October 8, 2024
Woke to cloudy skies and light rain; the mountain was completely obscured. We really lucked out with the weather yesterday! Had breakfast, took the electric shuttle to the airport. Were able to take a slightly earlier train down the mountain to Visp. Changed to an inter-city train where we were upstairs and had the whole car to ourselves.
Train dropped us in Montreaux where we caught a short taxi to the Fairmont Palace Hotel. Beautiful grand building, had a very nice lake view room. Had lunch in the hotel before walking back to the train station for a train to Aigle to see our friend Karin. She met us at the station and we walked up to her apartment about 10 minutes away. Had fun chatting for a while.
Randy decided to head back to the hotel, Rick stayed. Randy chilled for the afternoon and evening, Rick enjoyed time with Karin's daughter Sam and her friend Isabella. Rick headed back to the hotel around 10, then we watched some TV on the iPad before bed.
Wednesday - October 9, 2024
Had breakfast in the hotel restaurant looking out over the water. At 10 our driver Laurent picked us up and took us up to the top of the hillside overlooking town. Started to head to the Chillon Castle, realized we had left a voucher in our room so we went back to the hotel (twice! Oops!).
Made it to the castle just in time for our private tour. Our guide Elona was really nice and gave us lots of fun facts about the castle and its history. After the tour we walked around a bit, then met Laurent back at the car. He drove us to Le Deck, a beautiful restaurant in the vineyards outside Lausanne overlooking the lake. Had a tasty meal, then drove to the Domaine du Daley vineyard for a private wine tasting. We had the whole place to ourselves, it was a really beautiful setting.
Afterwards Laurent drove us back to the hotel. We chilled for a bit (with some of the wine from the winery), had dinner in the hotel restaurant, then relaxed in the room before bed.