Thursday - Having seen the sights of Geneva we didn't really feel like spending another day in town. Katie suggested we go to Nyon and from there across the lake to Yvoire. I had thought we could go up lake Geneva to Montreaux and up to Gruyere. But that was a two hour train ride each way and the ferry was more like five hours!
The day which was meant to be cloudy dawned without any clouds in the sky- So shortly after a coffee we headed out to the airport train station - bagging a geocache on the way- one of the most cleverly set up caches I"d seen in a while! - it was set up to look like a service point along the path but when you flipped the lid the cache was inside! Much nicer than in the stinky bushes where people had dumped rubbish.
We had trouble with the machines, so ended up getting the tickets from a lovely man at the counter. I will say something for people in Geneva.. the men seem to use a lot of brill and the women are always beautifully done up! very odd actually, as I was tramping around in my jeans and T shirts! The man at the counter would not had looked out of place in a brill cream add despite being quite young, his hair was polished into a lovely sweep to the side!
We missed the direct train so needed to make a change, which is not much of an inconvenience as we had which platform numbers to go to! We arrived in Nyon with about 30 minutes to walk down the hill to the ferry. Only we went right rather than left - so after meandering along for a bit and realising we were out of touristville decided we had headed the wrong way. This meant we were up above the harbour along a lovely garden where they were finishing pruning for the season. They seem to chop the trees quite dramatically which gives the trees a strange lumpy stunted look to the branches. I'd imagine in summer with the new growth coming from the truncated limbs that it would be lovely, but trimmed back it was a bit odd. Anyway we could see the ferry terminal and raced down a staircase having a giggle that just further along the garden was a lift on the edge of the slope - well it is all about accessibility!
We made it to the ferry and sat outside on the bow as france drew nearer. Seems so odd to move between countries at the drop of a hat! Yvoire is a garden town, set in an old medieval castle walls. The castle itself was torn down but the some of the walls remain along with a residence (built later) and the church. The town itself is pretty with flower boxes everywhere. Actually they were removing the boxes and ditching the flowers and soils to make compost for next year. There are also two harbours which we wandered along, determining which type of vessel we would choose - a sailing boat, a little cute fishing one or one of these mega expensive cruising boats?
I think we decided on a catamaran with enough space for sleeping and an engine for low winds! Ha keep dreaming right.
The town is full of little tourist shops but we just meandered around then tried to decipher what restaurant were selling for lunch! Eventually we found a place outside the walls overlooking the harbour, we asked to sit outside but the french lady told us it was dirty so we sat inside and had lunch. Ken had wonderful local fish - they called it perch but who knows. all I know is it came with a lovely citron butter sauce that even now makes my mouth water. I being safe had a steak which was not too bad but no where near as good as Kens fish. It was served with a red wine sauce and pomme frittes .
We went to see the garden of five senses but it was shut for the season so as the afternoon drew on (did I mention that after lunch I had a little nap in the sun in one of the little gardens while Ken explored?) we decided it was time to head back. Especially as we only had swiss franc and france uses Euro so we couldn't buy an ice-cream!
A short ferry ride later and we were back in Switzerland and purchasing said ice-cream with our swiss franc. Mine was black current flavoured with dark chocolate. YUM.
Back to Gene's where we packed our stuff ready for a reasonably early morning train to Interlaken.