Friday, June 20, 2014

Lutry To Montreax June 20

                                                                        Current Day.                        Trip to Date

Distance walked- miles.                                      17.4.                                   510.8

Gross climb- feet.                                              1287.                                  37,090

Song of the Day:  Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple

They burned down the gambling house

It died with an awful sound

Funky Claude was running in and out 

Pulling kids out of the ground

Montreaux is the home of the famous Montreaux music festival, which was started in 1967 by a promoter named Claude Nobs.  In 1971, Frank Zappa was playing the festival, at the old Casino venue.  Apparently one of the crowd members shot a flair at the roof of the building, which caught on fire and eventually the arena burned to the ground.  Fortunately, no one died in this accident.  However, Deep Purple, which was also playing at the festival, went on to write the song Smoke on the Water as a result of this experience! The "smoke" on the water  was the smoke from the burning casino wafting out onto Lake Geneva.  

I dedicate the proceeding paragraph to the late, great Kasey Kasem, who passed away last week.  RIP Kasey.

Montreaux continues to be very well known for its music festivals.  When we walked into town today, they were constructing several temporary stages for the upcoming jazz festival, many of them extending out onto the shores of Lake Geneva:


Also, we saw the famous statue of Feddy Mercury here in Montreaux:


We had a very good walk today.  About 40% of the walk was on the shores of Lake Geneva, about 40% was passing through the famous Lavaux wine region, and the remaining 20% through various villages along the way.  All in all, a very satisfying walk.  

First, a note about the Lavaux wine region.  This is a beautiful area of steeply terraced vineyards along Lake Geneva that have been producing wines since the 11th century.  It is a world heritage UNESCO site and Switzerland's largest wine region.  The area is referred to as the land of three suns: sun from the sky, sun reflected from the lake, and sun absorbed into the walls.

There is a pathway that goes through this wine region that probably stretched 6 or 7 miles, broken up by a few villages alomg the way. 



As you can imagine, the logistics of moving grapes out of these very steep vineyards can be a big challenge.  They seemed to use a variety of approaches for getting the grapes from the vines to the winery:

 


We also passed through the town of VeVey, which is the global headquarters for Nestle.  A number of famous people have lived here, including Charlie Chaplin.  While in Veyvey, we found a sporting goods store, where I was able to buy a new poncho and we also bought new rubber tips for our hiking poles.  Here are a couple of shots from VeVey:



This evening, we went to a restaurant and watched Italy lose to Costa Rica in the World Cup.  Later this evening, Switzerland plays France.

Tomorrow, we have a long walk of almost 19 miles.  After about 3 miles, we leave Lake Geneva and begin proceeding toward the Great Saint Bernard pass.  Fortunately, tomorrow's walk is largely flat.



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