We haven’t planned to visit Switzerland on our travels but our travels took us so close to it (Lake Annecy), we asked ourselves – why not?!

Crossing the Swiss border included a mere wave to the border guards (and scrambling back stage, hiding the cat). Our drive took us along Lake Geneva which is most impressive – like an inland sea. Too bad we couldn’t see any decent beaches as we’d jump right in.

We started the Swiss part of our trip by visiting Hermance – a lovely, typically Swiss village just outside Geneva (which was descoped btw, as advised by a few Swiss folk we talked to). Hermance was beautiful, yet quite sleepy and with a few hours of daylight left we decided to press on.

Surrounded by countryside straight out of a Milka advert, we found a place to stay for the night outside Montreux, which just hosted the Jazz festival. Waking up at the feet of the mountains never gets boring. It was quite a fresh morning and we both enjoyed a nice cup of coffee with a gorgeous view of the Swiss Alps as a backdrop.

What happened next could only be described as heavens opening; we got trapped in torrential rain in the Bristol hotel on the promenade (could be worse) and demanded breakfast. It looked like the rain wasn’t going anywhere that day so our drive around Lake Geneva (unplanned but pretty cool) continued.

Following We popped into Lausanne’s Fondation de l’Hermitage for an exhibition that contained a few gems of modern art, including Basquiat, Louise Borgeouis, Kit Haring, etc. Very impressive location for a gallery and great exhibition of a private (aka rare) collection. If you’re nearby – it offers a well curated intro to the 20^th Century Modern Art. More info on the exhibition and the foundation here: http://www.fondation-hermitage.ch/actualite/

Completely wet but with a head full of art it was time for us to decide what’s next?

Sorry, Switzerland, but the rain wasn’t what we ordered – it felt like an escape from this biblical rainfall and return to France was on the cards.