Chateau de Chillon

Saturday, May 19, 2018

With a (series of) last looks at the views from Beatenberg as we headed down the mountain, we were off on our last day in Switzerland.  As we drove through a series of villages, we were slowed by a traffic jam of sorts.  A large herd of cows was being led through a small town by a party of men and boys, who were more or less successfully using long poles to keep their bovine charges in line.  We were in a line of cars plodding along behind them until there was a break in the oncoming traffic and we were urged to move on past by the same pole-wielding crew.  The clang of the cows’ enormous bells would be fitting competition for car horns in urban traffic!

 

We drove through Montreux, with its beautiful promenade along Lake Geneva, lovely Belle Epoque buildings, and swank hotels, to visit the Chateau de Chillon.  The castle, built on a rock just steps off the lake shore, has played an important role, both defensively and in political terms, as its strategic location afforded control of trade and traffic between northern and southern Europe.  It is Switzerland’s most visited castle, and Byron’s narrative poem, “The Prisoner of Chillon” helped to secure its cultural importance.  In 1816, Byron visited the cellar where, 300 years earlier, political prisoner Francois Bonivard had been held in chains for six years.  Along with many others, Byron etched his name into one of the cellar prison’s pillars; his inscription is still visible, protected by a Plexiglas screen.  We used the helpful audioguides and spent a couple of enjoyable hours in the cellars, courtyards, great halls, living quarters and defensive structures of the castle that seems to float like a great rock ship on Lake Geneva.

 

We made a quick pass through Lausanne, set on three stair-step hills above the lake, and then it was on to return our car in a French town just across the border from Geneva.  The same gentleman who’d shuttled us from the airport to pick up the car at the start of our trip was there to take us to our hotel this afternoon.  He wasn’t particularly jolly a month ago and the intervening weeks hadn’t improved his mood.  He was extremely upset with his boss, because she’d assigned him to drive us to a hotel that he felt was too far for him to travel.  We were pretty amused when he called her and vented at great length (in French) about the traffic he’d encounter, the distance, his refusal to ever do this again, etc.  When he realized that I had a (very minimal) knowledge of the language, he really went off – on his boss, not us, he went at great length to assure us.  I couldn’t understand why he kept talking about how bad the traffic was going to be late on a Saturday afternoon in a pretty sleepy area until we rounded a corner and a line of cars going in the opposite direction stretched on and on.  That was what he’d be facing on his return, and suddenly we understood his pique. 

 

We walked a short distance to a restaurant near our hotel for dinner before packing up one more time before tomorrow’s flights home.  It’s been a lovely trip, but we’re ready to come off the road and put our suitcases away – for a while, at least.  We’re just hoping that memories of snow-capped mountains and rushing waterfalls will keep us cool as we return to summer in the desert.