Lausanne's Farm

One good thing about going to visit friends in far flung places is that they frequently know the best places to go, the places you wouldn't normally find or think to go to as a regular tourist. Much was the case in Lausanne last month when I went to visit my friends.  

They took me to Lausanne's farm, the last farm in the city......they grow vegetables and they bring them in from around the canton so that there is an amazing farm shop open every day during the growing months. Wednesday and Saturday are the best as those are the days when the fresh produce arrives and the choice is greatest.

Many of my friends know that I love to take photos of food, particularly markets....so much so that when I went to Rome many years ago (pre-digital) I took one picture of the Colosseum and 15 pictures of the Campo di Fiori market. Things haven't changed much and I was in my element here. Oh and the vegetables we bought were seasonal and tasted amazing too!

In the UK supermarkets we generally get 2 or 3 kinds of tomatoes and they are generally regular in shape and red......

The tiny courgettes and the flowers were made into a lovely pasta sauce the day after.

I've never seen cauliflowers that aren't white before.

It's here that my friends do their vegetable shopping on a weekly basis - I would love to have access to a market like this.

I grew these zebra tomatoes last summer in my living room window.

I tried to find out something about the market on the internet but no luck - will have to ask my friends for the details.

My tour of UNESCO World Heritage Sites

This summer I visited some beautiful places, many of which have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.....

1. Real Alcazar and Cathedral of Seville with it's Moorish architecture and beautiful landscaping. The orange grove in the courtyard of the cathedral, the view from La Giralda tower..

2. The Historic Centre of Cordoba, including the Mezquita with its forest of arches covering the floor of one of the largest mosques in the world, with a Baroque style church constructed in the middle by the Christians that retook the city in the 13th century. 

3. The Lavaux Terrace Vineyards of Switzerland - the vineyards seem to extend high into the air above the shores of Lake Geneva, with the terraces dating back to the 11th century.

We spent an hour in the late summer sunshine wandering through the vineyards, looking at the large bunches of grapes almost ready for picking and looking at the view over the lake and the mountains.

Wanderings - Switzerland

I've been to Switzerland, land of mountains, lakes, chocolate, cows, cable cars and more.

I went to my friend Eva and Barry's wedding at Cafe Merian in Basel at the apex of Switzerland, France and Germany. At the airport you have to chose whether you want to go through Swiss or French customs. The wedding was a similarly cosmopolitan affair - an Irish man marrying a Dutch girl in Switzerland - both having lived in Scotland prior to Switzerland. It was a beautiful day in a perfect location that matched the bride and groom perfectly.

Basel was a fun city - medieval buildings, a beautiful market, swimming in the Rhine and museums galore. 

Pity I only had a morning to explore - the day after the wedding I was off to visit my friends in Lausanne. Having been to Lausanne 2 or 3 times before we decided this time to take a trip to the mountains for some hiking and some scenery. We went to Munster in the Goms Valley for 2 nights, staying in a hotel that was built in 1620 - Le Croix D'Or et Poste, surrounded by high peaks, green green pastures, higgeldy piggeldy old wooden chalets, Valais style, built without nails...wood blackened by the years....

The first day we took the cable car from Fiesch to Fieschalp and hiked about for 6 hours, visiting the Aletsch Glacier, the longest glacier in Europe. After studying glaciation at university it was great to see a real glacier up close.....nothing can prepare you for the sheer size of the ice field carving it's way through the mountains or the blue blue blue of the ice. We had the prefect lunch spot, sitting next to a little lake overlooking both the mighty Aletsch Glacier and the slightly smaller Fiesch Glacier - we even had a group of hiking nuns to keep us happy - very Sound of Music!!

The next day was off, further up the Goms valley to Gletsch where 3 mountain passes meet - the Nufenen Pass, the Grimsel Pass and the Furka Pass and the start of the River Rhone, the Rhone Glacier. I wonder what will happen to the Rhone when the glacier contracts even further - it has already shrunk about 1300m since 1870 - check out the photos here. We then drove over the Grimsel Pass (having lunch at the top with yet more wonderful views) on our way back to Lausanne. I managed to persuade my hosts, that despite the mild (rather than hot) temperatures we should still go swim in Lake Geneva that evening - my first outdoor swim for 2 years - a little chilly on entry but so refreshing once in.....next the beach in Greece!