Sunday, July 4th, 2010
Happy Fourth of July everyone! This is my first Fourth of July that I have spent out of the country, and it is a bit odd, I did see an American family with two little children holding little American flags, but other than that, the day just came and went like any other. I hope each and every one of you had a Happy Fourth though, full of barbeques, fireworks, and good company!
As for us, we slept in a bit this morning, even though we went to bed fairly early after watching the soccer game since Lausanne was a miss, so we didn’t board the train to Geneva until about quarter past 11:00. Our train from Lausanne took us all the way to the Geneva Airport station which is located adjacent to the airport which was serviced by a complimentary shuttle from the Express by Holiday Inn Geneva Airport hotel I had booked for the evening. We got into the station right around noon, located the hotel shuttle pick up area and were on a shuttle to our hotel shortly. At the hotel we merely checked in and dropped our bags in the room and were right back onto the shuttle to the train station to take the next available train back to the main Geneva station, located in town. We had a quick lunch at the station, a couple of pre-made deli sandwiches and two drinks which cost 23 Swiss Francs (I still can’t get over how expensive everything is!).
Once in town we made our way down to the banks of the Rhone River which feeds into Lake Geneva. It wasn’t long until over the buildings as we made our way to the river we could see Geneva’s best-known landmark, the 140m-tall Jet d’Eau, which shoots at any given time seven tons of water into the air at a force of 200km/h. The Jet d’Eau only became more impressive the closer we got. After walking right out to the fountain on the jetty we made our way further into the “old town” and towards the part-Romanesque, part-Gothic Cathédrale St. Pierre, where Protestant John Calvin preached from 1536 to 1564. From here we meandered back towards the train station to head back to the hotel for a couple hours rest, before venturing back out for dinner, we only hoped that we would have better luck in Geneva than we did in Lausanne.
We left the hotel around 7:00 or so to head back into town for dinner. We found a street with several restaurants with outdoor seating and after perusing the menus we selected Au Petit Chalet, which advertised that they offered Swiss and Italian specialties. I must admit that I never knew that fondue was Swiss, and I was very tempted to order fondue, as I really enjoy sampling local cuisine, but fondue seems to be something that is better shared and Tim was not interested, so we both had pasta, which I must say I was pretty pleased with. It was our last meal in Switzerland (well if you don’t count breakfast tomorrow morning) and our only sit-down meal at all in Switzerland, the majority of the time we either made our own meals, bought pre-packaged meals at the grocery, or purchased “inexpensive” fast-food such as kebabs. This meal wasn’t outrageous but for two pasta dishes, a glass of wine, and a glass of beer it cost us 60 Swiss Francs, which is only slightly less in US Dollars, whereas I feel that in the US we would have gotten the same quality meal with drinks for 40 US Dollars at most.
After dinner we walked down to the river and to the other jetty, home to Bains des Pâquis, a sort of man-made complex of “beaches” and “pools”, where Genevans have swam and sunned since 1872, and had an ice cream and just strolled along the river and out the jetty, like it seemed the whole of Geneva was doing. It was such a contrast to the previous night where we could hardly find a sole in Lausanne. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of Geneva, and could see why people say it is one of the best places to live.
Tomorrow we say goodbye to Switzerland as we head to France, our 6th country on this trip. I can’t believe how quickly the trip is going and how soon this journey will come to an end.
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