A Well Kept Man

A coworker of Alli's was describing an area to the west of Lausanne which used to serve as a military fortification during the Second World War to impede the progress of the Germans across Europe. He indicated that it isn't very easy to find, but if one looks hard enough you can find it. As my darling wife is not present (due to business travel), I vowed that I would locate this former defensive line near the town of Gland (sounds like lawn, as in Glawn...never mind).
After doing my preliminary research on the internet I was able to locate the area using global positioning coordinates and Jane, my trusty guide. My first stop was the Toblerone line, a roughly 10 km stretch of concrete barriers jutting out from the ground. In case you are wondering, yes, they are named after the candy. They wind through farmer's fields and are mostly covered by vegetation today...apparently they are deemed an eyesore to the cows so the farmers let trees and shrubs grow around them as to avoid conflict.

The real reason I came to check this out (aside from needing to get out of the apartment) is the building in this picture. This 'Villa Rose' doesn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary. In fact, it's right next to the road so you can't miss it. Now, to the untrained eye this building looks just like any other building here in Switzerland. In fact, I went looking for this building about a month ago and never found it (I actually drove by it about six times, it's that ordinary). But this time I managed to find my target.

Now folks may wonder what is so special about this building. At the risk of boring you with a lame guessing game, I'll just tell you. Before I do I encourage you to look at the closeup of the window. See anything weird? Those with a keen eye will notice that the curtains are painted! In fact, there is no window. This building was a secret military building that housed soldiers from the Swiss military. It housed some machine guns as well as soldiers who would camp out here for months at a time during the war. The walls are 2.5 meters thick (that's 8 feet!!) and there's even a hole in the bathroom wall for lobbing a grenade on unsuspecting intruders.

Unfortunately visitors are not allowed to tour the building, but I was at least able to snap a picture or two before being chased away by a black van (just kidding, they don't use vans in Europe). There is a second building approximately 400 meters away from this one, but it was on private property so I was unable to get close enough to get a decent photo. Either way, it was kind of fun to hunt down this unique Swiss secret.