Epesses+sun+wine

for an afternoon, i stepped into a whole new switzerland. disorderly queues, crowded streets, and even some singing in the streets. not that the swiss never let their hair down, but i live in the IMD/saving money bubble of the occasional bar night and once in a blue moon restaurant meal.

Epesses is a tiny town amongst the terraced vineyards on the hillside next to lake geneva. one day of the year all of the wineries (les vignerons) of the epesses region open their 'cave a vin' for tasting. one can purchase a glass for 20 fr. and can taste all they want for free.

I set out with Sharon, Verity & little Hemming for an afternoon of tasting. the weather was gorgeous and we thoroughly enjoyed tasting and meandering the tiny streets of epesses.  great views of the lake and the surrounding vineyards. too bad we packed our own picnic and couldn't partake in this spit-roasted cow.

Verity, Sharon, me. 

town of Epesses and vineyards overlooking the lake

an entire cow, spit-roasted.

of course, i give them props for investing in some decent graphics as well.

gummy spear!

watch their website for the 2012 date, this year was the 7th of May.

wam-xc.ch

Last weekend I had my first session of wam-xc, Swiss chapter. Two members, one doesn't know she's registered yet. Nora picked a relatively "easy" hike from her book of local hikes. All of the hikes are described in German, so I was pretty much a follower for the day while she was doing the translating of... "under the train station, turn immediately right, then when you see the cemetery turn left and..." which worked out quite well for the most part. One minor detour up quite a steep hill which we chalked up to "exercise" and we were able to find the little blue signs guiding us along the hiking path. 

a beautiful old tree signifying the start of our hike in Cully.

 

the streets of Cully

The hike took us generally along the shore of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) although we did take the train out of Lausanne to the start of the hike in the small town of Cully. We hiked along a beautiful terraced hillside in the middle of endless rows of grape vines. Wintry and brown, of course, but still so beautiful! I was loving the look of all of the bark and earth, and can only imagine what this hike will be like in the summer with green and grapes all around! We passed through the teeny tiny town of Epesses, but mostly just walked up and down along the hillside. You can see the general route here, but we were on the road further up from the lake.  

sometimes we couldn't see over the walls!

quite a misty morning-
the lake could have been an ocean.

It was a great day, especially after our crazy fitness class with Iyerida the day before, it felt good to stretch our sore muscles. And when the weather gets warmer, we'll be ready for those 10 hour mountain hikes!

amazing terraces.  can you spot the architecture??  (Vinorama)