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I've been doing a bit of random travelling since the last time I wrote here but I'll write a couple of different blogs since they are all pretty different.
After Chris and me finished our cycle trip in Annecy on Sunday (30th April), we went out for some food and couple of beers with Duncan for a final night in Annecy. The next morning we packed up and orded our taxi to take us to the bus stop for Geneva, only to be told that the buses weren't running as it was a bank holiday...still been getting used to nothing actually opening in France any time useful, so didn't come as too much of a shock. So, looked up the train instead and we took that from Annecy to Geneva - Chris had carefully hand drawn the map from the train station to the hotel and so it wouldn't be a problem strolling round the corner to our hotel using his instructions. Well, it wouldn't have been a problem if we'd actually arrived at the same train station he had drawn the map from...after some confusion we figured we needed to get a tram to the other station which was
fine except the machine for tickets only took swiss coins or special cards, of which we had neither. Not a problem though, went to the nearest restaurant to practice my french and ask for change - the change I got, but the guy in the shop only spoke italien which was a little unexpected.
Anyway, we eventually arrived in the hotel, and set off for a bit of wander through the town - we basically saw a big lake (lots of flies, but nice view), a 200m shoot of water in the middle of the lake (slightly bizarre) and a outdoor flower clock thing (rubbish). The giant shoot of water is ok but as Chris put it, a bit crap for a city like geneva. Anyway, we continued to wander about had some food, some wine, some grappa, some pizza and looked at the abundance of shops selling swiss army knifes and watches.
The next day, Chris headed off to the airport to start off his new regime of living well when he gets back home, and I had a massive breakfast at the hotel before going off to explore the city some more. This time I went
and actually found that Geneva does have some really nice areas and we pretty much managed to avoid them completely the day before. I started off with walking along the lake through some parks where there was a free science museum which is open all day every day according to the tourist info I'd got. Open everday apart from Tuesday is what the sign said when I got there. Seems the Swiss work as hard as the French... Anyway, it was a glorious day and they had some sun dials outside which were very cool and the I continued on up the park through the botanical gardens which were absolutely massive. I spent a couple of hours walking through there before heading round to take a look at the United Nations buildings - bit rubbish really as you can't rally see anything and they are essentially a set of office buildings...
After all that I headed back to the hotel for an hours siesta in the middle of the day to get out of the heat (got to love not having a job just for that!) and then strolled round the old town which is really picturesque, with lots
of cobbled streets and old churches and the like. I finished off with a sunbath in the park, and a bit of walking through the main shopping streets to see what was on offer - I thought London was expensive until I saw this place - need a second mortgage to buy anything, and given I don't have a first mortgage that could prove tricksy...
FInished off the evenign with a hunt for some food that I could afford without that wasn't a McDonalds and ended up with a tasty kebab - seems like kebabs in europe are actually an acceptable form of food and not just for post-pub drunken munchies at home. On the way home I got asked by several women along the street if I wanted company for the evening, which again, doesn't often happen at home...
Anyway, next morning I packed up my stuff and checked out of the 4 star hotel (finding out that breakfast wasn't actually included - ouch!) with my 3 bags of mountaineering gear that I could barely carry and headed to Geneva airport to meet up with Andy, before heading to Chamonix for a bit of climbing.
I'll
add photos here later when I have my camera with me.
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Steeeeeeve
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What's having a job got to do with an afternoon siesta - isn't that what meeting rooms are for.