After a good nights sleep in spite of all the nights activities on the street below, and an amazing breakfast buffet at the hotel, we are feeling much better. A quick stop at the UN (all visitor tours, gift shop, etc, closed for the weekend) we are off. The swiss countryside looks as I remember it, with its rolling hills, small towns with the obligatory church in the middle, narrow little streets, (you dont see SUVs or pickup trucks here for a reason). Flowers are everywhere, in window boxes, in neatly planted gardens on the side of the road. We drive along the lake, Lac du Leman, stopping to picnic with our groceries from the Coop. Darrin tries Feldschlossen Bier, the swiss equivelant of budweiser. Not bad, he says, for a light beer.

Continuing along the winding road around the lake, we finally end up at Chateau Chillon, a medieval castle dating back to the 11th century. We spent 2 hours climbing ancient stone staircases, peering into crypts, turrets, and looking into latrines. Yes, latrines were the hightlight of several rooms. Just a big hole emptying into the river.

We finally check into our hotel, a beautiful traditional Swiss resort on the lake. Across from the hotel is a pier, complete with merry-go-round, water features, pedal boats to rent and ice cream stands. Time to people watch! A wide assortment of people go by, some on bikes and rollerblades. Our ears are assaulted with a melange of languages- french, german, italian, arabic, chinese, occasionally english. But where are all the fat people? If this was the US, they would be everywhere, with their bellies hanging out under their Nascar t-shirts or muffin tops out of their jeans. Not so here. People are thinner, and dressed better. Just look at the shoes. I studdied shoes for a good part of the afternoon. Women tend to wear more high heels here, even when trying to to climb very narrow stairs at the Chateau Chillon. Men are wearing pointing pointing funky shoes that would make Clinton Kellz proud. Sneakers are ok here, but either in funky loud côlors (the germans) or skinny black sneakers (italians).
After wandering for hours, we sat at an outside cafe to eat a wonderful dinner of perch,and have a few glasses of our favorite libations. More people watching, and car watching. We saw one SUV, a Tahoe, and it couldnt fit into the tiny parking space. Oh, and this one is for you, Becca and Rachel. Guess what your mother did? Parallel parked- Into a tiny space. I had Darrin take a picture.