Chip Walter 4/26/23 Chip Walter 4/26/23

Day 577 Exploring Vevey, Switzerland

If you are able to climb high enough into the alpine hills around Lake Geneva, you'll see the lake is shaped like a croissant, bounded on one side by France and on the other by Switzerland. The Rhone River feeds it and should you follow that north far enough, you'll be looking up your nose at the Alps themselves, covered in snow as they were the day we walked out of our hotel.

Our goal today was to explore a bit of that part of the world, and, for a start, that meant clopping down Lausanne's steep hills to the lakeside village of Ouchy (OO-chee) where we would board La Suisse, an authentic steamship designed to ferry tourists and locals in a grand loop to every village that dots the lake. Michele and Silke had suggested it.

Chip Walter 4/25/23 Chip Walter 4/25/23

Day 576 Vevey, Switzerland

It’s my mother’s birthday and I realize how much she would have enjoyed our explorations of Switzerland. She loved learning about different cultures and she didn’t mind a bit of Belgian chocolate or a fine Cabernet from Spain either. I remember her telling me all about her visits with my father to Madrid and Belgium and France when my dad worked for Westinghouse. I’m not sure she ever made it to Switzerland, but I’m positive she would’ve loved it. Not that she had spent a lot of time traveling in her life. She was a coalminers daughter from southern West Virginia, but loved new places and, especially, the interesting people she met. Thinking of you, mom.

Chip Walter 4/24/23 Chip Walter 4/24/23

Day 575 Gruyere, Switzerland

Christian, our friend from our transatlantic voyage, has picked us up and whisked us north along Lake Geneva. It’s morning and the big lake is frosted gray beneath the Alps, capped in fresh white snow. Beyond, in the thin mist, I can see the mouth of the Rhône river and the great valley it took millions of years to create on its journey to Lake Geneva. As we rise higher a sign along the highway indicates that as we cross through these Alpine foothills all water to the right will fall to the Rhône River marching its way to Marseille and the Mediterranean Sea, while every drop to the left will find its way to the Rhine and Rotterdam Bay.

Chip Walter 4/23/23 Chip Walter 4/23/23

Day 574 Lausanne, Switzerland

One of Lausanne's largest tourist attractions is the Olympic Museum and Park located along Lake Geneva in the village of Ouchy. It takes a steep walk from Lausanne to reach its beautiful, terraced gardens which feature fascinating sculptures throughout (see photos) as well as some 10,000 artifacts in the museum itself. With the largest archive of Olympic Games in the world. it attracts more than 250,000 visitors each year.

Chip Walter 4/22/23 Chip Walter 4/22/23

Day 573 Onto Lausanne

The Lyon Port Dieu train station is a hive of activity. From our hotel window we watch a protest against raising the retirement age of railway workers. Soon they depart and the station’s trains return to slide in and out of the tracks like the slots of a Tetris game, disgorging, and then re-supplying its travelers, busy as frantic ants. Every announcement comes with the bing bang bong that heralds each train's arrival. Since the Romans built its famous roads, Lyon has long been an important intersection as goods passed from French ports to the heart of the empire. The trains today are a legacy, and remain a hub.

Chip Walter 4/20/23 Chip Walter 4/20/23

Day 571 - Lyon, France

In Lyon, at last! After strikes, fires, errant taxis and missed connections, we finally coughed our way through a strike protest out of the train station and found our hotel. We were looking forward to meeting with our friends, at long last, Perrine and Gaetan, who saved us when our car broke down in the middle of nowhere in Patagonia. We did and had a wonderful dinner. (I'll try to dig up the name and add it to our lengthening list of restaurant recommendations.) They are both enjoying life as they settle into new jobs in one of France's great food cities (the famous chef Paul Bocuse was born and made famous here).

Chip Walter 4/19/23 Chip Walter 4/19/23

Day 570 Figueres, Spain

At 9 am we depart the excellent Hotel Duran in Figueres. (Both hôtel and restaurant highly recommended.) Now we await the Teisa bus that will ( hopefully) take us to El Voló, aka Le Boulou (in France). This part of the world has changed hands with France and Spain so many times it must feel like a carnival shell games, never mind previous encounters with Visigoths, Romans and Moors.

Chip Walter 4/18/23 Chip Walter 4/18/23

Day 569 Figueres, Spain

Our extra day in Salvador Dali’s backyard allows Cyn and I to do some work. Cyn even squeezes in some yoga. We had planned to meet with Gaetan and Perrine the young French engineers, who saved us in Patagonia when our car broke down but now we have to postpone. We agree to meet two days later, which then allowed us to properly prep for our alternate route into France and explore the Dali Museum the surrealist painter designed just down the street.

Chip Walter 4/17/23 Chip Walter 4/17/23

Day 568 - Fire!

One night in our hotel at the Melodia, not a beautiful accommodation, but clean and VERY convenient to the Atoche Train station even if when crossing the eight lane boulevard to get to it means taking your life in your hands. We survive, board the train and rumble onto Girona, yet another short hop RENFE insists we take before getting on a local train that will take us to the little town of Port-Bou to catch another train to Perpignan and, finally, Lyon.

Chip Walter 4/16/23 Chip Walter 4/16/23

Day 567 - On Our Way to Vigo, Spain and (We Hope) Madrid

We make it out of our B&B and onboard our Portuguese CP Rail train passing through acres of vineyards, villages, and white-washed homes piled on hillsides crammed with pine and swaying birch. Through each small town the loud blare of the train’s horn split the morning air and corrals of goats and horses would raise their heads in alarm and then return to the stolid joys of munching their cud.

Chip Walter 4/15/23 Chip Walter 4/15/23

Day 566 - Porto, Portugal

We awakened to the sounds of squabbling seagulls outside our window. Apparently they had swept up the Douro River from the seaside for a conversation.

The night had banished the rain and the cobbled streets were bustling with sanitation workers emptying trash cans, students working their phones, a scattered tourist or two and locals traveling this way and that to work or errands. Cyndy was jonesing for some American style coffee and Starbucks, it turned out, was right across the street. Feeling a little guilty, we bought two old-fashioned, big cups of coffee, not the smaller espresso's or cappuccinos we had been drinking throughout Chile, Argentina, and Lisbon, and sat outside in the bright, chilly air at a small table to people watch.

Chip Walter 4/14/23 Chip Walter 4/14/23

Day 565 - Porto, Portugal

Our train from Lisbon took us along the Portuguese coast to Porto, Portugal’s oldest city and the nation’s namesake. This was a local train so many stops were necessary: Pombal, Nazarré, Granja do Ulmiero Alfarellos and Coimbra. It sometimes rattled and screeched on unsure rails, and at other times rolled so seamlessly you wouldn't know rails existed at all.

Prosperous and scrubbed is the way you would describe some towns, others were crowded with trash, unkept parklets and warehouses; some are industrial, others pastoral. Mostly the views from any train passing through urban areas are notoriously devoid of beauty. It's the green open spaces that catch your eye: the sleepy sheep that seem drunk in their corrals or great swaths of green farm lands, or, far off, the sea and it's crashing surf.

Chip Walter 4/13/23 Chip Walter 4/13/23

Day 564 - Lisbon, Portugal

Beyond the Square and we passed a through slender archway and entered Rua Áurea (Golden Street). Among the retail shops, small mercado's and bakeries sat a stone archway hung with slick, black, rubber curtains, with big white letters that read: "Girls! Dancers! Peep show!" Within I could make out the strains of "I'm never going to love again."

Chip Walter 4/10/23 Chip Walter 4/10/23

Day 561 - Goodbye L’Austral

It was dawn Easter morning when the L'Austral turned to enter the wide mouth of the Tagus River (Rio Tejo) and dock in Lisbon. The city's mercury vapor lights winked in the dawn as we drifted beneath the sprawling Bridge of April 25th (the name memorializes a military coup that changed Portugal in 1974). Then the ship pivoted neatly into its berth.

For the first time in 21 days we listened to the roar of overhead jets, rumbling trucks, and the urban thrum of the city beyond. The bow breaks of the sea and the high pitched calls of brown boobies were gone. Lisbon's white, low buildings burst bright as the sun rose, and their ubiquitous terra-cotta roofs seemed to open like flowers.

Chip Walter 4/6/23 Chip Walter 4/6/23

Day 557 - Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

After the red and black tugs haul us into the port of Las Palmas, the largest city in the Canary Islands (100,000 people), we find a city alive with long rows of tall hotels and apartment buildings gleaming in the morning sun.

This is the first time we’ve planted our seagoing feet on solid ground since Montevideo. We have half a day. Not much time, while the ship replenishes its stores. Everyone, including members of the crew, are excited to visit.

The Vagabond Adventure Daily Journal