What It’s Like to Play Professional Volleyball in Switzerland!

Bonjour! This week I’m going to be talking to you about what it was like to play professional volleyball in Switzerland! During my second year, I played in Cheseaux in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. This year I knew a little bit more about what to expect, having experienced a year of pro already, and I knew I’d be playing with one of my teammates from DU, Cassie Baird again! So, I packed my bags, took 3 different flights with 3 different airlines and arrived in Geneva! (Word of advice if you’re going to play pro overseas- book your own flights and have them reimburse you, that way you won’t be traveling an unnecessary amount. But my advice to potential pro volleyballers is a post for another day).

Training Schedule 

Our training schedule this year was HARD. 3 times a week in the morning, my teammates Cassie, Aleks, and I took a train and a bus into Lausanne to lift. We lifted heavy and a lot. Like a LOT. Luckily, the gym had an ice bath, hot tub, sauna, and steam room, so we could get some good recovery in after our workouts and our bodies could stay somewhat intact. Then one other morning in the week we had volleyball training with typically just the 3 of us and our coach. We also had evening practice 4-5 times during the week for 2-3 hours with our whole team , and video to scout our opponent once or twice a week. 

Living Situation

I lived in an attic in Switzerland! It was actually super cute and cozy. One couple in the town converted their upstairs attic into a one bedroom apartment, so I lived by myself but in a lovely couple’s house. They also gave me a bike to use, which was very helpful to get around town and to bike to practice and the train station when my legs were so tired. Cassie and Aleks lived in an apartment together, so I hung out a lot over there too. Our town was very small, about 5,000 people, but we were only 15-20 minutes away by train from Lausanne, which is a beautiful big city. The public transportation system in Switzerland is amazing, and we had a train pass that allowed us to go to Lausanne anytime we wanted. We also traveled all around Switzerland by train. 

Game Schedule

We typically played one game a week, usually on Saturday, but would have one on Sunday sometimes too. Switzerland is pretty small, so we drove to all our games the day of, but it wasn’t a problem here because all our games were only around 2-3 hours away. Our farthest one was 5 hours, but we took the big charter bus for that one. This was a tough year playing for us. We had a really good team and we took almost every team to 4-5 sets, but had a difficult time finishing matches. But we grew as a team, got a lot better throughout the season, and finished 7th in the league. The level in Switzerland is quite high, and it was definitely a fun league to play in. 

Living in Switzerland

Switzerland is probably the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. There are so many gorgeous mountains and lakes all over the country that everywhere I went was a picture perfect fairytale land. Our first training camp was at a ski resort when I first got there. I even got proposed to on top of one of the mountains! Like I said before, the public transportation was great and we traveled quite a bit on off days and when people came to visit. Our teammates were so nice and welcoming, and we got to make friends with people outside of volleyball too! It was a family oriented environment in Cheseaux and the club was very supportive and encouraging despite all our losses. 

Switzerland is a unique country- there are 4 different national languages. I lived in the French part and tried my best but French was harder to me than Swedish. The weather was so mild compared to Sweden that I barely even noticed the wintertime! We got to see a lot of Christmas markets (I have Christmas on my mind right now) and we had a long Christmas break of 10 days, so I got to go home for a bit, which always helps break up the long season for me. Overall, I had a great experience in Switzerland, I got a lot better as a player, and made some amazing lifelong friends! Follow along on my Instagram this week to see more! You’ll definitely want to see some of the pictures and videos to see what I’m talking about. Thanks for reading!