Weeks 26 and 27-Six-Month Milestone and Cycling around Lake Morat

Week 26 was rather subdued, but it signified a personal victory for us: 6 months/half a year living in Switzerland. To celebrate, the Swiss Alps, which are usually obscured by haze, decided to pop out from the behind the lake to say Bonjour. We took a walk down to the lake, and M brought her camera to try to capture some of the splendor.

The last week of August, summer decided to skip town and autumn moved in to Neuchâtel. Temperatures have dropped, and there is that autumnal crispness in the air.

This past weekend we met back with our colleagues for an "easy " cycling trip around Lake

Morat (Murtensee in Swiss German) which straddles the cantons of Vaud and Fribourg. We drove with our bikes to the Bahnhof in the town of Morat/Murten on the southeast side of the lake and then rode around counter-clockwise around the lake. As with Lake Neuchatel, you aren't right next to the lake but do get view of it every now and then. After leaving the town of Morat and quickly traversing the hamlet of Muntelier, we found ourselves biking through a several-kilometer long forest, populated, according to the signs, by wild boar.

After the forest, we rode through towns replete with wine caves (well almost, when you consider there's about 1 cave for every four buildings). Wine caves are really just wine stores which often allow you to sample from some of the bottles that they keep open. A couple of the members of our group were eyeing the caves, but since it was around 10:30 in the morning we decided to press on.

All in all the ride was mostly flat, except for the very end of the lake loop where there was a teeth-gritting climb up a hill (a few members of the group-we won't name names-had to walk the bikes up the hill). We were rewarded with a pretty nice view of the Chateau de Morat in front of the lake right at the end.

By the time we got back in Morat (a roughly 25 km ride), M's hip felt pretty sore, but the group decided to go part way around the lake again to find one of the caves that we had missed earlier in the morning to sample some local wines. Just the thought of wine seemed to relax our muscles enough to make the ride through bumpy forest again bearable. At Il Grappolo cave in Sugiez, we sampled Chasselas and Pinot Gris wines from Vully. The owner then suggested a nice place for a lunch, a few kilometers down the road, right next to the water.

We ate at the Bel Air restaurant/hotel in Praz-Vully. M had the first tofu that she's had since being in Switzerland; it was a delicious dish of slabs of golden fried tofu with a cream sauce and veggies on the side. K had perch meuniere (lightly breaded and fried fish) with potatoes. K enjoyed this dish and felt quite sated when the water brought over the second half of his meal that had been keeping warm on a hot plate; the look on K's face was priceless.

After lunch, we biked back through the forest (again) and on to Morat. The town of Morat is quite cute, and we toured it briefly on the bikes on our way back to the train station. We will definitely want to come back and walk around it some more. As anticipated, M was barely able to walk the remainder of the weekend due to her sore hip. Perhaps someday she'll either get in shape or learn her limits.

Lessons learned:

1. Coors light is a "beer of the world". You know those 6 to 10 mixed packs of international beers you find in the grocery store? The ones that include probably Red Stripe, Dos Equis, and, if you're lucky, something quite good like Leffe? Well, our local supermarket Coop was selling an international pack of beers, one of which was Coors Light. That's right, Coors Light, not even Coors Original, the Banquet Beer. Of all the wonderful beers brewed in the US, they had to pick Coors Light. Sigh...

2. Figured out how to download French music from iTunes. Quelle musique!

3. A gîte is a French vacation home that can be rented out that is normally fully-furnished and self-catering. This term is used in the French-speaking region of Belgium - the Wallonie.