From: Tuesday, July 11, 2017
To: Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Three villages I wanted to visit after my stay at Geneva was Montreux, Vevey, and Lausanne. Montreux for the Jazz festival, Vevey for its scenery that made Charlie Chaplin settle there for the rest of his life, and Lausanne for its location being near the two previous villages. I didn’t know before scamming through korean travel guide books that the travel hot spots of Switzerland was Zermatt, Interlaken, and Luzern. But I wasn’t attracted to those cities because it was a tourist zone and I was feeling more the local and peaceful vibe of the beautiful villages on Lac Leman. The day I arrived at Montreux though, I had to cancel my schedule around this area because there was a storm coming soon. I could use the train to travel anywhere in Switzerland for free that day (using my Eurail Pass) and so I decided, on the spot, to go to Interlaken, the most traveled city in Switzerland, far enough to be sunny.
Montreux
Starting with Montreux, I wanted to check out the Jazz festival. But the ticket was too expensive (around 140 euros?), so I didn’t attend it, but I could hear the concert music even by walking around the town.
Looks like scenery pictures you see as desktop wallpaper or calendar photos, but they are photos taken by me with my iPhone! I enjoyed walking around the town and taking pictures. No skill needed to take beautiful scenery pictures here, you just take a random picture and you have a master piece.
Montreux is the town where Queen stayed during Freddie Mercury’s last days.
On the way to Freddie Mercury’s museum.
Here you have the original lyric copy of A Winter’s Tale written by Freddie Mercury. I love the song💙
If I was born in the medieval era, I would love to frequent this castle and spend time here.
Interlaken
The road to Interlaken was sunny. The mountainous scenery I enjoyed from the train view was beautiful, at first. I realized that I am really claustrophobic because seeing little houses in the middle of the endless chains of mountains was extremely frustrating. I literally wished to wipe out all the mountains and replace them with a clean horizon X the earth and the sky.
The sky of Interlaken when I arrived seemed as though it was going to rain pretty soon. A lady at the ticket box suggested to walk down the famous street and so that’s what I did! At first, I tried to go to other places, searching for a lake view or quiet places, but I failed because there were pretty much nothing apart from this street in this area. So I walked the street, it was full of expensive brands and asian tourists (they all looked pretty rich). I had dinner at a kebab house in an isolated area and this kebab was actually so delicious! It rained soon.
There were some hidden places like these that were less touristy.
Vevey
The next day, I traveled with a Canadian friend. She rescued me from yesterday’s nightmare. So this is what happened : In interlaken, there wasn’t a train straight back to Montreux so I had to transfer several times. In the course, I missed a train because the previous one was late. So I arrived in Montreux really late whereas I needed to arrive before 10 pm in order to check in. I arrived at 22:06 ( as I can remember) and the counter was empty and the door locked. I have ran barefoot till the hostel (b/c my flip flops were uncomfortable to run with), and asked God to make me brave enough to be able to sleep outside that night.
At the door, this girl appeared at the lobby so I knocked at the door and she opened for me and I was finally able to get in. Still, there was nobody at the counter, so I explained to her my situation. That’s how we got to know each other and I finally was able to get a room and found out that we were assigned the same room. She was also thinking about going to Chateau de Chillon the next day and Vevey, so we decided to spend the day together. The next day, after visiting the “cool” chateau de Chillon, we moved to Vevey. This village was peaceful but lively; there was nature and people at the cafe, in the store, in the playground, and in the street. We didn’t do much. Just walking around the village was so refreshing.
Leave a Reply