Back down the Mountain

I was now leaving the Alps behind me, and beginning my long journey to Toulouse. As I travelled back down the mountain, I could see the sun rising over the Eastern ridge, it was Sunday morning and I had about 24 hours to make it to my final destination; still plenty of time to visit a few more spots and take many a detour!

First I passed by a few more Alpine towns, the one featured in the image is known as Täsch a small town of only around 1,000 residents. Despite this the town is thousands of years old and was known to the romans as Pera! Täsch is one of the many towns that the tram to Zermatt passes through, with my favourite of them being known as St Niklaus (although I’m not sure of its relation to the jolly old man).

Onwards through Switzerland

Soon enough my tram arrived at Visp, one of the more ‘ground-level’ towns found here in Switzerland. I didn’t get to spend much time here though, soon enough my train onwards had arrived, a double-decker to Geneva!

We don’t have trains like this in the UK, at least as far as I know, so getting to travel on a double-decker was quite the novelty. I of course had to sit on the top floor and enjoy the extended views I’d be able to get from this vantage point. As my train travelled through the Swiss countryside, I was certainly not disappointed.

The trainline does it’s best to stay at the same elevation towards the bottom of the valley. This valley follows the Rhône as it travels from the East of Switzerland Westwards. In fact I’ll be seeing a lot more of this particular river over the next day! From the bottom of the valley, I can see the many hills and waterfalls that make up the environment around here. It’s difficult to get pictures of such things whilst I travel on a train, but I think I did my best as you’ll see!

Occasionally, the hills would part and sky-splitting mountains would appear in the distance. Despite the hot June sun, these mountains with their altitude maintained their snow covered peaks and continued to prove the innane beauty of the Swiss landscape. If you haven’t visited this coutnry yourself, I really cannot sell it enough. I hope my posts over the past week have shown you enough of the country to convince you of it. Incredible views, kind and generous people, if you can look past how expensive some things can be then you will never be disappointed with everything you find here.

Lake Geneva

Soon enough, the mountains gave way to the next great view of Switzerland. Towards the West of the country, as the land narrows down to Geneva. The rivers all pool together into a large body of water known as Lake Geneva.

Lake Geneva is over 70 km long and as wide as 14 km at points making it one of the largest lakes in Europe! The lake sits on the border of France and Switzerland, meaning the opposite side of the lake is almost always an entirely different country.

The lake is mostly fed by the Rhône, the river I’ve been following since Visp, which then exits back out through the city of Geneva. The lake is a popular spot for tourists and as my train travelled along the shore I saw numerous families enjoying cooling off in the lakes water, which must definitely have been colder than the hot June weather outside. Each of the towns we passed through had mutliple hotels also, meaning it must be an excellent place to come stay for a few days on holiday! I must remember to do that sometime.

Soon enough, my train pulled into to the final stop of it’s journey, but one only about the halfway point of my journey today.

Geneva

Geneva is the second largest city in Switzerland and is found very close to the France-Swiss border in the far West of the country. It’s most well known for its housing of an office of the United Nations amongst numerous other international group headquarters like the Red Cross.

As with many of the places I ‘visit’ on my travels through Europe, I once again didn’t get a chance to leave the station here in Geneva, meaning I can’t give much of a review of the city as a whole. I can however review the station which I got about an hour to explore!

A lot of the stations around Europe double as shopping centres, and Geneva is no exception. Many of the shops contain things people would need for long travels, things like power banks and electronics, small food outlets for the breif layovers people have here, and, my favourite, book stores in whatever language they happen to speak.

So far on my travels, I’ve seen Italian book stores in Italy, German book stores in Switzerland, and now so close to the French border, French book stores! I only speak a little French so buying any book in French would be a little bit of a lost cause on me, instead I decided to buy myself a couple bookmarks and an erasable pen as a sort of commemoration of my very breif stay here in the city.

The tannoy announced my train after a short while, and I headed through what I thought would be border security, but ended up being a long corridor where I got oddly stared at by the police for about 10 seconds. So long as I stay in the Schengen region I don’t need to get my passport checked, so I’m not sure what that area was about. I boarded my train, and passed onwards!

Entrez en France

With Geneva being so close to the France border, it was only about 15 minutes before the announcement came over the train that we would be passing over the French border. Previously when I passed from Italy to Switzerland I went through a large tunnel and barely knew when the exact passing occurred, this time though I would be sure to watch it happen.

You hear so much about American politics that I genuinely expected there to be some sort of big wall here that would signify the change, but here in Europe people don’t care too much about border crossings. As such crossing over was a complete non-event. West of the border looked exactly like the East, the same plants, the same sky, we were even still following the Rhône as it twisted through Europe. True international comfort!

I didn’t focus much on the rest of the journey through France, I had started the next Twilight book whilst in the Alps and had now been thoroughly sucked into the world of Forks. Before I knew it, I had arrived at my final destination for the day, and was getting off of the train for the last time.

The City of Lyon

As with Zermatt, I’m only here for the evening. As I arrived at about 2pm though, that gives me plenty of time to explore the city and really see the sights.

Once I’d dropped of my bags at my accommodation. I headed out on a walk into the city, my first stop of course had to be my greatest friend of the morning.

The Rhône

Finally, I can properly write about this river. The Rhône is a river that runs from the Alps of Switzerland, through lake Geneva and the southeast of France, and out to sea close to Marseille. In ancient times, the Rhône was a key method of transportation for southern France and Switzerland, well the regions anyway, the countries didn’t exist just yet!

As a little fun fact, my viewing of this river has begun a sort of sequence of seeing the sources of the mediterranean in discharge order! The Po in northern Italy is the largest to deposit into the sea which I spent a great amount of time with in Turin, the Rhône is in second place which I’m now with here in Lyon! I hope this means that my next adventure will take me to the river in third place: the Nile!

Maybe don’t hold your breath on that one though!

*

I followed the river south, ensuring I dipped my feet in once I got to a nice local beach along the coast. I called a few friends from this beach also, over the past few days I had made many a call showing them all the incredible things I’ve been seeing. I can only hope they aren’t getting annoyed seeing my face on the caller ID.

Soon enough, I entered into the more built up area of the city. Across the river from me I could see many old buildings displaying impressive architecture. This particular building shown is the Hôtel-Dieu, an ancient hospital building found on what’s known as the ‘Lyon Peninsula’ a large outstretch of land between Lyon’s two rivers: the Rhône and the Saône.

I crossed over the bridge onto the peninsula, where I soon came across something I was really looking forward to here in France: a crêpe stand! In incredibly broken French, I managed to order myself some churros and, whilst they cooked I spoke to the chefs about my ongoing adventures through Europe. It felt incredibly cool for them to be impressed with the fact I had woken up in the Alps that very morning. Soon enough though I had my churros, and continued wandering around the city.

One of the main sights of Lyon is the large basilica found at the top of a hill right here in the centre…

La Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière

Blimey, we’re learning a lot of history today. The Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourviére was built in the late 19th century as an alter to the Virgin Mary who is believed to have saved the city from the plague in the 17th century as well as from the invading Prussians not long before it’s building!

The grounds of the basilica are an excellent vantage point to see the entirety of the city of Lyon, but with the impressive heat and shortness of time, I didn’t quite fancy the many steps up the hill. I’ll leave that for a future adventure!

With my churros beginning to fill me up, and the sky beginning to darken. I headed back to my accommodation and in my exhaustion, collapsed into my bed for a good nights sleep, after a delicious glass of mango juice from my host for the night!

*

Which it would have been, if I didn’t have to wake up at 5am to get my next train elsewhere. Soon I will stop my travels, but for now I have to do these ridiculous things to see all of the incredible sights along the way. All of belongings were still packed into my suitcase so it didn’t take me long to return my keys and make my way back to the train station.

It was 6am, the station was dead, and my train was waiting for me on the platform at my arrival. I bid farewell to the city I had only breifly been able to see, and stepped on to my continued journey!

The Journey to Toulouse

In the early morning French sun, the countryside looked just as beautiful as always. We passed quickly south, through fields and towns reminiscnet of the classic French films I had seen over the years.

Turning eastwards at Montpellier, we left the Rhône behind and moved towards Toulouse. I looked ahead at the route and saw that soon we would be passing close to the Mediterranean. Despite how close I’ve lived to the sea all this time, I have yet to gaze upon it, but today…

…nothing changed. According to my map I was within meters of it, but with the growth of plants on all sides and my sitting on the bottom floor of the train, I barely even got a glimpse. I think perhaps I saw a bit of water and some late morning reflections, but for the most part I continued on through France a little bit disappointed.

Nevertheless, the French scenery was incredible. I saw classic french towns, vineyards and belltowers. For a fan of classic architecture like myself it was amazing to see, so despite my dissapointment with the sea, I still loved my journey through France.

At around 11am, my train began its final deceleration into the city of Toulouse. For now my journey across Europe had come to an end, it was time for the second phase of my studies here to begin. So I’d better get going, my meetings at 12!

Thanks for following, may our paths cross again,

Cassie