Up and Away in Chateau-d'Oex

We embarked on our first real adventure Saturday. True, we did go snowtubing toboganning in Leysin a few weeks ago. And, the Saturday after we finally got our car registered we took a drive to Fribourg and Neuchatel. But, this Saturday was our first true Swiss adventure: we visited Chateau-d'Oex (sounds like chateau day) for their Festival of Balloons. Many of you may have heard of the huge hot air balloon event that takes place in New Mexico every year, but there's another huge one that takes place over 9 days every January right here in Switzerland, and on Saturday we decided to make the trek.

When we got up in the morning, it seemed like it would be a dicey proposition. Although temperatures were around 40, the lake was covered in haze. Of course, as we've found over the past month, the lake is pretty much always covered in haze in the winter. Temperatures haven't been that cold here -- nothing like Minnesota -- usually hovering right around freezing. And, while the lake water is pretty cold, it's not frozen, so you have a classic temperature inversion and that leads to lots of fog and haze. But, that's not very comforting when you're planning on making a trek go visit a hot air balloon festival!

Of course we decided our first true Swiss adventure had to include a voyage by train, so we nixed the idea of driving to the festival. First we took a train from Pully to Montreux, and it was a lot of fun for me to see our daily voyage from the vantage point of the train rather than the car. The train line runs right next to the lake road, so it was pretty much the same journey until Vevey, but this time I got to really enjoy the view. Then, we hopped on  a panoramic train up over and through some mountains to Chateau-d'Oex. It was a fun trip and thankfully, when we popped out of a long tunnel on the other side of the range the skies were crystal clear -- perfect for watching balloons.

Surprisingly, given his obsession with trains, Calvin was complaining the entire train ride, wanting to "just get there" and thinking the train ride was taking too long. I took out my phone in the past few minutes to show him the countdown to our arrival, which was a big mistake because as far as I know it's still sitting on that train car today. Neither Swiss rail, Goldenpass (the operator of the panoramic train), nor I have seen or heard from it since. But, we're here! On to the balloons!

View from the train station at Chateau-d'Oex. We brought Flat Stanley
along for a family friend.

Do you remember Breitling Orbiter? I didn't. It was the first balloon to make a circumnavigation of the world in 1999. Well, it launched from right here in Chateau-d'Oex! Who knew?

Breitling Orbiter gondola in Chateau-d'Oex Centre.

Wow! Cool! Lots and lots and ... lots and lots of balloons being launched. Pictures don't really do it justice, but here are some to view. There were balloons of every shape and size -- some gondolas could fit a dozen people, and we saw one balloon that didn't even have a gondola, just a two person bench hanging from the balloon.

Looking down on the launch area.

Can you tell Elliot thinks this is REALLY COOL?

Laura and Elliot are having fun.

Maybe he was tired? Hungry? It wasn't Calvin's best day....

No, pictures don't do it justice. Plus, we need a
telephoto lens for this kind of work.

It was fun to see the few that came down through town. We don't
have a picture but saw one going down the street within 20 feet
of houses on each side.

We were perched up near a church on a hill overlooking things and decided to walk straight down the hill rather than on the long curving path. This was a mistake. Elliot wanted to roll down the hill, but I told him that was absolutely prohibited (it was a BIG hill!), but it was also a really STEEP hill, so like it or not Elliot went tumbling down after a ways. I think Laura lost her footing a time or two, as well. My feet slipped a few times in the mud, but I managed to keep my footing -- I was pretty worried about tumbling down that hill with Calvin strapped to my back. On the way back we walked AROUND the hill.

Steeper than it looks. Anyway, you'd have to be an idiot
to go straight down this hill....

Who are the idiots? Still a long way to go.
Elliot hasn't gone tumbling -- yet.

We had been up there. Elliot looking fine after doing
his part to reenact Jack and Jill.
Seriously, it's steeper than it looks (and slippery)!

Rewarded with closer view of the action, though.
This is the two-seater.

Looking down on Chateau-d'Oex from the tram.
It's sort of a break in the balloons right now.

We planned on watching the balloons in Chateau-d'Oex for five hours or so, but after an hour of standing there the kids got bored and started running around, Calvin was complaining about wanting to get back on the train (the same one he hadn't wanted to be on in the first place), and we found things to be getting repetitive. Watching dozens of balloons launch at once is pretty fun but... Well, we decided to find a place to eat an early lunch and come back for the "shaped balloons" launch. Finding an open restaurant at this time of day required an aerial tram ride and chairlift ride to the top of a ski mountain, but that may be a story for another day.

Riding the chairlift back down from lunch. That's Chateau-d'Oex
way down in the valley.

In the end, we ate lunch, I finally discovered I was missing my phone, Calvin's incessant whining was driving me further into a fit, and we decided to skip the shaped balloons and take the train back to Pully. When we popped back onto our side of the mountain we found ourselves back in the haze. Ah, home!

It's amazing what static electricity can do to Elliot's hair.

Picking up brochures with pictures of trains on them
made Calvin much happier on the ride home.

Ah, home! Can you see the haze over Montreux behind Flat Stanley?
That's what most of our days here have looked like.
(Not that we're complaining!)