16th of July we felt really honoured being hosted by family de Lavallaz. Their family estate dates back to the 16th century and appeared to us like a castle. Even the entrance to the courtyard was already very impressive and Jean-Marc had sent me a photo way before our arrival not to misinterpret it as a museums entrance.
It is very impressive when you can see the family tree and the ancestors from the 16th century look at you in the great room and the year 1643 is graved in soap stone of the furnace. Even a wall panel had a painting of the important passage at Châteaux de Saint Maurice with the bridge where we had to come along on our bike tour yesterday.
Our Rotarian friend Jean-Marc de Lavallaz had developed the land around his premises for an urban development in sustainable building methods using wood construction for the several floors high buildings. He was a former pharmacist and called the project of a medical centre “his baby” with a very expressive façade to provide intimacy behind the screens. He was very content, that my presentation was supporting the vision of his architectural attempt.
It was just at the moment, when we charged our iron mules in the courtyard, when I got a call from the president of the Rotary Club Montreux-Vevey, that we would be welcome to join their lunch as he had received the information through a mail from the past president yesterday.
Well a bit sportive to reach Lake Geneva in time, but we tried our best.
We passed by the castle of Chillon and reached the Montreux shores of the famous Jazz-Festival. Some days before friends told us, that during the festival you can’t see the statue of Freddy Mercury during that time, because they would take it down due to the masses of people. But in the corner of my eye I saw the distinctive gesture of Freddy rising his arm into the air like he did at the concert in Wembley stadium.
The location of the Rotary meeting was actually not in Montreux but in Tour de Peilz even 4 km further away at the Hotel Bon Rivage. We got our bikes glowing to reach it just in time and instead of Freddy’s melody “bicycle” I had “smoke on the water” by Deep Purple as a tune in my ear. We made it for the starter of their lunch still with our bike helmets under our arms. President Christian Kaelin arranged two more seats for us at the table on the terrace looking over Lake Geneva shore.
Our next destination was only 500m away to the apartment of my relative Nicolas and his son Emil. Just shortly after we had unpacked everything and I was waiting for Robert to finish taking his shower I fell deeply asleep on the bed from exhaustion for the next two hours. A wonderful Family Cheese Fondue closed the day.
