lausanne in white (and gray)

Having lived most of my life in a relatively flat place, I'm still not used to the implications of altitude. We live on the north side of Lausanne, at an altitude of 645 meters (2,116 feet). Lake Geneva, at the southern edge of Lausanne, is at 373 meters (1,224 feet).

It began to snow a couple of nights before New Year's Eve. By 8:30 am the following morning, our corner of the world was pretty white. Or blue. You make the call.

An hour later, I drove to the south side of town for a meeting with a client. It typically takes about ten minutes to get there. But that day it took about 45 minutes: Not only did the snow slow everybody down, but about a third of the roads were closed.

Imagine my disappointment when reaching the client's house and seeing not so much as a flake of snow on the ground to back up my bad weather excuse (for being half an hour late). Fortunately, he'd heard the news. And he's used to living in a vertical world.

The next day, New Year's Eve, I had to drive to our office in Vevey, 20 minutes east of Lausanne, to take care of some last minute Y2K bug stuff. After having driven this trip a hundred times and cursing myself each time for never remembering to bring a camera, I finally found myself, by coincidence, equipped.

Every now and then, just driving around makes Stèph and me wonder why we would ever want to leave this place.

The road en route to Vevey (la route des corniches)	The vineyards below Chexbres (les vignes de St. Saphorin)	vineyards
The banks of Vevey	Same vineyards