Chapter 3 - Switzerland & Rhone Alpes, France

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
At 6:00am on Friday June 17 we woke and grabbed a quick continental breakfast at the hotel and hopped aboard the train at Jules Joffre Metro station to the regional station called Gare Du Lyon. At 9:17 am we left the station for Geneva, Switzerland. It was a 3 hour ride in a First Class high speed train. We arrived in the city at 12 Noon and walked a few blocks over to the Novotel hotel. Novotel was a very nice international hotel and had a more spacious room than all of the other hotels we stayed in.

The city was very clean and more organized that in Paris. Geneva was a very rich city, with beautiful stores, wide streets and the people spoke better English. The Canton is called Geneva and the predominant language is Swiss French, followed by Italian and Spanish. English is very common. 48% of the population are resident

foreign nationals, specifically, there are more people from France who work in Geneva than actually lived there.

After settling in to our hotel, we set out for the old city of Geneva. We had to take a boat bus across to the old city and we had hotel passes for this purpose. Sp we hopped aboard the boat and motored across Lake Geneva and got off the other side. We walked across a busy High Street and up to the Old City. It was filled with narrow cobblestone streets and lovely little cafe's, boutique shops and churches. I found what I was looking for; Jean Jacques Rousseau's house and now a museum on Grand Rue 40. We both took an audio tour of the museum where we relived the great 18th century enlightenment philosopher and writer jean Jacques Rousseau's life and times. (Note: I plan on writing a historical novel about J.J. Rousseau). Afterwards we took another boat ride across to the other side of Lake Geneva and walked along the promenade of newer

Geneva. It was just starting to get overcast and some light showers, but nice and warm. Finally we returned to the hotel via Lake Geneva boat and rested before getting dressed for dinner.

At 8:30pm, we entered The Edelweiss Hotel Restaurant where we enjoyed a very salty German-Swiss dinner of Potatoes, bread and Swiss Cheese fondue. For drinks I had the German Lager and Pat had the Rosé. We listened to traditional German Oom-pah band music and watched them use the long 13 foot Swiss alphorn. By 11:00pm we were tired and left for our hotel for a good night's rest. Overall, we found Geneva to be a beautiful, friendly and clean city (with no graffiti) where the streets are more organized and not as busy as Paris and more quaint and cultured than Paris. Our weather was generally warmer and less humid than Paris.

Our next morning (Saturday June 18) started off with breakfast at 8:00am in the hotel Novotel. Pat remained behind at the hotel recovering from an aching foot. I decided to take the city tram and visit the Place de Nations (UN) Building and the Red Cross Museum but the UN building was closed that day. I then walked up the street to see the Red Cross Museum which sits in a large palatial house on top of the hill and spent an hour and a half going through the audio

interactive history of the Red Cross, displaying and documenting exhibits of international strife, oppression and disaster relief around the world. At 12:30pm, I then took the tram back to the hotel and then we walked to the Bus terminal and hopped on the 2:30pm bus tour of the town of Annecy in France. I wanted to see where JJ. Rousseau spent his early life with Mme Francoise Louise de Warrens.

ANNECY, FRANCE
We drove through lovely Swiss and French alpine countryside. We arrived at Annecy at 3:30pm and we were led by a group tour of the old city of 50,000 people. Annecy, "the Venice of the North" is a historic 16-17th century city settled right beside the pristine Lake Annecy. We visited the old fortress, and drank from a street cistern that had amazing sparkling water. It wa so refreshing after a long day out. We walked down the narrow cobbled Jean Jacques Rousseau Street and saw the outside of Mme de Warrens' house (Now a police

station) where the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau lived for two years. At the back of the courtyard we were able to see the famous gold bust/monument of Jean Jacques Rousseau, set up several years after his death in 1778.

We had a late 4:00pm lunch at "Creperie Brettone", a small restaurant that makes hundreds of varieties of crepes (a 5 page menu). On the front patio, we enjoyed a chicken/cream/mushroom crepe, and for dessert, a fruit and and cream crepe, with two large cafe au creme. Delicieux! Afterwards we walked into the famous old Catholic Christian Church, St. Francoise de Salles and headed towards the lakefront, which is similar to Lake Okanagan in Penticton, BC. As we took fabulous photos of Lake Annecy, it started to pour down with rain and so we headed back to the tour bus for our excursion back to Geneva. We arrived back at our hotel in Geneva at

7:00pm, rested and had dinner at 5 Portes Restaurant where I had a beautiful whole lamb shank with potatoes and salad, and Pat had white asparagus, couscous and rhubarb. We had 2 glasses of wine (white and red) and I enjoyed a tasty upside down apple pie with ice cream. I think it was the best dinner in Europe so far! By the time we finished at the restaurant and headed back to bed, it was 11:30pm.