Our time in Dubai passed quickly, as did the 6 hour 777 flight to Geneva. Unfortunately Anne still didn't manage any sleep. Still, she was in great spirits.
The first test of our experiment in travelling with carry-on luggage only was passed with flying colours. From landing to sitting down in the train for Lausanne took only about 30 minutes, including working out the ticket machine. Just moving around with a 7 kg bag is so much easier than the usual hassle of dragging larger gear around. So far so good!
After a little trial and error - compounded by the time it takes to send SMS messages in a foreign country, and Gorel's never having used SMS before, we made contact with our hosts, Gorel (pronounced Yorel) and Othmar, whom we had first met on the Greek Island of Siphnos in 1985, and whose previous home we stayed in that same year. They have visited us twice in the intervening period, most recently only a few years ago. They met us on the platform at Lausanne station.
With visions of Swiss efficiency in mind, we thought it would be sensible to buy our onward rail tickets while we were at the station anyway. In a blow to my stereotype of the Swiss, 40 minutes later , Anne was, as our French speaker, finally at the counter. Once there she was very well served by the attendant who advised her that in Italy on our day of travel, there would be a strike, which might affect us. At least some people can live up to their stereotypes!
We drove through the centre of Lausanne up to our host's home on the hillside above the town. What a lovely site Lausanne has, nestled by the lake with views of the mountains on the French side beyond. In no time at all were were being shown our room with views of those same mountains (see the photo for today' blog). We passed the evening in catching up, in a lovely Swiss meal of wurst and rosti (apologies to any German speakers for the absence of umlauts) , and a bottle of Swiss red from the local area. As might have been expected, it was an early night!