{"id":364,"date":"2012-11-20T12:43:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T11:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joncu.roguenet.org\/swissblog\/?p=364"},"modified":"2021-09-21T23:22:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T23:22:00","slug":"cool-ride-visp-to-montreux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/2012\/11\/20\/cool-ride-visp-to-montreux\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Ride – Visp to Montreux"},"content":{"rendered":"

The weekend would be foggy and cold.\u00a0 What to do?\u00a0 Smart Jon checked forecasts all over Switzerland.\u00a0 Warmest temps would be in the South Valley.\u00a0 He\u2019d been wanting to bike there after reading about the bike route from Oberwald to Lake Geneva.\u00a0 Oberwald is rather high into the mountains, meaning colder and a longer train ride to get there, so we decided to start at Visp.\u00a0 GPS tracks were laid in, train tickets purchased, lunch packed and off we went.<\/p>\n

Route #1 in the Swiss Veloland system, www.veloland.ch<\/a>,\u00a0follows the Rhone River.\u00a0 So it\u2019s downhill most of the way.\u00a0 We anticipated easy riding.<\/p>\n

And it was, except\u00a0for the freezing temperatures.\u00a0 Frost\u00a0thick on the pastures, mud icy on the paths, and fingers and toes just wouldn\u2019t warm up.\u00a0\u00a0Our midpoint and overnight town was Saillon where there is a huge fancy thermal bath, www.bainsdesaillon.ch<\/a>.\u00a0 Daydreaming about submersing myself in those warm waters, I gritted my teeth and carried forward.<\/p>\n

\"Felsenkirche<\/a>

In Roran they excavated a cavern to build a church.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Roran<\/a>

The new (1974) St. Michael Felsenkirche is entirely inside rock.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"St.<\/a>

We guess folks got tired of climbing up to old St. Romanus.<\/p><\/div>\n

The massive rock formations on both sides of the river are awesome.\u00a0 The towns are necessarily small, snuggled into corners of land.\u00a0 But this valley has a lot of sun, despite the mountains, and has become famous for wine.\u00a0 Wherever possible, and in some spots that seemed impossible, they plant grape vines.\u00a0 Our respect for Napa growers has diminished since we\u2019ve seen what other people do to make wine.<\/p>\n

\"Grape<\/a>

What would be barren rock produces wine grapes on terraces.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Small<\/a>

Small town, big rock. The faint stripes at the mountain base are grape terraces.<\/p><\/div>\n

We made it to Saillon just before the early winter sunset.\u00a0 But the baths, which we passed on the way to our hotel, were noisy with kids and further from the hotel, www.sarvaz.ch<\/a>, than we had thought, so once established in our room we chose not to go back.<\/p>\n

\"Bayart<\/a>

Sun setting in Saillon on the Bayart tower, a 19-meter keep built by the Count of Savoy.<\/p><\/div>\n

Unfortunately, the hotel restaurant (the only restaurant anywhere near) which we had relied on for dinner was completely booked for the night!\u00a0 They did offer a set menu in the Bistro of roasted chestnuts, cheeses and dried meats with bread and fruit.\u00a0 We ordered that, but it felt like an appetizer, so I explained to our waitress that my husband was still hungry and could they prepare something else for him.\u00a0 She asked the chef, who agreed to accomodate us (perhaps because most of the real dinner crowd were not yet there).\u00a0 Fed and warm at last, we cuddled under the duvets, watched a little French TV (Saillon is in the French-speaking part of Switzerland), and slept well.<\/p>\n

The next day was, unlike the forecast had predicted, a\u00a0whole degree\u00a0warmer.\u00a0 The ride was enjoyable, at least for the mid-day hours.<\/p>\n

\"Waterfall\"<\/a>

Requisite shot of cows, waterfall and rock.<\/p><\/div>\n

We particularly enjoyed the church of St. Maurice Abbey.\u00a0 Built on the ruins of a 1st cen. BC Roman shrine, it was itself rebuilt after a 1942 rock fall.<\/p>\n

\"Baptismal<\/a>

Stone baptismal font and wall mosaics are new but fit well in the old rock church.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was pleasant to\u00a0watch the landscape change.\u00a0 After St. Maurice, the valley widens, there are few vineyards and more pasture land.<\/p>\n

\"Rhone<\/a>

Rhone River valley<\/p><\/div>\n

Then as you ride along Le Lac Leman (Lake Geneva), you pass through marshland which is a bird sanctuary.\u00a0 We made good time lakeside despite the traffic and the uphill from Villeneuve to Montreux.<\/p>\n

\"Chillon<\/a>

Chillon Castle from Villeneuve<\/p><\/div>\n

We were very pleased with ourselves when we boarded the train to go home.\u00a0 We had only 3 minutes from ticket purchase to train departure and we made it despite having to take an elevator with our loaded tandem!<\/p>\n

A side note for this trip was how much easier it was for both of us to deal with French than with German.\u00a0 As people spoke, words kept coming back.\u00a0 Bodes well for our sabbatical which starts in southern France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weekend would be foggy and cold.\u00a0 What to do?\u00a0 Smart Jon checked forecasts all over Switzerland.\u00a0 Warmest temps would be in the South Valley.\u00a0 He\u2019d been wanting to bike there after reading about the bike route from Oberwald to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1542,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/1542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmcw.blog\/swissblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}