Lausanne –Day 2 - Vevey Continued

Lausanne –Day 2 - Vevey Continued

A couple of stops from our “Vevey Gare” destination, a pretty young woman boarded our bus. She looked up the aisle, noticed us, flashed a huge smile, and walked right up. We must have appeared astonished when she said, “David and Suzanne…?”

The woman continued, “I’m Julia Tames, from Montreux-Vevey Tourism.” Ah…the light dawned: Julia was hosting us for lunch. She was supposed to be meeting us at the Vevey Gare bus stop, but happened to get on the same bus that we had taken from Chaplin’s World. Of course, I couldn’t help but have a sneaking suspicion that someone had told the tourism board to make sure they found us before we got lost…again.

The Brasserie La Coupole is a very nice restaurant. 

It is set on the main floor of the elegant Astra Hotel, and dates back to 1912. 

It was another warm day, and I eyed the salads on the menu. At Julia’s recommendation, I too ordered the Salade Gourmande, which featured smoked breast of duck and foie gras! It was delicious, but even the appetizer portion was a huge meal. 

Yes, Julia and I finished every yummy bite. Suzanne’s Tataki de filet de boeuf 

and Chrisite’s crudités with assorted dips 

were more reasonably sized, and just as delicious.

  

Just after leaving the Brasserie La Coupole, Christie spotted the Läderach Chocolatier Suisse. She said it was one of her favourite places to buy chocolates. In the window we noticed “film reel” tins featuring small, molded chocolate replicas of Charlie Chaplin’s shoes. 

After our visit to Chaplin’s World, we just had to go in for a closer inspection. Of course, the shop’s proprietor, renowned chocolatier Blaise Poyet, insisted we each sample a “shoe.” 

We just had to agree with Christie: Läderach makes very fine chocolate indeed.

Julia suggested that we take Vevey’s pretty waterfront promenade next to Lac Leman to our next destination, the Alimentarium. With our huge lunch and chocolate-tasting, the walk would be welcome. But to the world’s first-ever museum dedicated to food?

You can’t miss Alimentarium; it’s marked by an eight-metre stainless steel fork set in the lake. 

At a nearby statue of Charlie Chaplin, we bade farewell to charming and effervescent Julia.

Alimentarium is housed in the former headquarters of the Nestlé Group and the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, which donated the neo-classical-styled mansion and lands on the waterfront for the museum.

Inside the museum, we learned about almost everything we could ever want about the world’s food and human diet. 

In the last exhibit, we had great fun following the journey of what happens to food after it is eaten. We walked through giant mock-ups of the entire human digestive tract from one end to the other ... an anatomical funhouse!