Where in the world is Val?

14 August After coming down from the observatoire, we took the bus back down into Gruyères to look around the town and get some lunch.  The bus takes you to the train station, and from there it's a five minute walk (all up hill, of course) into the historic town center.  On the way, we passed more cattle, of course. Some of the cattle we passed were very close to the road we were walking on - close enough to stop and say hello.  This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Justine: Cows can be pretty shocking, can't they? Justine finally convinced me to stop in and say hello, too.  I just want to tell you briefly how large this pretty lady's tongue was.  I mean, it was enormous.  Huge.  She made quite a splash when she took a drink. We continued on our way into town: Gruyères is a super cute little town, filled with your typical Swiss restaurants serving fondue and souvenir shops selling Swiss army knifes (I bought one - an excellen...

13 August After finally deciding to go to Gruyères for the night, we had to hurry to catch the last train that would take us up to the mountains.  We took a train, and then a bus (because the train wasn't running between a couple of stops), and then a mini-train (only 2 cars long!) to Gruyères.  From there, we took another 20-minute bus ride up the steep curving slopes around the mountain to Moléson-sur-Gruyères, located about 1,000 meters above sea level.  The air was crisp and clean - that sounds trite but it was so true.  Being so high up, and so far from the hustle and bustle and dirty turmoil of modern life, everything just felt fresher and more beautiful.  The sweet clean air was rejuvenating with every deep inhalation. Moléson is an adorable tiny (and I mean TINY) little town.  There are a few chalets climbing up the slopes, a mini village square (complete with tourism office!), and, of course, a cheese shop, with signs directing you the w...

12 August (continued) I had about an hour in the Lyon train station before leaving for Geneva. Though I spent countless hours on trains as I crisscrossed my way all over France, I took hardly any pictures from the train as it was moving since the windows were usually grimy and the fast speeds and annoying propensity for trees to pop into the window frame tended to blur or block any subject I tried to capture.  But the ride to Geneva was stunning, and I made a few attempts that came out well: The Alps, just barely visible in the distance from Lyon, began to creep up upon me as we got closer to the Switzerland border.  Their craggy peaks and conifer-lined slopes were stunning. I was in Geneva for all of about an hour and a half between trains on my way from Lyon to Lausanne, Switzerland.  I didn't want to waste my time sitting in the train station, so I paid the ridiculous 8 CHF (Swiss Francs - funny fact, Switzerland is not part of the EU and, consequently, does...