Ouch, public transport.

Everyone always warns you about how expensive Switzerland is, but nothing can really prepare you until you are there and the money has to come out of your wallet. A daycard for Greg and I to travel return to Lausanne cost 50chf. In comparison, clothes and everything else here just pales into insignificance.

Well, we were still in holiday mode, and it was a nice day, so instead of getting the cable car into the nearest town, Vevey, we decided to try walking down. Most other countries provie a nice path down the side of the cable car. The fact that there wasn't one here should have sent off warning bells.

The sun was setting which made our journey truly lovely and we had to stop often to take photos of the magnificent view. The roads were all incredibly steep, and the countryside was full with vineyards so unless we were willing to trespass, there were no shortcuts.

2 hours later we were still making our way down, and I was so over our walk. I was tired, thirsty, hungry and somewhat annoyed with the universe in general. One thing at least was clear, walking into Vevey to save ourselves 5 chf was not an option.

Our first fondue.

Very handily, there is a very nice Chalet next to the cable car which does fondue.

Again we forgot about the eating times, and arrived here far too late for lunch but late enough we didn't want to ruin our appetite for fondue with anything too big, so we started with dessert...as one should.

I've always had a certain image of what fondue would be like based on my first introduction to it from Asterix and Obelix. Greg was a little disappointed that my first taste wasn't the taste sensation he was hoping for(sorry honey). But I perservered and it tasted better the more I ate it. Not sure if I would recommend it for new arrivals, but  it is certainly on the, "u gotta do it, at least once list".

We made it! Time to explore the city.

Coming from gloomy Vienna, we delighted in the sunshine, and the balcony of our new home. Since it was still early and we were starving, we headed into the nearest town Vevey and were quickly feeling the Switzerland pinch and gasp...ouch, it's so expensive. But everything was so pretty, and there was so much sunshine, it was hard to care too much.

We spent too long looking around, and missed out on the lunch hour. Can't say I'm a fan of these strict eating times. Especially since there were enough tourists around to merit serving food at all hours.

It slowly became clear that we were to be denied the experience of traditional Swiss fondue on our first night. We hung around in bars until the appropriate hour for dinner(7 pm, grr so hungry), with a quick snack of waffles and crepes on the lake as the sun set.

The Rex cinema has an adjoining restaurant and the food was mm mm mm. We were lucky to get a table. It was absolutely slammed. I look forward to eating there again.

Moving half a house via the train...seriously, what on earth were we thinking?

We've been fortunate enough to have been able to travel a bit whilst in Austria, and every trip we took less and less luggage. When you have to carry everything on public transport, for days of sightseeing, suddenly that second pair of shoe for "just in case"? Forget it.

So why oh why we didn't apply this experience to moving countries is beyond me. We didn;t even make it to the corner of our street before we realised, that getting to the end of the street to catch the U3 to Westbahnhof would take us the better part of 1/2 an hour rather thatn the usual 5 or 10 mins.

Greg went off and got me a taxi, but he still had to take a huge suitcase(because it wouldn't fit in the taxi) and his bike via the U3. Of course, the U3 decided just at that time to break down, so instead of a comfortable half hour window, Greg arrived at the train station with 5 mins to spare. Gulp.

 The whole train ride to Zurich, I was trying to think,, what on earth did I pack, and what can I throw away right now? My mind was a huge blank, as our last hours in Vienna consisted of madly throwing away things and trying to care and make sure we didn;t throw away anything important(failed).

It was obvious by the time we arrived in Lausanne, that there was absolutely no way we were going to be able to take all this, on another train, bus, cable car and then maybe a taxi at the end of that. We completely filled a station wagon with our luggage.

We were both of us looking at the filled taxi, shaking our heads and wondering what on eart were we thinking?