Radiac's Swiss Adventure
I have just been on holiday to Geneva. The first thing that most people have said when I tell them is 'Why?', so I will explain.
A couple of weeks ago, I persuaded Leela that a short holiday was in order. The only question was where to go - and she left that up to me to surprise her. I started with a long list, but since we only had 4 days including travel I had to take off places such as Peru and Australia because we'd only be able to get off the plane, walk outside and smile at the sun before we needed to check back in for our return flight.
So, Gevena seemed like a very good idea. They have everything - impressive scenery of mountains, rivers and lakes, a rich and vibrant history which has most recently consisted of them being wuss pacifists, but most importantly, chocolate. Of course it being 1200 feet above sea level and in February, it also has snow and freezing temperatures, but once I realised it was Chocolate City nothing else mattered.
After a detailed hunt of the internet, I had information about the city, compiled a list of things to go and see and do, located a good hotel, and found a very reasonable price for the trip from ebookers. I also found a similar trip for a similar price from Thomas Cook, went in and they tried to charge me 4 times as much, so screw them. They tried to do the same with my trip to South Africa, so just don't bother.
Being a curious destination, we flew from London City Airport, which I had actually never heard of, and getting there involved three trains and a bus. When we arrived, one of my birthday presents to Leela set off the alarms (it was a long metal bookmark that looked like a knife) and her bag had to be checked, but apart from that, getting there was pretty painless. When we got there though, I had to use my mastery of French to ask the hotel to send the shuttle to pick us up. Parlez-vous Anglais? Yes I do. Excellent.
The main language of Geneva is French because it's only a stones throw from France (unfortunately I couldn't find any stones to throw), although it turns out that about 2/3 of the city have the decency to speak English, which led to many embarassing moments where we would say something in French and they'd ask us what we said, in English.
The hotel was in the middle of the more modern international side of Geneva to the north, and the first evening we found a small restaurant just around the corner and stumbled through the conversations successfully enough to secure a jug of water and delicious pizza goodness.
Geneva sits on the edge of Lac Léman, straddling the Rhône as it flows from the lake. On the first full day we set off to find the river, and in particular the tourist office that was on the middle of a bridge. The internet had told me that there were audio cassette guides available for the old part of the city - when we got to the tourist office there was no sign of anything like that, but we asked and they sold us some. Armed with an American voice and photocopied map, we set off into the old town.
The old town tour started out looking at the Tour De l'Ile (l'Ile Tower), all that remains of a castle built on the small but strategic island for crossing the Rhône, with a statue of someone who was executed there in Geneva's struggle for independence. The tour moved off into the depths of the old city, going up a narrow street, merrily leading us into people's courtyards and back streets and ominous passageways, all the time pointing out points of interest such as the Old Arsenal (a former arms depot to protect the city), the Town Hall, the Place du Bourg-de-Four (a square in the heart of the Old Town), the Cathédrale St-Pierre, the Maison Tavel (the oldest house in Geneva) and the Reformation Wall. We paused the audio tour for a bit when we went into the Art and History Museum, which had displays from prehistoric man through Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts to recent and modern art.
We found a small sandwich bar and bought the only thing on the menu that we were sure was not derived from horse (mozarella and tomato in a baguette), and then finished off the tour and returned the guides to the tourist office.
We then went to the Jardin Anglais to look at the Jet d'eau, but realised that because it was the winter and no tourist would be stupid enough to be hanging around Geneva at this time of the year, they'd turned it off half an hour before we got there. Instead we went and wandered up and down what appeared to be the main shopping street looking for chocolate. There were several promising chocolate shops, but when we went into one and saw a small box of chocolates that was apparently £50, we decided that they may be a little out of our league and crossed the bridge back into the more modern part of the city. On the way back to the hotel we eventually found a small shop run by a nice old lady who let us try chocolates, and we spent far too much money on presents. That evening, after sampling the presents, we went back into the town to a Mexican restaurant we'd seen - mostly because everything on the menu had English subtitles. With our French a little rusty, and my phrase book not knowing anything much more complicated than 'Do you speak English?', we thought this was a good plan.
On our second and final full day, we set off to explore the modern side of the city - in particular the Palace of Nations and the Red Cross museum. We found both with little difficulty, and although we couldn't figure out how to get into the Palais des Nations, we found our way into the International Red Cross and Red Crescent museum easily enough and rented some more audio guides to listen to on the way around. It was very interesting - quite similar to the imperial war museum, only it kept talking about peace and saving lives instead of guns and gas. It covered the history of the Red Cross and Red Crescent from conception to modern day, the founder's view that "Everyone is responsible to everyone for everything", and they had lots of memorabilia and videos, with a crazy projector-based cinema where the screen opened up for you to continue the rest of the journey through the museum. It would have been good to have had longer there, but mindful that there was only half a day left, we had some lunch in the restaurant upstairs (mozarella, tomato, bread and puddings).
We then walked the long way to a modern art museum on the the opposite side of the city, via the end of the lake and start of the river, seeing the Jet a bit closer than the day before. When we eventually got to the museum, we found out that they had closed half of it while they swapped temporary displays, but that we could still get in to see the other half. In Geneva you only have to pay to get into a museum to see their temporary displays, so this meant we got in for free. I've never been a great fan of modern art, always remembering a news story about a man who entered an art competition by submitting his 4 year old grand-daughter's finger painting as his own and then won first prize, but I must admit that I did like a lot of the art in this one. The wall paintings in particular appealed to my sense of humour - I would have taken pictures, but there were staff wandering around looking angry so I was too scared, which was a shame. Some of the stuff was just plain weird though, like the large metal shipping container full of doors, or the video of the man who repeatedly tried to eat his hand until he was too tired to continue. But it was still funny...
By the end of that there wasn't much time for anything else - we wandered back to the hotel past a different chocolate shop and popped in to re-stock the presents, then went to a lovely Italian restaurant with very friendly people who immediately recognised we were English, gave us a menu in English and then fed us fantastic food.
On the Friday we had to leave for the airport at 11, which didn't really give us any time to go out back into the town. Instead we had another breakfast of croissants and jam, packed up, checked out, and got onto the bus back to the airport. I almost felt cheated - here we were in a foreign country with lots of things left to explore and do, and we had to get back on a plane, just as I was remembering some french too. But then again it had been a great couple of days and we'd done and seen a lot, and we needed to use the expansion feature on the suitcase to fit in all the chocolate, so I can't complain.
Having only seen Switzerland and Geneva for a couple of days I'm not really in a good position to pass judgement, so I'll just say I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'd like to go again.
Comments
Yay! But can I just say, you're really really good at French, and even I am not that bad! When we spoke to people in French, they would reply in French! And then we wouldn't understand!! Oops!
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