Jack n Karen's Travel Blog: Switzerland

We are well into our second "housesitting" experience now in Montmagny, Switzerland.

Coat-of-Arms-Montmagny

We are located in a very small "hamlet" in between Lake Neuchàtel (New-sha-tail) and Lake Moret which is approximately midway between Zurich and Geneva, Switzerland. I say hamlet because Montmagny (pronounced Mo-ma-née) is on a hill that has old farm houses and around 180 people. Montmagny is one of seven hamlets or tiny villages that merged in 2011 to form the community of Vully-les-Lacs, While the house where we stayed in England was "the special part", here it is certainly the area.

Montmagny, rarely found on a map, is 1.5 sq miles in size! 73% is agricultural, 21% forested and 4.5% settled with buildings and roads. Most of the crops we see growing are rapeseed, wheat, corn and tobacco but vineyards are clearly taking over.

The Vully is so charming, full of colorful huge old farmhouses, with superb panoramic views of the lakes, the Jura Mountains and the Alps. The area lies in the crossover between the French-and German-speaking areas. "Swiss German", is very different than German, as I'm finding out--"Grüezi"-hello and Merci vilmal-thanks a lot. Swiss German has its own pronunciation, grammar and many Germans have difficulty understanding it. Rest assured, most Swiss speak English, or so we have been told. In fact, because we are in an area that is not a typical tourist area for English or Americans, we are discovering that hand gestures and our dictionary are most helpful. When we do need to have more help in English, we seek out the younger people, such as the young mom with her child in the grocery store!

Back to our house. This is the style of an old stone\masonary "house-barn", about 150 year-old, that was originally was used for the livestock and hay in 2\3 of the building and living in the other 1\3.

While there are still many of these around here, our barn-side (brown wood) was converted into a house about 40 years ago. The walls are very thick and the living areais the second floor with the small square windows obviously from the barn. (the gray side is a rented duplex apartment)

Inside, however, its modern, large, comfortable and has 3 sets of stairs! From our windows we hear the clock ringing on the hour and even longer at certain times like noon and 8:00 pm. Why? We think it is still to bring in the farmer from the fields, or maybe if his cell phone is out of battery....

We are actually the center of the village, or hamlet, and the farm machinery, cars, bikes and even the bus go right in front of our house.

Our housesitting responsibilites are 3 pets..

an outside cat, 6 canaries and YES a tortoise

The steep banks of the Vully-les-Lacs is perfect for grapes and this small VOC has 24 winegrowers open their cellars for customers.

the cellars in Montmagny-about 300 mts from us

wine made from the vineyard of our hosts

While red wine varieties are becoming more popular, around the Vully its the white grape that dominates, specifically the Chasselas, Switzerland's most widely planted white wine grape. This grape tends to ripen early making it a good match for the "cooler climate of the alpine slopes.

The first weekend here, we were treated by our house-hosts to participate in the annual "Balade Gourmande of the Vullz-les-Lacs", a 5km walk through the vineyards with 9 different stops to taste the local wine and food specialities. What a great experience and fun! Took about 4 hours....