Views of Perroy, Switzerland, January 2014

Dwight Peck's personal website

A nostalgic visit to the villages of La Côte

We've moved down to the other end of Lake Geneva now, but it's never too late to record a few images of our favorite villages along the Nyon-Lausanne shore.

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

These are some views of Perroy, a vineyard and bedroom community along the lake shore between Rolle and Allaman (at about 380m altitude), proceeding up the hill to the centre village (ca. 418m) and then past the rail line and autoroute as far as the treeline near the Signal de Bougy at about 660m.

As little as there is of it, downtown Perroy is charming, a village of fewer than 1,500 citizens, called the Perrolans, just down the hill towards Rolle from our then-residence in Féchy-Dessous. There are a few spurs of modern housing radiating off from the downtown, a small industrial area up near the autoroute, and at the foot of the vineyard slopes, across the Route du Lac or Route Suisse, a small beach and port for pleasure-boats, with restaurants and the obligatory lakeside estates.

Like the rest of this lake shore region called La Côte, Stone Age settlers lived in dwellings built on stilts along the lake, but the earliest reference to Perroy as a place in its own name is from AD 910, when Rudolph I, King of Burgundy, gave the domain of "Pirrhois" to his nephew. Later in the same century, monks from the Abbey of St-Philibert of Tournus, near Chalon-sur-Saône in Burgundy, set up here and began the viticulture that has characterized the village and its surroundings ever since.

The restaurant La Passade is almost always wonderful, and only 3 minutes from home when we lived in Féchy-Dessus, but -- because wonderful -- often crowded. Call ahead.

Along the Ruelle des Jardins near the restaurant, with new buildings going up

The monks' priory and vineyards were sold off to private owners with the Reformation, and eventually sold to the commune in 1914.

Back past the restaurant

The Grand-Rue, looking eastward towards the church

But turning westward, a manor along the Grande-Rue

Farther west along the Grand-Rue, the Domaine Chatelanat wine growers

Still farther west, near the end of the centre village

A pleasant park at the western end of the Grand-Rue

A late afternoon from the little park, looking out over Lake Geneva towards Geneva itself

The next town westward along the lake shore, Rolle, and the Île de la Harpe, the only island in Lake Geneva (apart from the Île de Rousseau in the river Rhône in downtown Geneva) -- and it's artificial, built in the 1830s as part of storm protection for the loading piers for timber off the Jura mountains.

A slopeful of vineyards, and lakeshore estates just across the Route du Lac

Looking uphill, a small industrial zone, and then more vineyards towards the village of Bougy-Villars at the tree line under the Signal du Bougy park for children

Back eastward to the Grand-Rue

Coming up to the church

There was a church here as part of the priory from as early as about 1140, but the present building dates from a rebuilding in the 1480s. The porch was added in 1828.

The Grand-Rue in front of the church

A peek through the gates of the Château de Perroy. The original 13th century castle was burnt during the conquest of the canton of Vaud by the Bernese in 1536, and this is its replacement. It's apparently still privately owned.

The Grand-Rue

Turning farther westward around the château, on the Rue du Château in fact, these are outbuildings of the estate

The back of the château and its 'orangerie' (right) added in the 18th century, now a warehouse for the domain's wines

Farther out of town past the back walls of the château, along what has now become the Route des Chenetés

A peek at the château over the lakeside wall

A view across the lake at the Cornettes de Bise in the right-centre; the Leysin Tours are over on the left, then rightward to the sloping Diablerets. The point on the shore below us is the mouth of the river Aubonne in the commune of Allaman.

Back towards the Rue du Château

It's turned into a right dreary afternoon, but we're done for today.

Our old VW waiting for us patiently. We traded her in later in the year, RIP.

Perroy on Lake Geneva, with the Route du Lac across the bottom, the rail line across the top, and the A1 motorway just above "Le Chêne"; the Château is just above the "a" in Manoir -- from SwitzerlandMobility (http://map.schweizmobil.ch/?lang=en)