Geneva

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So apparently the train people are striking right now in France. That made getting to Annecy more difficult and more expensive than it should have been. We ended up taking a bus. So we got to spend a little more than 4 hours in Geneva.

Geneva itself is a very modern city. I actually liked that bout it, unlike I did for Lucerne, probably because I was expecting that here. And the old town in Geneva is far more “quaint” than the supposed one in Lucerne.

Right when you get in Geneva, the first thing you see is the huge fountain in the middle of the lake. It can apparently get to 500 meters at times. Right now, they have a huge soccer ball positioned above the fountain, assumedly in honor of the current Euro games.

The walk cross the lake through some large footbridges takes you past a few small gardens (and the floral clock which was meh) and many large corporate buildings, such as Rolex, Louis Vitton, and about a million banks (being Switzerland and all). The trek to the old town shows the first signs of the typical shop- and restaurant-lined tourist site, but manages to maintain its charm unlike Lucerne (in case you can’t tell, I’ve decided I didn’t really like Lucerne). The raised walls take you to a nice, close-quarters site with many random statues (not just in square centers) and a church.

We went into the church, which was most like the one I saw in Canada during my trip there years ago, and took the opportunity to scale the church tower’s steps to the view t the top. The view was excellent, with the crescent of Geneva curling around the lake. And the north tower (the one we climbed) was actually multi-level, which I didn’t realize until after I had taken a bunch of pictures. All 3 towers of the church were drastically different, making me believe they had added them separately at different times.

The view showed how Geneva is located in a circle surrounded on 3 sides by mountains and on the other by water. On each side where the mountains were, we could see clouds caroming off the mountains towards us. This should have made us aware of the impending rainstorm. Yes, the rain is still following me.

And this is another city where you can see an obvious division between the old town and the new, especially from above, which is cool. The new town has a decent number of things to see as well, since it’s apparently focused on music and such. There’s a nice park where people were playing giant ping-pong, chess, and checkers. And there’s a wall her with statues of what the tourism officer called the “main characters of Geneva”. Interesting way of putting it.

I bought a genuine Swiss Army knife (called Victorinox in Switzerland), the “Super tinker” (ooo), we ate at a Starbucks for 4 times as much as it would cost in America, and then walked back to catch the bus to Annecy. Annecy looks like it should make for an excellent day, so check back for it soon! 😊

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