Today is another beautiful day as we get up and organize to walk down to catch the train to Geneva. After the beautiful day we had yesterday in the mountains around Interlaken we really feel privileged to have had some time here. We have heard of other activities we could have done such as a boat ride in one of the two lakes, trails to be hiked, other gondolas to ride to mountain tops etc. However, there is much more to be done so off we trot.
Although we are finding Switzerland to be the most expensive place to visit it is outstanding in the views and mountains.
We arrived in Geneva to step out of the train station to look for our hotel. Now we have already created a map in Google and sent it to the Blackberry so we can easily follow the directions – only we have not place to get our bearings and inadvertently went out the wrong door of the station. It took us a few minutes of turning in circles to try to match up the street names on the map with the names of streets we were looking at. By the way, in Europe, it is wise to check the edge of the buildings about 4 meters up to locate street names and not to expect them to be on sign posts on the corner. Once we got ourselves oriented it was about a 5 minute walk to the hotel – very nice for sure.
We have a very nice hotel room but this is not a huge surprise since it is the most expensive since we arrived in Athens. We are paying 120 Swiss Francs (about $130) and this was the cheapest hotel we could locate in Geneva. We learned, as we were checking in, that the hotel is full starting tomorrow and another couple was out of luck for getting a room. We are only staying two nights here and the costs is definitely a consideration for that decision.
After settling in we decided we needed to get our railway ticket arranged to take us to Paris so we used the internet to figure out which train we wished to take and which railway station we would want to end up in since Paris has several. To figure that out we needed to find out where we were going to be staying so we fired up the internet to let our fingers do the walking. I should add that last week I had looking for an apartment for one week for Paris and sent an email requesting the booking to the appropriate contact. As of this morning we still had not heard back (Easter weekend issue did not help) so I sent another email requesting a response ASAP so we could deal with our decision. By the time we got to the hotel I received a reply saying that they needed more than a couple of days to make the reservations and they were only just starting to look into it. I replied that we would make other plans and so we started to research again. Using booking.com we found what looks like a really good apartment (this means it has a small kitchen so we can cook ourselves) and set that up. Then our next step was to confirm that we could easily manage to get from the railway station to the apartment and in the process studied the metro maps. It will be easy so we are happy.
I then went to the railway station to get the reservations for the train to Paris while Wes continued to research the different types of passes for tourists available in Paris. What I learned (after a 30 minute lineup) is that the train we wanted to take did not have any ‘eurail pass’ seats left. We had been warned that in France they only allocate a set number of seats for eurail passes and it can be difficult to get a reservation for a specific train (sounds like areoplan points bookings doesn’t it!). It turns out that we could get on a later train for the same day so not all was lost. What we learned is that we needed to plan the next few weeks now and book the train tickets asap if we wanted to avoid being unable to get around. In this case we have to be in Madrid by May 13 to meet our KOC friends so we can not let it rest.
This meant that we proceeded to get our calendar out and build an itinerary. This was very interesting task since we kind of knew where we wanted to go and how long we wanted to be there, but we had not set it down in ‘stone’ yet. Another factor we had not realized is that trains between France and Spain travel basically alone one of the two coasts and nothing down the center. So a train from Marseilles to Barcelona takes hours since we would have to travel back north and central France, change trains and then travel south and east back to the coast, then alone the coast down to Barcelona. We did not want to spend 13 hours on the train so we added a couple of stops on the way. Eventually we got an itinerary sorted which you will learn about as it unfolds. Tomorrow we will go to pick up the train reservation tickets for all 5 train journeys we need to complete after we leave Paris.
This did not take as long as it may seem since we are becoming much more efficient at sorting out schedules, routes and maps.
By now we are ready to get out and have a look at Geneva. The sunshine is bright, but the wind is strong. We are only a couple of blocks from the lake front so we headed down there to have a look at Geneva's most distinctive landmark, the Jet d'Eau. The Jet d'Eau is one of the world's largest water fountains. However, due to the winds, it was turned off for today so we hope to see it tomorrow.
Therefore we enjoyed a walk along the waterfront up to the Bains des Paquis. Geneva does not have a beach. Yet it does have a lake and this is the closest to a beach that you will find in Geneva. Les Bains des Paquis is a big dock on the lake, you could enjoy a swin in the lake, a sunbath, a sauna or an hamam (Turkish bath) session, a foot massage, a drink or meal to the Buvette des Bains! However, with the wind blowing and the water spraying there were not many swimmers. Because of the sun and the shelter afforded by the dock there were some sun bathers laying out – but not many and not us.
We turned around and headed back towards the center of the old city and the city bridges. This brought us along side the dock for the CGN boat tours. We had talked about taking a boat tour tomorrow so we decided to check out costs and options. To our surprise we learned that our eurail pass gave us a free ride (saving about 36 Swiss Francs each) so that helped us decide for tomorrow’s activity.
We continued along the walk and crossed the Pont du Mont-Blanc bridge. This 6 vehicle lane bridge seems to be a major link between the city on both sides of the Rhone River that divides the city. Our eye was on the skyline looking at the steeple of a large old church in the old section of the city. We eventually found our way to the church and discovered the Cathedral Saint Pierre.
The St. Pierre Cathedral is a cathedral belonging to the Swiss Reformed Church. It was begun in the 12th century, and includes an eclectic mix of styles. It is best known as the adopted home church of John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. The area beneath the Cathedral has recently been excavated extensively, revealing a rich history of the site dating back to the time of the Roman Empire. Of course by now it is after 6 pm so we were not able to have a look inside the church or in the archaeological site.
So we worked our way back down through narrow streets that were windy and cobbled towards the hotel. We walked back down and crossed the Pont de la Machine Bridge which is a foot bridge that touches on an island in the Rhone River. As we wandered along we did find a store where we stopped to check out wine. Then we returned to the room for a glass of wine and out for dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment