not all those who wander are lost…

they might just be stuck in a city they didn’t plan on visiting! Well, in my case for today, anyway.

Here’s what happened. I had my heart set on doing what one of my friends called “crazy” and another “badass” — I wanted (despite being only half-healthy) to take a 6 hour train ride to Lugano, spend at most 4 hours there and then go back on another 6 hour train ride to Geneva. Why, you ask? Well, 1. I wanted to have set foot in a city that is in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, 2. It is a lot cheaper to get a day ticket with the half-price pass I have than to get a return ticket, and 3. my half-price pass is expiring soon so I might as well do it before it expires, right?

So yesterday, I went to buy myself a day pass and this morning at 7:20ish I was at the train station below the airport, sitting comfortably on a train going to Brig. I figured since I had the day pass anyway it didn’t matter which train I take, I’ll just go and find a connection later. So I got all comfortable and read my book and gazed out the window. And the view was mesmerizing as the train stopped at a city called Vevey. Now, I can’t really say why but I suddenly thought about checking my half-price pass for the expiry date — because of course I was being a smart ass and didn’t check it before — next thing the guy sitting opposite me saw was me throwing my wallet back into my backpack going “Oh, sh*t” and running towards the door, jumping out as the train started to move. My half-price pass expired yesterday.

In the next few deep breaths I had to take in order to make my heart beat normally again, I thought: 1. It was strange but thank God there was no ticket check up til now! 2. Ugh, now I’ll have to pay a full price ticket back to Geneva, and 3. Where am I again? Vevey? Oh well, might as well see what this city has to offer. And that’s when I started to wander around.

First thing first, I grabbed myself a cup of cappuccino and a chaussons aux pommes. Not the best one I’ve ever had, but anyway. Since what caught my attention at the first place (on the train) was the view of the lake, I decided to head towards the lakefront. When I saw this, I was perfectly content that I ended up here:

A few meters further down, I noticed a statue of Charlie Chaplin. Apparently, he came to live here in 1953 and stayed until his death in 1977. Interesting, indeed!

I then turned my back and saw the fork!

Apparently as iconic to the lakeside of Vevey as the Jet d’Eau is to Geneva, the fork was installed to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Alimentarium museum, a museum about food and food processing started by Nestlé. The company was actually started in Vevey, BTW. Another important thing about Vevey in the history of the world that I didn’t know before! I didn’t go to the museum, however, since it was a bit on the expensive side. Instead, I continued to wander. Here are a few of my interesting findings.

(side note: There was this big visual art across the city “exhibition” that lasted until the end of September. Kinda sad I missed it, but glad I got to see some displays that were still left behind!)

I also went into some shops and got pretty cute postcards and went to the history museum (there was a special exhibition on Madame de Warens, Rousseau’s patron, who was born in Vevey) and the Photography museum (did you know that the first ever photograph is French??) and had a fresh panini at the park, looking out to the lake.

At this point I’ve gotten a bit tired and decided to make a move back to Geneva. Somehow I finally decided to ask at the counter if it was possible for me to renew my half-pass card there. Surprise, surprise, it was! Come to think of it I should’ve asked at the beginning of the day and I could’ve made it to Lugano! DUH. But I guess it was nevertheless worth it.

Since my day pass is now valid again, I decided to make a pit stop at Montreux, just because… and got this awesome photo that just describes the day very well. Courtesy of Freddie Mercury, of course…