Caux

Our excursion finished with a few days at the Mountain House at Caux, 1000 metres above Montreaux, where I was a guest speaker at the annual Initiatives of Change international gathering.

Zermatt

Mountain grandeur can never be captured adequately by photography. Pictures of the Matterhorn reveal a striking crag against the skyline, but actually seeing the thing takes your breathe away. 

Jungfraujoch

At the last minute, we decided to spend big money, get up super early, and take a trip up ... way up, 4000 metres into the real mountains. We switch trains twice, the last one of which takes tunnels inside the mountain to the peak. Totally mind boggling and incomprehensible from an engineering perspective. It would be a decision we came to cherish, it gave us a truly once in a lifetime experience.

Never before had I been in a situation where the scenery was so so so stunning, taking a poor photo was impossible.

Interlaken and Grindelwald

OK, so now we're really in Switzerland!!!

Montreux and the Golden Pass

Its not Switzerland without mountains. Around the lake to wonderful Montreux, then up into the mountains on the famous Golden Pass. Stunning.

Geneva

Geneva didn’t put on her best show for us … the weather was dreary and the hotel staff were matter of fact. The highlight for me was poking around the International Red Cross building and learning more about the history of international human rights.

Marseilles and Nice

The stunning French Riviera. Maria picked the perfect hotel in Marseilles, from our window we looked out over the marina. The coast, so different than what we are used to in Australia, captivated and surprised us. And then Nice; What a great place to hang out in the sun and waste away the days wandering along the waterfront. We were intoxicated by the Mediterranean colours and architecture. But unlike the beaches we are used to in Australia, there’s not much sand action here … so I enjoyed the novelty of joining everyone sitting on the smooth rocks and taking dips in the lapping Mediterranean.

Marseilles:

Nice: