Up super early today for Bev's secret birthday pressie. I don't think she fell for Jill's story last night that we were setting off at 5:30am for an early morning hike. She knows me better than that to think that that would float my boat!

Despite a few last minute technology hiccups with GPS and 3G mobile refusing to work (argh) we managed to find the meeting point right on time and that's when Bev first saw that big sack of silk lying on the ground . 

I'm not sure if she was sleep deprived or just in shock (hopefully not terror), but at first she just stood there looking at it.

Yes... for your birthday we are taking you up in a Hot Air Balloon ride over the Swiss Alps!
Happy sneaky early Birthday Bev! :)

Apart from the three of us, there was also the pilot (Raphael) and another older couple together with their Grandson. The man in particular couldn't walk much so getting him into the basket was a bit of a chore but he got there in the end with everyone helping where they could - even if it was just words of encouragement.

The balloon rose silently and smoothly up over the fields and started down the valley. The view over the alps was magical in the early morning light. Looking into the sun the mist on the layers of mountain tops looked just like something dreamed up by Tolkien. 

While we were up in the air the pilot pointed out various peaks to us - including Mont Blanc & Agile du Midi in Chamonix (which Jeff & I visited in 2008) and the Matterhorn in Zermatt. That was pretty cool, although due to our lack of geography and the pilot's limited English (and of course our almost non-existent French) we were never entirely sure if we were looking at the correct peak or not.

Our balloon glided up one valley and then down another one until it was time for us to descend and land . Coming down, at one stage our rate of descent was a blazing 6m per second. That's pretty quick! It's odd though, even as you can see the balloon is descending rapidly it really doesn't feel like it as it's still so smooth.

Our pilot picked a narrow abandoned road in a cow paddock for our landing point and very skillfully managed to miss power lines, electric fences, roads, cows and big piles of cow poo to make a perfect landing. Most especially grateful for the last point! Must admit that during the descent (upon seeing said pile of poo), that I did have Bridget Jones voice in my head calming saying "And this has been Bridget Jones for Sit-Up Britain, reporting from a big vat of excrement!"

Very happy this blog entry is not titled "reporting from a big pile of cow poo!"

The balloon might have scared some poo out of the cows though as they all went running as we neared the ground ... although once we were down, they all stampeded over to check out this giant piece of rainbow that had just landed in their paddock!
 
Then came the hard work. While the elder patrons stayed snug in the basket, Jeff & I plus the Grandson, the pilot and another helper all got to work in packing up the balloon. For Jeff and the Grandson this meant wading waist-high through the wet field while pulling the balloon in the right direction as it deflated, and for me it meant playing "keep the balloon away from the electric fence". After this we all played "squash the balloon to push the air out" and then Bev had the job of driving the motorised basket slowly forwards as we all heaved the deflated balloon up into it. For a bit of silk full of air that thing was damn heavy!

Once the balloon was packed up, our pilot broke out some celebratory vino and crackers to celebrate our flight - at 9:30 in the morning! Hey! We're in Europe! The Grandson had his share of the wine and even Bev managed to indulge in most of a glass (a shot glass but ssssshhh) .

We were also presented with balloon pins and "flight certificates" with Bev having "Happy Birthday" written on hers. Nice work Chateaux D'Oex Balloon company!

After a longer-than-expected drive back to our launch site (we travelled further than we thought) we said Au revoir to the Older couple (81 and 79) and their grandson. We'd enjoyed our broken English / French conversations with them in the minibus on the way back. The lady in particular had taken a shine to "Mama Bev" and double kissed us all goodbye at the end. 

A little hungry by now so quickly back to our hotel and just made breakfast in time. Luckily, Jill who didn't come on the balloon flight, had been at breakfast for quite a while and had told the hotel we might be late so they hadn't packed up. Quite a good spread at this hotel and we all wish we had a reason to stay here another night as it's just so restful.

But of course, the tour wheels keep on turning, and after second showers we were packed up and on the road again around noon .

Our first stop was to pick-up where we aborted yesterday, and visit the Cailler chocolate factory in Broc.

We drove over to Broc and arrived at the factory just in time for the next English speaking tour. Perfect.

Cailler is now owned by Nestle, but it originated in 1819 and is the oldest chocolate factory in all of Switzerland! Seems funny that we haven't even heard of it in Australia.

The tour started with a series of rooms containing pre-recorded information and very imaginative moving displays. Jill thought it was a bit cheesy (no that's the the other factory...) but Jeff & I were impressed with how much effort they'd put into the displays and how professional they looked.

After the info rooms, the tour moves at your own pace with an audio guide and progresses through the factory showing various grinding, mixing, squeezing and packaging stages . 

Then on to everyone's favorite room - the sample station. And oh my, there were a lot of samples and quite large portions too. Believe it or not I only tried about a 3rd of them as there's only so much chocolate you can eat at a time! Some were incredibly sickly (the ones with caramel mixed in) but most were yummy.

The next and last stop of the tour was (of course) the shop. We were all relatively restrained here and only bought a few bits and pieces. To be honest I prefer Margaret River Chocolate Factory chocolate!

After Cailler we drove over to the hilltop village of Gruyere to look around the old town and the castle there.  

As with most castles in Europe, this one was built a long, long time ago, between 1270 and 1282 in fact! That just blows my mind, this place was built 500 years before Australia was even colonised!

Since then it has seen a revolving door of owners - over 20 Counts alone, the last of which went bankrupt and the castle (and his Earldom) ended up being shared between his creditors . Eventually in 1938 the castle was purchased back by the Canton of Fribourg, turned into a museum and opened to the public. That seems to happen a lot with castles, although there's also a surprisingly large number of them which are still privately owned by the original family (or at least the last family to buy / win / steal it).

Quite interesting to roam around, and to my thinking, more how I expect a castle to look than the last one at Oberhofen, as the Gruyere castle has the massive rooms with high, high ceilings, walls 2-3m thick and fireplaces the width of the room. Seemed more like something out of Game of Thrones I guess! haha.

One thing that I can never understand with any of these old castles or palaces... it seems that no matter how big or grand the rooms are - the beds are always shrinky-dink single size. It's quite bizarre!

The village here was very cute too . Lots of cobblestone streets, no cars, old buildings lovingly restored, lots of fondue and raclette available (of course) and something that was nice but not sure why they did it - tree branches in the water fountains. We saw a couple of fountains that had branches from conifers and other types of trees sitting in the water. It looked nice as bought some greenery to the square, but have never seen it before and would love to know why. Sadly Google failed me for an answer here - maybe they just like it because it looks pretty.

After poking around the castle for awhile and after Jill and Bev had looked through several kak shops we decided it was time for lunch.

Picked a nice Italian restaurant on the shady side of the square and sat at a table with a view and a cool breeze. The waitress here guessed we are Australians then quietly mentioned she prefers our accent to Americans and we said "we do too".

After lunch we finally headed down the mountain to our home for the next few nights - the lakeside town of Montreux.

Montreux is known as the "Swiss Rivieria" and we can see why. There are a lot of posh shops, sports cars plus hotels & private houses that have been built on terraces up the hill to take advantage of the great views over Lac Leman and the snow-capped mountains beyond . As mentioned by the hotel manager in Gstaad, it was also a lot warmer here. Just right for strolls along the lake.

We arrived at our B&B in the early evening. The hotel we are staying at is actually the oldest hotel in Montreux, which translates to antique style with squeaky floorboards and an overabundance of floral. This was all as I expected and it is very quaint and homey feeling.  

The hotel was really good to us and as requested (pleaded) in my booking they have given Jeff & I are "not too flowery room" and it even has a balcony with a view over the garden towards the lake. Trailing roses and wisteria cover the front of the building too and these are also twinned around our balcony railing. My Mum would have loved this place, and luckily (and as hoped) Bev really likes it too. I did pick this one mainly with her in mind as I though it would be a good fit for her.

Bev's room is in a quiet location at the back of the hotel but has a view of the mountains still . Jill, who booked her room separately has one in the middle which is a bit noisy as right next to reception but she's lucky to have one at all seeing she booked it for the 5th and not the 3rd!

After checking in, removing luggage from Tetris car and stashing it in our rooms (and of course comfort stops) we headed down the hill and made our way to the lake and started our stroll along the lakeside promenade. Lots and lots of flash houses with beautiful private gardens and private jetties. Plenty of signs advising "surveillance and pointy teethed canines" on their gates and walls too. Fair enough, if I owned a house here I would want to keep Australian riff-raff out too!

Very pleasant strolling along the lake. A 4km stretch of the lakeshore path from Montreux to Chateau Chillon is called the flower walk and colourful flower beds line it nearly the entire way. The water colour in the lake is so beautiful too. As it got later the sunset shone on the jet trails crossing the sky . Really quite beautiful in an entirely different way to places like Grindelwald.

Although the walk was lovely, we did end up walking a very long way without finding any restaurants along the shore. By the time we walked back up to the main street to find a restaurant up there it was quite late and Bev was very tired with sore feet so Jeff walked her back home while Jill and I kept looking.  

We didn't end up finding anything either, so together with Jeff we drove to a different part of Montreux and ended up in a food court. Not exactly a glamorous first dinner in Montreux, or a nice last dinner for Jill. But hey, it's kinda fitting seeing the first dinner Jeff, Bev & I had this trip was McDonalds! Why shouldn't Jill's last one be at a food court?

Back to the hotel for showers and sleep. A big, big day!