The Goldenpass train has the name for a good reason. The scenes we passed are works of art - beautiful green hills with snowy mountains peeking through, typical wooden chalets with flowering window boxes, making for enchanting views for miles and miles. John's comment: "in spite of the pictures, I think I underestimated the grandeur."
As we moved from Interlaken to Montreux through the gorgeous mountain passes, some general impressions of our brief time in Switzerland are surfacing:
**Everything is on time.**We've seen marvelous engineering projects, not least of these are the wonderful trains and cable cars that go to all kinds of places in the mountains.
**Public areas are in great shape - clean, modern, in repair. This goes for train stations, curbs and sidewalks, roads, toilets, walls. Probably because they pay higher taxes!
**The yodel festival was very much geared to the Germanic Swiss audience. Little was in French and nothing in English. They were happy to have yodeling groups from Japan, S.Korea, Alberta Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Wisconsin. And there were a few groups from the French speaking part of Switzerland (all singing in SwitzerDeutch). Out of 10,000 participants, however, the vast majority were Germanic Swiss.(The only ad in the program book in English was to invite guests to "play poker and black jack" in the Interlaken casino!
***The greeting custom is for three cheek kisses (left, right, left) - especially initiated by the women.
As the train neared Montreux we could see hillsides with grade vine and the architecture changing to a French style, as the signs changed to French. I felt "home" again, able to read the signs and pick up on conversations,More about our afternoon in the "Montreux Riviera" tomorrow.
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Location:Golden pass to Montreux, Switzerland
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