If there's one thing we learned on our trip, it's that the French have some tough competition with the Swiss when it comes to eating cheese. Our first night in Switzerland we were guests at our friend Sandrine's home with her family in Dombresson, a small farming village near Neuchatel. We had fondu. It was very melty and cheesy. And there are rules. #1. Do not drink any cold liquid with cheese fondu (wine is exempt because they also like wine) or the melted cheese will form a gelatinous ball in your stomach, becoming very difficult to digest. #2. Do drink hot sweet tea, helps the medicine go down. #3. Do dip your bread in some Kirsch before dunking and swirling in the cheese, also helps the medicine go down. #4. If you drop a piece of bread in the fondu pot you drink a bottle of wine as punishment. Now, the first 3 or 4 bites of fondu are delicious but after that one starts to wonder about a meal that has so many rules and regulations for safe consumption. While in La Suisse, we did not go a day or dare I say, a meal without cheese. We also saw our fair share of cows. And with the cows, come the flies. A small price to pay for all the lovely dairy products, depending on how you look at things. We went on some beautiful drives through the countryside, hiked in the local hills, had some great meals (did I mention the cheese?), saw some fireworks (it was Switzerland's National Day last week and there are a lot of festivities and free white sausage, the "other" national food) and spent time with friends. The one road bump on the trip was that I got stung by a bee, on my right eyelid (I meant big road bump). Ouch! For those of you that know me, you can only imagine, it wasn't pretty. Long story short, eye swells shut, go see local doc, get meds, all better. Then we were off to Italy! We had a beautiful drive through the Alps, stopping at Chillon Castle (very cool) in Montreux (yes, smoke on the water) finally arriving at our borrowed condo on Lago Maggiore. Side note on the Alps, they make the Santa Monica mountains look like the hills of Madison, CT. Really breathtaking! The lake in Italy was stunning. The girls loved hanging out at the pool, which was also special...fully tiled, lounge chairs, grass, warm showers and plenty of wealthy italians on vacation. If we didn't get our fill of dairy in Switzerland (HA), we made up for it in pizza and gelato. Note to any other travelers: food is much more affordable in Italy than in switzerland and it's not too hard to find good food! in case you were wondering, Chloe got to enjoy it all with us and she was a very good girl! (Note: The children in the above photo are Camilla and Max Yust, daughter and son of Alex Yust and Sandrine Junod. The photo was taken at Saut du Doubs.) Stay tuned for more stories from The Road Trip and more photos!
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