BYU
During the 1990-1991 school year at Brigham Young University, I was roommates with Kelly and Kenneth Stotts. They were identical twins, and I remember one evening talking to one of them for 45 minutes, when suddenly the phone rang. When I answered, someone asked, "Is Kelly there?" and I looked over and said, "I don't know..." But I guessed it was Kelly and was right. Soon thereafter, I could tell them apart easily. Here's a picture from a 50s dance we had, with the twins on the two sides.
Kelly wandered around the apartment those days with little hearts floating above his head, exclaiming, "Isn't Maria awesome?" She was, to be sure, but since everyone was down in the dumps, we grumbled a bit. Another roommate Layne said, "If I ever say someone's awesome, I want you to beat the crud out of me." As it happens, several months later, Layne met a great gal named Denise, and one evening he said, "Isn't Denise awesome?" My other roommate Jon Hunt and I looked at each other and then tackled Layne and pounded on him for a bit. He laughed, saying he wondered if we had remembered.
Kelly and Maria were married soon thereafter, and I married Linette that next year as well. One other picture I have from that era shows Maria holding their first baby Amber at my 26th birthday party. Kelly is on the right in purple.
Heading to Switzerland
Fast forward another 30 years, and Kelly & Maria were living in Geneva, Switzerland, due to Kelly's job with Pepsi Co. That little baby Amber grew up and married a guy named Wes that ended up working on my team at FamilySearch. Linette and I had always wanted to visit Switzerland, so Wes gave me Kelly's contact info, and I asked Kelly if he had recommendations on what to see and the best time of year to go.
Kelly wrote back with a great list of things to see, and insisted that we come stay with them for at least part of the time. Two of our kids, Jared and Sienna, were planning to go to Austria about that same time, along with Jared's girlfriend Katelyn and our niece (Sharon's daughter) Mikalya. So we decided to spend a week with Kelly & Maria seeing things near Geneva, and then to meet up with the kids in eastern Switzerland and see things on that side of the country.
So on Monday, April 24, 2023, Linette and I flew out of Salt Lake City
When "BeReal" activated, we were at the gate for our first flight, which was to Paris.
We had fun watching movies and shows as we made the long flight across North America and the Atlantic. I tried to sleep during the dark hours but probably only got an hour or two of sleep.
We flew near "Saskatoon, Saskatchewan," which was a phrase my grandpa C. B. Wilson used to have us say as a tongue twister when we were little.
When we got to Paris, I got a croissant to celebrate.
Linette got an hour or two of sleep in this manner.
As we approached Geneva, I was enthralled by the bright yellow fields. They turn out to be fields of "rapeseed" (from the Latin word for turnip, "rapum"), which is used to produce vegetable oil. During our whole trip, I never stopped getting excited every time I saw one of these beautiful yellow fields.
Below is a time lapse video of landing in Geneva, Switzerland. You can see a bunch of the yellow fields as well as Lake Geneva (called Lake Léman by the French, since France borders the lake on the opposite side from Geneva).
Zermatt
Kelly and Maria were at the airport to meet us. After dropping off some excess stuff at their lovely house, we jumped right back in the car and headed for the mountains to go to Zermatt.
It was so fun to catch up with Kelly and Maria. Linette had only met them a couple of times before, and it was great to get to know them better. After 32 years, they still looked the same, and were still awesome.
We parked the car in the town of Täsch, where the road ends, and then took a train up to the town of Zermatt, where only certain service vehicles (mostly electric) are allowed.
We dropped our bags at our AirBnB there, and then went out to explore the town.
As we approached a bridge that has a spectacular view of the legendary Matterhorn, the "BeReal" for the day happened to go off, so we snapped a picture.
The only time I had seen the Matterhorn before this was at Disneyland, so I thought this was awesome.
Kelly and Maria had been to Zermatt just once before, so we were all enjoying the view.
By standing further back and zooming in, the mountain looked even bigger, which is perhaps more how it seemed when standing there in person.
Right by that bridge was a church with a cemetery out back.
The cemetery had the graves of people who died climbing the Matterhorn. This gravestone has the epithet, "I chose to climb."
Wherever we walked in town, the mountain looked over us.
Later the clouds made it look like the mountain was breathing out snow.
We wandered up to get tickets to the mountains for the next day, and explored the town as we went.
There were some really old houses, some of which are still inhabited.
The town of Zermatt is at an altitude of 5200 feet, and it was cold there, so we wore hats and a few layers.
That evening we went to dinner at Restaurant du Pont, a very traditional Swiss restaurant.
I had schnitzel, and Linette had "Rösti", a traditional potato dish, and it was all very good. Maria also introduced us to "Rivella", a Swiss soda made from something related to the cheese making process. So I dubbed it "cheese soda," which sounded disgusting. It actually tasted good, like a mix of cream soda and Pez.
The church with the graveyard looked a bit creepy at night.
I had my favorite Idahoan pose in front of the "Potato Fine Food Restaurant".
This store had lots of cute Swiss stuff for sale. I think I forgot to take time to shop during the entire trip.
It had been a long day. In fact, it was so long that it started the day before, and 8 hours earlier than that to boot. So we fell right asleep. However, I still woke up at 5 a.m. due to jet lag, so I bundled up and sat on the back balcony and enjoyed the pretty town and the bright stars.
I finally headed back in just after hearing the first bird start to sing.
In the morning we hit a bakery for breakfast. All my stuff seemed like dessert.
We had gone to this kiosk the night before to get tickets to the mountain peaks. It didn't work so we went up and got them up the hill a ways. That night, Linette realized that she didn't have her return train ticket back to the town where we parked the car. So in the morning, we retraced our steps to the kiosk, and there was her ticket still sitting on the floor since the night before! That was a miracle.
The Matterhorn greeted us with blue skies that morning.
Glacier Paradise
We got a "Peak-to-Peak" pass that would takes us on gondolas up to Glacier Paradise and then on a cogwheel train up to another peak.
It was so fun to fly way up in the sky and see the views down below.
We rode with snowboarders and others on the way up, and had a lively conversation.
Soon we were above the green and rocky valley and were soaring over snowy mountains.
At the first main stop, we walked on the snow and I saw people skiing. It made me really want to put on some skis and join them. (That, in turn, made me wonder why I didn't ski more often in Utah.)
The glare from the snow was strong, so Linette got some sunglasses there. While we were there, someone noticed Kelly's BYU hat and showed us his University of Utah socks!
The last leg of the trip up the mountain was in a big gondola packed with people.
People took skis up to the top with us as well.
The views along the way continued to impress.
There was a little window in the top, and you could often see mountains way up through it, too!
The final stop is an area called "Glacier Paradise". They had a little movie at the top showing how they carved tunnels and sculptures through the glacier.
We walked through the rock tunnel and climbed stairs to the observation point.
From there we had spectacular views in every direction. This famous peak is called Breithorn. ("horn" means "peak" in German).
From up here we could see way down into the valley below, where we had been staying in Zermatt.
The Matterhorn isn't actually as impressive from up high as it is from down in the valley. But the entire range of mountains made up for it.
A closer look at Breithorn showed that there were people hiking along the glacier to get to its peak.
You can see a line of hikers here.
If we zoom in, you can see two dots near the top.
These were hikers. Almost there! Don't slip now!
There was a group of people from Thailand or something that were having a great time up there.
In the opposite direction from Zermatt, you could see the valleys of Italy below the distant peaks.
Next, we walked inside a tunnel to the "Glacier Palace," where you can walk through the glacier itself!
The entryway looked like some kind of sci-fi rock tunnel.
Then we transitioned to the tunnel carved into the living glacier.
The ice is so compressed by the force of the glacier that there are no air bubbles, so it gets very clear, and the color gets more blue.
There were also ice sculptures carved with chainsaws and chisels from flat layers of glacier ice.
Even the handrails and walls were made of ice.
Here is a throne in the ice with a wool seat.
There were wool covers on the benches, too.
This guy appears to be pouring water into a cauldron over a fire made of ice.
These roses were suspended in a block of ice.
Here is a 43-second video that shows a bit of the ice inside the Glacier Palace (including some interesting hand rail blocks made of ice), and ends with a time lapse walk that zooms through to the exit.
Back outside, we had a nice little chat with a gal who was skiing there. It was fun watching people ski across the glacier and down the hill.
In the distance you can see the peaks above the valleys in Italy.
I've complained for a while about solar panels that are bolted onto houses in an ugly, utilitarian way with no sense of style. By contrast, these solar panels look like they belong.
Finally, it was time to descend back down the lifts to Zermatt.
The views along the way were spectacular. Here is Breithorn again.
One old man got on with a very nice little dog that he got from Romania.
We had fun chatting with this Swiss gal in English as well.
Here is a video that starts with looking around at the top of the descent, and then does a time lapse video that zooms you all the way down the mountain! (Soundtrack is from "Winter" of Vivaldi's Four Seasons)
Back in Zermatt
Finally we arrived back down in the green valley of Zermatt. Here you can see some of the traditional stone slab shingles. Some newer buildings use uniform squares, and older ones use random shapes.
As we walked by our favorite bridge, the Matterhorn tipped its hat at us.
Things are expensive in Switzerland. Eating at a restaurant often costs 20 to 30 Swiss Franks ("CHF"), which is $22-$33 in U.S. Dollars. So one way to avoid that is to go to the "Coop" grocery stores and grab a prepared sandwich for 6 bucks. I also grabbed a breaded hot dog at the bakery, and it was ok. We went up to our AirBnB and sat on the balcony to eat lunch, since it had a nice, pleasant view.
Next we went to take a Cogwheel Train up the opposite mountain for a different view. Cogwheel trains have two normal railroad tracks, but then have a pair of gears in the center that allow the train to go up and down pretty steep terrain without sliding out of control.
Unfortunately, a section of the track was having a problem with the overhead electric power lines that power the train, so we could only go up part way. Still, the view on the way up was pretty.
A helicopter happened to come in for a landing right then, so it was fun to watch it blow the snow all over the place as it landed.
As we walked along the snowy road to the local resort, Kelly and I threw together a snowman.
The gals helped add a face out of little pine cones and a stick.
Almost as soon as we walked away, some other tourists started taking pictures by it.
From the resort area, we had a pretty good view of the Matterhorn, though the tip was obscured by clouds at that point.
Here's Maria preparing to throw a snowball at Kelly during his selfie.
And there's the snowball in the air! (I think it hit him in the back).
We saw a big duck there, so we took a picture in honor of my brother Joe, who so loves the Oregon Ducks. (The Matterhorn is perfectly blocked by that tree).
There was a little shrine to Mary built into a hollow part of a tree there.
I had fun chatting with a Korean couple on the train on the way back down the mountain.
That evening, Kelly had to do a video call into a college class and gave a presentation to them for an hour or so.
While he was busy with that, Maria, Linette and I all went out to explore the town.
We went to the oldest part of town, were there are many little old buildings, some of which were built in the 1600s or earlier. Most are raised off of the ground (perhaps to protect them from sitting in snow during the winter?)
Some have at least parts that seem to still be either used for storage or inhabited. Others are clearly just there for the historical value.
Some of them have ominously sloping parts.
We found these curved reclined benches, and took advantage of them for a minute. They were even more comfortable than I was expecting. (Of course, I was also exhausted and jet lagged).
We walked along a path with a beautiful green hill on one side and the river on the other.
While there, we saw a paraglider come in for a landing. He had a snowboard on his feet, so I assume he snowboarded somewhere crazy and either lifted off while going down a hill, or snowboarded right off of a cliff and then pulled his chute.
If you want to see what it looked like for him to land, here's a 40-second video of it.
We wanted to get across the river, but there was no bridge at the end of our trail, so we walked across a partially-finished bridge that had no hand rails.
As we walked up the hill, I pretended to play this wooden alphorn.
I thought the stone slab roof tiles were cool.
We could still see the Matterhorn from wherever we went in town.
Due to the mountains in Switzerland, there are a lot of amazingly tall bridges as well as really long tunnels (like 7km / 4 miles).
This house had cute frog statues on its window ledge.
We worked our way back into town, and our bridge yielded yet another version of the Matterhorn.
We went inside the main church that had the graveyard out back. There were some interesting paintings on the wall and ceiling.
This ceiling painting depicts Noah's ark.
Another painting on the ceiling appears to be telling the story of Jonah.
There was a shiny replica of an alphorn going down the steps of this building.
Kelly was just finishing speaking to the class and answering questions, so we all went to a nice restaurant.
On the way back, we took a closer look at the gravestones at the church. It was interesting to see when various people perished on the Matterhorn, and where they were from.
The next morning, we saw the Matterhorn under clear skies.
 |
| Randy's picture of the Matterhorn from Zermatt, April 2023. |
My grandparents, Malcolm & Thelma Merrill, often went to Switzerland because of my grandfather's work with the World Health Organization in Geneva. After our trip, I looked through my grandpa's Switzerland pictures (which I had scanned from his slide film) and found this picture he had taken in Zermatt in May, 1962. Notice that it's at almost the same angle with the same buildings in view. You can see the Matterhorn, the church, and this hotel in the foreground, which has added some balconies, but has enough of the same windows that you can tell it's the same building.
 |
| Malcom Merrill's picture of the Matterhorn from Zermatt, May 1962. |
Gernergrat
Since we had paid extra to take the cogwheel train up to the high viewpoint, we were disappointed when the train wasn't running the day before. So Kelly talked to the ticket guy for a while, and he finally agreed to give us half-day passes for the next day so that we could make it up there.
So that next morning, we hopped back on the cogwheel train, and this time rode it all the way up the mountain.
We soon rose above the valley and got to where it was still very snowy. It felt like we were on the Polar Express.
The peak there is called Gernergrat, and it provides a nice view of the Matterhorn. They even have this frame you can use to take your picture with it.
The view from the top was amazing.
Having been to "Glacier Paradise" the day before, we wondered if the snowy peaks here would still be fun. They were. It was incredible.
Here's a little video that shows a 180-degree selfie view of the area.
We saw paragliders running off of the snowy hills and floating into the air.
There was a cool telescope there that would show the names of the mountains as you pointed at them. (Breithorn is visible in the upper right, and just to the right of that you can just see the viewpoint we went to the day before).
You can kind of see here how the names of the mountains and peaks appear in the view, and these change as you rotate around.
There's a large building at Gernergrat that has an observatory, restaurants and so on.
When my grandparents went to Zermatt in May 1962, they apparently went up to Gernergrat as well. Here's my grandma Thelma Merrill sitting on the wall above the same building. Apparently they hadn't built the observatories into the turrets yet.
 |
| Thelma Merrill at Gernergrat, Switzerland. May 1962. |
 |
| Malcolm Merrill at Gernergrat, Switzerland. May 1962. |
The building there housed the world's largest chocolate Matterhorn, in case you were wondering where that might be. (4478g is almost 10 pounds).
Linette was fascinated by the animal tracks through the snow.
Finally, we got back to Zermatt, and rushed back to our AirBnB so we could check out. We were like 3 minutes late, and our key had already stopped working, but we had one of the cleaning ladies let us in so we could grab our suitcases, which were already packed up and ready to go.
Then we took a train from Zermatt back to Täsch where we had parked.
On the way back towards Geneva, Kelly pulled over so I could jump out and take a picture of this beautiful bridge spanning a deep gorge.
One of my favorite things about Switzerland is the beautiful green hillsides dotted with adorable houses.
Then I ran back to the car so we could get on the road.
Sion
We made a stop at the small town of Sion (which means "Zion". I think it's pronounced "SEE-aw". The "n" is swallowed as a nasal sound, like you've heard in "le poisson" in The Little Mermaid. That, in turn, rhymes with "hee hee hee haw haw haw". But in English I think you can say SEE-ohn).
Here is the daunting view from the beginning of the hike. I was a little dubious about hiking all the way up there, but it wasn't so bad.
Kelly and Maria had only seen this from the highway, so it was their first time exploring it as well.
From partway up the hike, we had a good view of the neighboring structure, which is a catholic cathedral called the Basilique de Valère.
Halfway up, I was no longer worried about the hike. Plus, it was a beautiful day!
The main door overlooks the cathedral across the way.
When we got to the bottom, we walked by the Château de la Majorie (Majorie Castle), which was built in the 1100s and rebuilt after fires a couple of times. It now houses an art museum.
When we got back to the parking garage, we realized that we no longer had our parking slip, and it was going to cost 30 "bucks" (as I called them, i.e., Swiss Francs, which are just a little more than a dollar) if we lost the slip. So Maria and Linette retraced our steps back towards the castle. Miraculously, they soon found it!
We did another Coop grocery store lunch and ate by a fountain. This time I did a curry chicken sandwich and a mango lassi (an Indian yogurt drink). Very tasty, it turned out.
Château de Chillon
Maria needed to get back to Geneva for a choir rehearsal, so we dropped her at the gare (train station, pronounced like of like "garr", but more like "gyahhhh" or something. I still stink at French).
Then we stopped at the Château de Chillon (Castle of Chillon, pronounced like "SHEE-own").
This castle is on a small natural island right by the shore of Lake Geneva. Chillon was a Roman outpost guarding the Alpine passes. Later the castle was started, at least by about 1000 AD. It was used by Counts of Savoy through the 1200s. In the 1500s this basement room was used as a prison.
Some original grafiti still exists on the wall from the prisoners.
The ceiling is an interesting mix of elegant arches and rough brickwork.
The most famous prisoner there was François de Bonivard, a monk from Geneva who was imprisoned for defending his homeland against the dukes of Savoy. During his 6 years there, he paced as far as his chain would allow, and the chain and rut are still visible. He was eventually freed.
The stairway up from the dungeon was quite narrow.
The wooden ceilings were interesting to me.
There are also "Charlie Brown" zig-zags on the wall.
Linette thought this door was cool.
They had little nooks both inside and by windows overlooking the lake, usually with two seats facing each other, which would be nice for little chats.
A spiral staircase led to the upper floors.
One room housed a bunch of ancient wooden trunks.
They were very ornate. I'm reading a book that takes place in France in the 1400s, and they talk about a guy who was so rich that he had a chest of drawers instead of a simple trunk. This allowed him to access things without having to remove everything else first. I've taken dresser drawers for granted my whole life.
And this is how the toilet worked. (Basically a 40-foot drop to the lake below).
I liked seeing the interlocking wooden pieces at the top of the turrets.
Here is a view from one of the turrets. You can see Linette in the courtyard below.
The "island" was only a few feet from shore, but they didn't have to dig a moat.
We went into the chapel, and the acoustics were really good. There was also a glowing plastic bench that Linette lay down on for a while.
Maria wasn't with us this time, but Kelly showed us a video of her and her daughters in that room singing "Dona Nobis Pachem" in harmony. It sounded awesome, and apparently when they did that, you could hear it throughout the castle, and people came to see what was going on.
Some rooms had a ceramic stove that radiated heat like a Franklin stove does.
Several of the rooms had great fireplaces as well as exposed wooden beams in the ceilings.
Here is a model showing the original island just off the shore of the lake, with a great drop-off near that.
Some of the earliest construction was just a few simple towers and a wall.
Later the more extensive castle was completed.
Here is a suit of chain mail, plate armor, and some spears and halberts from back in the day.
There were wooden walkways high along the inside of the castle walls.
Here is Linette looking down from the walkway.
And Linette took a picture from there, of me inside the "keep", which is a tall, secure tower meant for final defense if the outer walls were breached.
This rifle had interesting decorations all over it.
Seems like you wouldn't want to run into an army that had these things.
As we walked around the castle, we kept getting beautiful views of the lake and the mountains on the other side of it.
Back outside, we saw one of these "Elvis" ducks (a red-crested pochard, actually).
After a day of much walking, it's nice to find a good place to sit and dangle your feet.
Or just fall right over.
My grandparents visited the Château de Chillon in May, 1962, too.
 |
| Thelma and Malcolm Merrill, Château de Chillon, May 1962. |
Here they are looking out of the windows from inside the castle.
 |
| Thelma Merrill, Château de Chillon, May 1962. |
 |
| Malcolm Merrill, Château de Chillon, May 1962. |
Montreux
As we continued driving back towards Geneva, we also stopped at the town of Montreux ("mahn-TROH" in English). It had nice views along the lake.
It also had some fine ice cream.
The rock band Queen recorded several albums in Montreux beginning in the 1970s, and Freddy Mercury (the lead singer) ended up spending about half his time in Montreux because of the peaceful environment there. There is a statue of him near a sitting area overlooking the lake.
Some people left flowers there to honor him. I gave him an ice cream cone.
Geneva
As we continued back to Geneva, we saw some more of those beautiful yellow fields.
Maria was at choir practice until late, so the rest of us walked through several dark paths to get to a pizza place for dinner.
My BeReal went off as we were paying for the pizza. I went up and told the lady "Table 49, if you please" in French, and understood when she told me the total, so that was fun. I hadn't really learned any French until this year, so I'm still quite the beginner.
We had to use flashlights to wend our way home.
And thus concluded our side trip from Geneva to Zermatt. Can you believe all of that was in just 3 days?
In the next episode, Linette and I take the recommendation of Andra Duke and explore the charming town of Annecy, France.
No comments:
Post a Comment