Daily Archives: Wednesday, 31 May, 2006

My father and mother met each other in Glion, Switzerland where they both worked at a Dutch school. The school was for Dutch children with respiratory problems (“Swiss mountain air is good for you”) and also for diplomat’s offspring who paid more and thus sponsored the poorer kids. Glion is a very small village perched on a very steep hill with a splendid view overlooking the lake of Geneva.

The school was located in a huge former hotel. After the school suddenly closed, my parents quickly married, had a three day honeymoon (they took the funicular down the mountain, took a ferry powered by paddles and then spend two days in a hotel near the lake) and left for the Netherlands the building became a hotel again. The hotel business is apparently hard because the hotel is now closed and for sale.
Alison and I wander around, in sit on the moss covered steps in the gardens watching the clouds that approach fast over the lake and result in a huge downpour, 10 minutes after this picture was taken. Walking in Glion isn’t exactly a trip down memory lane, but in a way it is. If this hotel hadn’t existed I wouldn’t have.

Rain, low clouds and cold. So I can’t show Alison the Mont Blanc, the highest mountain of Europe, and all the other peaks I climbed in this region are also invisible behind thick layers of grey clouds.