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Switzerland: Part the First - Geneva
Jun. 5th, 2016 11:04 amThis holiday post comes to you in four parts, as there are just too many fantastic things to photograph in Switzerland to fit in one!
The first stop on our tour around Lake Geneva last week was Geneva itself. We went for a wander into the city after checking in to our hotel, turned a corner and were confronted with this rather fabulous view:
The Swiss do seem to like their fountains, as we came across many during our trip, of multiple types, sizes and levels of decoration.
This one caused great amusement on our first evening, as one of the humans tried to take a photo of it, and it switched off for the night just as he was adjusting his camera! So, we came back the next day to take pictures in daylight.
All the public spaces we came across were beautiful and extremely well-kept, like this rather lovely flower clock:
And this very attractive gazebo in the so-called English Park:
Another type of thing we came across frequently was what we quickly dubbed Random Public Art, or RPA for short. Your guess is as good as mine on this one - even the inscription defied the powers of Google Translate:
There were plenty of things to do, as well, and quite a few people were playing chess or draughts in one of the parks we walked through:
After expending some mental effort on the game, lunch was in order. The local delicacy seemed to be boiled egg with everything:
In the chess park, we found a very impressive monument called the Reformation Wall. This photo doesn't really do it justice, but does demonstrate that the weather wasn't what we might have preferred:
There were mosaics depicting the various mascots of the area, and I reconnected with one of the bears from Bern, where we visited last year:
This was another monument we found, which had both lions and sphinxes guarding it. It was also round the corner from a wonderful cafe that stocked over twenty different flavours of tea.
There were more mosaics in this covered courtyard, which also contained a collection of old cannons:
After a long day's sight-seeing, it was nice to find a comfy place to have a nap:
One of my favourite things in Geneva was a paved square where we had dinner on the first night. It had glass tiles scattered all across it, which lit up and contained messages of greeting and welcome in lots of different languages:
The lights gave a very pretty effect from a distance, and each one was interesting in and of itself, on closer inspection:
Apologies to anyone who can tell if the above and/or below are not the right way up!
More anon - when we move round the lake to Lausanne!
The Swiss do seem to like their fountains, as we came across many during our trip, of multiple types, sizes and levels of decoration.
This one caused great amusement on our first evening, as one of the humans tried to take a photo of it, and it switched off for the night just as he was adjusting his camera! So, we came back the next day to take pictures in daylight.
All the public spaces we came across were beautiful and extremely well-kept, like this rather lovely flower clock:
And this very attractive gazebo in the so-called English Park:
Another type of thing we came across frequently was what we quickly dubbed Random Public Art, or RPA for short. Your guess is as good as mine on this one - even the inscription defied the powers of Google Translate:
There were plenty of things to do, as well, and quite a few people were playing chess or draughts in one of the parks we walked through:
After expending some mental effort on the game, lunch was in order. The local delicacy seemed to be boiled egg with everything:
In the chess park, we found a very impressive monument called the Reformation Wall. This photo doesn't really do it justice, but does demonstrate that the weather wasn't what we might have preferred:
There were mosaics depicting the various mascots of the area, and I reconnected with one of the bears from Bern, where we visited last year:
This was another monument we found, which had both lions and sphinxes guarding it. It was also round the corner from a wonderful cafe that stocked over twenty different flavours of tea.
There were more mosaics in this covered courtyard, which also contained a collection of old cannons:
After a long day's sight-seeing, it was nice to find a comfy place to have a nap:
One of my favourite things in Geneva was a paved square where we had dinner on the first night. It had glass tiles scattered all across it, which lit up and contained messages of greeting and welcome in lots of different languages:
The lights gave a very pretty effect from a distance, and each one was interesting in and of itself, on closer inspection:
Apologies to anyone who can tell if the above and/or below are not the right way up!
More anon - when we move round the lake to Lausanne!
