Day 6 started like the previous day….waking up in the middle of the night, staying awake a few hours, then falling asleep until around 7 AM. I’m really not sure why this is going on. Anyway, we got up, got dressed and went over to get our ‘included’ breakfast. It was the same as yesterday except they had croissants today. All good.
At 10 AM, Mike and family picked us up after we had checked out and off we went leaving spectacular Lauterbrunnen in the rear view mirror. What an amazingly beautiful place. So much to do and see. Just bring lots of money.
We drove through Interlaken just to see what this little town was like. It was a nice town that sits between two very beautiful lakes. But other than that…nothing too different.
We then turned west to head towards Geneva. Along the way, Riley wanted to stop in a ‘cheese’ town named Le Gruyére where here Paragliding pilot said was a really nice town to visit as it had an old, medieval, part of town. So when we got close, we drove in and parked the car and walked around. It was a nice town, with people going about their daily stuff. It had a castle like structure and garden in the center of the town which we walked to and visited. Mike and group bought some meats and cheeses to snack on. Honestly, I was not hungry as it felt like we had just had our breakfast. So we did not buy anything.
Upon leaving Le Gruyére, we traveled down some crazy, winding, roads to get to a chocolate factory. It is called Maison Cailler. It is a chocolate that dates back a really long time. Anyway, we paid the 15 franc entrance fee (per person) to take their tour. The tour was pretty interesting. They took you into about 8 different rooms where they ‘showed’ you the history of chocolate making and then how today chocolate is grown, acquired and turned into the many types of chocolates that you can buy. At the end, we became ‘tasters’ and we all filled our pockets with chocolates. They then dropped us into their ‘store’ and of course we had to buy a bit to take home. Pretty fun times.
Our next stop was our ‘hotel’ in Geneva which is really in a French town named Segny. Again, we drove quite a while on small narrow roads to find this place. You feel like you are not close to any city like Geneva. Upon parking the car and going into the front desk area, there were two ladies in a kitchen area chatting away in French. I tried to communicate with them that we had 3 rooms. It began about a 15 minute episode of confusion and concern by these two ladies as the ‘host’ lady was at the market and not expecting us until later. One of the ladies was quite old. Turns out she is the mother of our host. She and her friend did their best to figure it all out even getting us to the rooms that we would be in. About that time, the host arrived and she spoke pretty good English and even though I had booked a triple room and 2 double rooms, she said it was for only 6 people. I told her that was a mistake and that it was for 7 people. Anyway, I think once she realized that Denise and I would not be eating breakfast in the morning, everything was ok as she was going to give us 2 triple rooms and 1 double room anyway.
Once we were all in our rooms, Denise and I had to do our Covid testing. That went just fine with us both testing negative. We then checked into our flights and headed out where we could hear the Hunter clan gathering. We were hungry. Apparently someone had intructions on how to get to a big Walmart type store nearby that we could walk to. So off we went walking the streets of Segny. It was not too far and it had lots of stuff. Denise and I settled in on Sushi, a strong lemon aid type drink and chocolate covered pamier cookies. Once we found our stuff, we looked all over for the Hunter’s but could not see them. So we figured they had headed back. So we took off walking. But when we arrive back at the hotel, they were not there yet. Turns out they were a bit behind us and we had no idea. Anyway, in the courtyard at the hotel there are some tables. One had a cover that you could open up, which we did, to keep the rain off us as it was starting to sprinkle a bit. We all ate and enjoyed our food.
To end the evening, we all gathered in Mike and Jenny’s room to play a game. Josh had brought a game called ‘Coup’. It is kind of a complicated game initially. But once you got it…tons of fun! We played for an hour or two and then off to bed as 5:15 AM was going to come pretty fast. And with our sleeeping habits of late, we thought we’d get to sleep early.
I’m writing this at 6 AM on Tuesday the 24th. We’ll leave in a few minutes as Mike is going to drive us to the airport which is about a 20 minute drive from here. It has been a good trip. It will end really good if we get Polaris (1st class) seating on the plane. It looks pretty good believe it or not. Wish us luck!
We just arrived at the GVA airport. Small but very clean and nice. Easy to get through everything and we are now sitting in a very nice lounge (love that feature on our credit card). Our flight will leave in a few hours. So it is nice to have this. We will get on this flight easily. However, from EWR, I think it might be an adventure. Seems like it always is when coming off an international flight. But in the end, we get home.
This will be it for this trip. The trip will have so many great memories. Traveling with Mike, Jenny and 3 of their 4 children will always be a highlight. I hope we get to do it again. Normandy and Lauterbrunnen were something to behold. Will never forget the sacrifice of our soldiers in Normandy nor will I forget the amazing beauty in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. So glad we made the trip. Well worth time and money to see both of these places. Until the next trip!!!!
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