Switzerland

Today was a great day. Took Sophie on an alpine slide that we found up in the mountains near Gruyere, just outside of Lausanne Switzerland. I don’t know what it is with me and Soph and rollercoasters. She just has a lot of fun on them and I have way too much fun taking her on them. Perhaps I have a hidden desire for her to grow up as a confident person and somehow I equate her being unafraid of something like a rollercoaster as a sign of confidence. Regardless, enjoy the little video clip I shot of us going down the slide. It cost $7 per ride and I took Soph down three times. Pricey, but priceless, (thanks Jeff and Denise O’Bryan for the little “camera on a stick” that let me shoot such a cool video).



Gruyere is famous for its cheese. I think it is one of the main components of true fondue. It’s a titch stinky but I’m sure its good when its actually IN fondue. Anyways, we basically spent the day in this alpine valley with the tiny town of Gruyere as the main draw. There’s a groovy little castle at the peak of a little hill with a little one lane village spilling down from the castle. We also toured a chocolate factory. The swiss are famous for their chocolate. Not sure why. Cacao is from equatorial countries. I guess the Swiss just really took to the stuff a hundred years ago and it’s the milk from their cows that makes it really good. At the end of the tour there’s a tasting room and you can taste as much of it as you want. Anneka and I thought we’d gorge ourselves on samples but after two small samples we were dying for some water or milk to wash it down.








The mountains here are stunningly beautiful. Utah’s mountains are certainly pretty but part of what makes the Alps so amazing is the beauty of the area around the base of the mountains. It’s all just so green. It seems impossibly green. The grasses are thick and lush.

Makes me want to be a farmer.

We came back to the hotel relatively early and thought we’d go for a swim. The pool here is really unique, its half pool and half pond. It’s man-made but half of it blends into the landscape with water lilies and other aquatic plants. It’s pretty cool. One problem with it though is that it’s fed by a natural mountain spring.

Can you say cold?

Neat pool, but I doubt it ever gets used.

Tomorrow we’re off to Lausanne for the day. We’ll go to the Olympic museum. We went there once ten years ago but half of it was closed because Juan Antonio Samaranch was there for some meetings. So, we’re going back for round two. Should be neat as we’ll get to see the Salt Lake Olympic nicknacks on display which I don’t think were there last time. Weather has been wonderful thus far. First two days were in the mid 70’s and just perfect. Today was actually surprisingly toasty. Surprising because of the altitude we were at. It was about 87 degrees. Yesterday was a transfer day. The trip was always about being in Switzerland. We started in Paris just becuase of the Salt Lake to Paris direct flight on Delta. So, there was a long drive to Switzerland as part of it all. That was yesterday. But, we stopped at Vaux le Vicomte south of Paris first.

Wow! Rich 17th century French dudes really knew how to build a house!









The place is simply amazing. So amazing in fact that a month after it was done King Louis XIV took it away from the guy that built it (Nicolas Fouquet). Long story short Fouquet was an astute and capable bean counter (finance minister) for Louis XIV. He was born into some money, married into some more and made a boatload beyond that. He was so rich that he was one of the few of that era that could lend money back to the Louis' government. Anyways, like I said he was really good at what he did and was really well off. The chateaux is simply fabulous. Story has it that the King had some garage envy.

Literally, he was amazed at the size of this guys carriage house and stables. (they are huge).

The story starts much earlier. The King was crowned at age 5 and was obviously too young to rule. So, his mom and a Cardinal were the caretakers of the boy and the kingdom. When the cardinal died his assistant, who was jealous of and hated Fouquet passionately, hatched a plan to disgrace and discredit Fouquet so that he could somehow assume the level of power that Fouquet had. So, because the King loved the Cardinal, who was like a father figure to him, he respected the words of the Carinal's assistant. So much so that he beleived the assistants every word. So, to the present, the King is invited to Fouquets housewarming party, see's his garage, has garage envy, listens to the maligning words of the assistant and agrees that Fouquet has too much. So, he arrests him, they drum up all sorts of wacky charges. The trial lasted over three years. The panel of hand-picked and bribed judges convicted Fouquet and his punishment was banishment. He could live, he just couldn't live in France. He lost everything. The King was incensed that the judges didn't give him the death sentence so the King, beleiving fully in his omnipotence and "divine right" extended the sentence to life in prison. Fouquet was put in prison for the rest of his life and he died there 19 years later.
So, Fouquet builds this gargantuan house, with a gargantuan garage, with amazing gardens and fountains and gets to live in it for all of one month. Anyways, the place was simply stunning. I got to go up to the cupola on the roof for a great look out. Cool part is that you hike up from inside and get to see the entire timber structure of the dome. It's just a cacophany of mammoth timbers all held together with dowels. There was a film crew filming a TV movie at the Chateaux that day and they had lights all up in the dome. I kept thinking of the Provo Tabernacle getting torched and wanted to strike up a conversation with the film crew but I don't know how to say, "Hey, shut the lights off so you don't torch this place" in French. So, I said nothing. We rented a golf cart to cruise the grounds of the place and in one section they were filming a part of a TV movie and the security guards for the production company were all carrying machine guns. We thought that was strange. Apparently the French actors in this movie are so famous they must be protected with machine guns. Made us wonder if like Julia Roberts has 15machine gun toting guards around her when she's on set. It was just an all around amazing place.








From there we high-tailed it to Lausanne and got in around midnight last night. We're glad our long drive of the trip is over. Just day trips from here on out. Soph has been such an amazing traveler. She's been so tolerant of all the travel and all of us are having fun. More later.