Lago d'Orta

This weekend, as it is the last one we have here before I go back to South Africa, Laura and I went to Italy, more precisely to Lago d'Orta. It is less than 4 hours drive from Lausanne, provided that, unlike for us :
- there is no works on the road
- there is no traffic
- there is no snow on the Simplon pass
- you use only highway
- you go straight to Orta
Well, it took us more than that, since we left at 9am from Lausanne, and we arrived at the hotel around 4pm. It may sound a long drive, but it's not too bad, actually. We really took our time, and we did not go straight to Orta with the highway.

So, from Lausanne, we went towards the Simplon pass, which looked like that :

But there was no snow on the road, the road is actually very good and well-maintained. After the pass, it starts going downhill, until the border with Italy. We left the main road in Domodossola, to take a more scenic view. We passed by nice villages, like that one, with a lake and fancy cars :

We also stopped quickly close to Lago Maggiore (?), it was very windy ... And then we crossed some mountains to enjoy the view, and to reach the Lago d'Orta.

Lago Maggiore

Lago d'Orta

Although the first day was not so nice weather, we could swim a little bit when the sun was there ... and enjoy some drinks !

The lake was actually horizontal ... don't worry :-)

Then we came back to Lausanne, and the snow had disappeared on the Simplon pass ! It was a nice weekend, we bought Italian stuff (mainly, food :-) ), we enjoyed the lake and the landscapes, we had snow and sun ... all perfect !

Simplon, without the snow !

A Swiss post !

Wow, it's been so long I last posted here ! Three months ... The summer has passed, we went on vacations, 10 days in Chicago to see our friends Evren and Ceren, and we went a little bit around Switzerland, though not so much because of work ... Things have changed: Laura is now a doctor, it is more than 30 degrees Celsius in Lausanne, I've met my super-cool nephew Joachim, a new particle has been observed at the LHC. And I'll be back in South Africa in less than a month.

I guess I should have posted something about Chicago, but I'll skip that for now - maybe later I'll do it, if I find the time ... Today's post is about Switzerland. We've been living here several years now, but we barely know the country, and yet it is not very large ! So, recently, we took the car and went in the Valais canton, first to Martigny and the Grand-Saint-Bernard pass (border with Italy), and today to Lac de Moiry, close to Sierre.

Here are some pictures ...

Martigny and Grand-St-Bernard

Pic-nic on the Saint-Bernard pass

After that, we visited quickly the town of Sion, still in Valais, which is said to be the sunniest in Switzerland. It's probably true - today we passed through, and it was like 40 degrees !

Lac de Moiry

A panoramic view:

Lausanne
Just because I don't often put pictures of Lausanne ... yesterday we went for a swim in Pully, and there is a guy who likes to pile-up stones. It starts looking quite nice!

Thoughts for food ...

This is just to illustrate a few recipes we tried recently ...

Carré d'agneau au miel et thym
We took this recipe from the very good blog of Guillaume Long : http://long.blog.lemonde.fr/2011/04/15/ce-week-end-c%E2%80%99est-agneau/ (even if you can't read french, it's illustrated ;-) )

The result was beyond expectations !

Agneau au cumin "a la Chez Xu"
There is this Chinese restaurant we like a lot in Lausanne, called Chez Xu (on the same blog, this restaurant was presented, by the way: http://long.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/09/14/prononcez-tchiou-enfin-je-crois-premiere-partie/ , but we knew it already)
And one of our favorite dishes there is "agneau au cumin", sooooo good. So, we tried to do it at home ! The result was good, but it is (still) better at the restaurant ;-)

Magret de canard, sauce aux morilles et porto, avec frites de legumes
We could not go to Perigueux and not bring a "magret de canard" ;-) We cooked it with "vegetable fries" and a sauce with mushrooms (morilles) and porto wine. It was delicious !

By the way, I'm back !

Back in Europe for a few months (not sure yet until when ...). We spent a weekend in Madrid, and a weekend in Perigueux - sometimes, you have to visit your family ...
A few pictures ...

Madrid
In Madrid, we eat good things ...

... and we also visited a few museums ...

... I also had a workshop on how to cut jamon !

We also visited Laura's friends and saw a water-polo game. It was a nice weekend.

Périgueux
For the "Ascension" weekend, we visited my mother in Périgueux. The weather was not very good, but we could visit some prehistoric caves and some castles and nice villages ...

We'd like to do family weekends more often, but it is not always easy ... Madrid is a 1:30 hour flight from GVA, and Périgueux is 7 hours driving ...