October 7/12

Etienne and I stayed in Lausanne overnight with Diego and Carolyn because Diego and Carolyn graciously offered to take us on a day trip today.  The problem was that it was up to me to decide what to do.  With no information to go on, I had to choose the destination: a trip to the tourist traps of the capital city, Bern, or a trip to Gruyères (the home of the cheese) and Fribourg (Diego’s home town), or my choice – whatever, within reason.  Under the gun, I chose Gruyères /Fribourg.  I’m glad I did!  Carolyn had to work, so Diego, Etienne and I set off on a gray, rainy morning from Lausanne.  As we drove, we passed lush, green, rolling hills populated with farms that were home to fat, well-maintained cows, heading into the foothills before the Northern Alps. 

We arrived at Gruyères ahead of most of the tourists and day-trippers, so it was fairly quiet when we arrived at the parking lot below the village.  The old part of Gruyères is a medieval village centred around a 13^th century castle, recognized as one of the best known in Switzerland, but the area has been inhabited since at least 325 BC.  The castle is set up in a hill which is surrounded by valleys that cut through the hills leading dramatically up to the Alps.  As we trudged up the hill to the village, I had an amusing thought: all these cows are out to pasture, a lot of them just laying about, fat, lazy, and I presume fairly content; clearly, Switzerland has a lot of cows…I giggled as I asked Etienne, “You know what Switzerland needs?  More Cowbell!”  (Seriously, if you are North American, you have GOT to get that reference, there is no excuse.)

At one point, we ventured off the main drag (so to speak), and headed toward the village church, which sat below the castle and beside a medieval defense wall.  The drop was fairly steep, and below us was a series of penned-in fields holding deer and cows.  What made these cows so special?  Cowbells!  All of the cows in the herd below us appeared to be wearing cowbells, and we could hear the delightful tinkling as they moved and grazed. 

We continued back up to the main drag but decided not to go in to the castle.  Instead, we opted for what I’m going to say is our most bizarre activity on any trip thus far (never mind this one); it turns out that this medieval village is also home to the HR Giger museum.  If you don’t know who HR Giger is, he’s the genius/madman who designed and developed the aliens from the ‘Alien’ series of movies.  And wow…that guy’s mind is TWI-STED!  No, that’s not right.  More like a journey through ‘uhhh…fuck.’  He not only enjoys creating aliens, he’s also got a serious hang-up (hard on?) about the sexuality and sex of aliens, and to a lesser extent, humans.  His artwork is filled with dark, unusual, and sometimes scary images of sex acts, and he clearly enjoys breasts.  It was beyond incongruous to see this museum in a medieval village in “Small Town Switzerland.”

After we finished with the most fucked up museum experience I’ve ever had, we bought a cowbell (you know we had to…you don’t leave touristy Switzerland without one), and were back in the car, heading past more lush, verdant fields and more fat cows (lacking cowbells) toward Fribourg.

From the outskirts, Fribourg looks like any other city, with modern suburbs and services, but when you start driving toward the old city, it becomes a different world.  The old city sits on the Sarine River, but it is enclosed on one side by an astoundingly stark, sheer cliff, and on the other sides are dramatically steep hills leading up to the “downtown” of Fribourg, which houses 17^th and 18^th century homes that overlook the lowertown.  Like an idiot, I walked around with my mouth agape, utterly speechless.  How could this place exist?  Nature and humanity sometimes combine to do some incredibly wondrous things.  Truly stunning.

Gruyères and Fribourg…

…Wish you were here.