Genève, Switzerland

Many years ago I was in Geneva and I remember a gray rainy experience. This time round I landed in a heat wave which had not been the actual plan, but I’m happy to have revisited Geneva and must say, every city along the lake has hundreds of cool shady trees where you can walk and cool down. 

As many readers know, Switzerland is one of my favorite countries Due to the stunning nature mountains, ancient wooden bridges, houses, and architecture. Lake Geneva is massive and my trip to Genève city here was just an early lunch and onto other hotspots, as it’s the only airport that serves this part. But…. It ended up being quite an adventure which you hear in a while. 

Geneve airport is a real hub, not too big, just two floors, busy, clean organized, service oriented and a place where things are still tax free in Europe. A good thing is that arriving takes you to a different exit for the train than departing so there is always one way traffic, not as in Schiphol. Also, as in Basel, they are friendly to smokers, friendlier than NL. Always a clean chic lounge. Not that I smoke anymore, but I do vape since 2020, and  this sign was the first I’ve seen. But as I can’t stand the smell of smoke anymore, I think vapers need a separate lounge! 

Anyway, onto Genève!  Leaving the central station its about 400 m towards the lake. There is a hop on hop off bus, but it’s pretty much a big city and I didn’t want to take it to just to see the United Nations headquarters for example. 

Walking along the lake though, is lovely, especially in the heat and  there are some sweet little parks and terraces to find cool shade, beautiful trees and refreshments. 

This beautiful monument below is right on the lake and elaborate in design.All around are four giant lions with fountain pools with pretty flower gardens in the front.  In the distance is the big wheel, for which you will need about a twenty minUte walk over the big bridge. I however, headed back towards the station, en route to Lausanne, passing a few little churches, one of which was  a little bus station as well.

Bus station 

The post office is a beautiful old monumental building and glad to see there still is one, as in Amsterdam, the old PO is now a commercial shopping center. In NL… If you want to buy a stamp and have a postbox nearby, you need to plan at least an hour! Find a tobacco store, and good luck finding a postbox! 

In case you were wondering how to spell it in French!

So I arrived back at the station en route to Lausanne and ahead of me on the escalator is a bomb squad guy, and I thought to myself hhmm … Wonder what he’s doing here? Thinking to myself, good thing with intelligence agencies is that they always know about these events in advance. Lo and behold, I bought my ticket and was literally about to walk up to the platform when the entire station was shut down due to a suspicious package. Red ribbon tape and police everywhere! Fortunately, everything was up and running within an hour, and all trains resumed because everything had been canceled, “supprime!” But even more fortunately, nothing happened. I did thank the guys as they exited as they really are the heroes of the day, anywhere.

Anyway, Swiss trains run like clockwork. They’re very comfortable.And the airco was great as it was so hot. 34 in Switzerland ? Unthinkable! As we had to hang around the station I walked outside on the other side away from the lake and saw this lovely kind of graffiti, but in lights form of a cat and ?   But of course in summer, the sun goes down so late you’d have to go down at 10 PM to see it in the dark.

The light work graffiti 

En route with KLM TO Genève, a 10 am flight was delayed due to waiting for personnel from a Manchester flight and returning as well! However, maybe the airport couldn’t  take the last of the summer traffic as almost everything was late! At least the weather was cooler, and skies had turned grey which felt fitting to my earlier Geneva memory so many years ago, except this time there was a rainbow! Au  revoir Genève  

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