Advertisement
Published: December 31st 2012
We started our morning in France. After a late start after a few early mornings, we had brunch at a French restaurant called McDonalds and then returned to Switzerland, Geneva in particular.
Our first stop was the CERN headquarters - Jon really wanted to see the large hadron super collider, but no tours available over the Christmas season, so he had to settle for a picture at their office while wearing a BAZINGA shirt.
Up next, a small park with a flower clock and huge fountain. While we were there, we actually got distracted by all the birds on the shore of Lake Geneva as people were feeding them. I guess we miss our birds! 😊
Next we went to the headquarters of the UN, Palais des Nations. Unfortunately there were no tours available, so our view was limited to the front gate, but still interesting to see.
We decided to continue our drive down the shores of Lake Geneva to Lausanne and Vevey. Lausanne is the home of the International Olympic Committee, and we hoped to see the Olympic Flame burning, but the Musee Olympique is closed Mondays, so no luck. As we continued on to
Vevey, we were amazed by all the vineyards we saw - they were all terraced with stone walls up the mountains beside the road. The contrast of the terraced hills beside us on one side and the lake and Alps on the other side was unique! Once in Vevey, we visited the statue of Charlie Chaplin, who lived there for 25 years until his death, a work of art AKA a fork in Lake Geneva, and the old town of Vevey.
As the sun set, we headed for our final destination of the day, Bern, which is the capital city of Switzerland. After checking into our hotel, we headed out to find a nice dinner to celebrate the incoming year, but once again it seems the country is shut down. These darn Europeans with their work-life balance! Nothing open at 6.00 pm on December 31! We stopped at one Italian restaurant that was open, but it was filled with very old Italian folks and didn't seem like the best option. Eventually we found a "take-away" pizza place open, so we grabbed a pizza and some desserts there and headed back to the hotel for our own New Years party.
Laid out our feast and settled in for a Bourne marathon. Were pleasantly surprised to also see fireworks right out of our hotel window!
Happy New Year everyone!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 11; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0269s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ever heard of "Ronald Land"?
