Geneva, day one or so

Here are a few pictures from day one and two of the trip to Geneva. LL was still working those days, so I was on my own.



The alps from the plane as I approached Geneva. The flight path was interesting as we took off from O'Hare and then headed north east over Grand Rapids, north of Montreal, across Greenland and Iceland and then south. Odd. Flight there was 8.5 hours and the return was 9.5.







The Geneva airport is filled with chocolate! It's all very expensive though, as you might expect in an airport. Following some internet advice, I bought most of my chocolate in the supermarkets: same stuff, about 1/4th of the price.








They don't just make chocolate bars or bunnies there though; they make some serious works of art. Here's one of the more simple chocolate designs. This was one of the really, really less intricate designs. They had scenes from movies set up and all sorts of stuff. Crazy.













Here's the big fountain for which Geneva is known and a Youtube link to it in action. The Jet d'Eau shoots an impressive 460 feet in the air. Many swans and ducks surround the lake too. They love tourists, who tend to feed them.






















As I sat on a pier in the middle of the lake and sipped a coffee and read a book, I thought it would make an interesting picture with the lake and Alps in the background. It probably would have been interesting if I had a camera and not just my phone, or if I had a modicum of photography talent. Sigh.

Geneva is serious about a few things: chocolate, pedestrians having the right of way and picking up after your dog. To that later point, they have doggie bags all over the place and garbage cans too.

We pay lipservice here that pedestrians have the right of way. When you're in the hospital or in court after getting hit, the judge will say you had the right of way, but over there, the cars actually stop! It's amazing. In fact, if you stop and don't cross and let cars go first, it causes all sorts of problems because they don't know what the hell you're doing. More than a few times we caused some delays by not crossing. Doh!







Here's a big wall that was part of the fortress surrounding Old Town. Pretty cool, unless you need to get to the shops on the other side, then they are a pain in the ass.






One of our favorite places to visit was Place Molard. Not only did it have a bar with it's own brewery and some tasty beer, but at night, this is what it transformed into:



















Each of those little bricks had a saying in some language and it would light up. How awesome is that? Look how pretty the plaza looks at night. Just beautiful.

Much more to come!