Day 7 - Geneva

After breakfast Kate and I decided to go explore a little before our 1 o’clock tour. We walked across the Mont Blanc Bridge to the shopping area. We spent some time just walking and looking in the windows of all the watchmakers. There were a lot of the stores Kate remembered from her time in Paris and she actually bought a couple of tops in one of them. (She normally doesn’t like spending her money.) There was an Apple Store, which I was excited to see because I have been looking for a certain iPad attachment that I haven’t been able to find in any store…and of course they didn’t have it either. We did find a Father’s Day gift for David though. We walked back past the English Gardens and saw the flower clock , which, we found out later, is a symbol of Geneva – and we didn’t take a picture of it. Oh well…

We found a little café called Cottage Café right across from the hotel, and in the Brunswick Gardens. (By the way, these gardens were named after the Duke of Brunswick who died in Geneva in 1873 and bequeathed his fortuned of 20 million Francs to the city, part of which they used to construct the tomb that we posted a picture of yesterday. The city also used the money to build a museum and make other improvements to the city.) Kate ordered vegetable lasagna (and the guy said “It’s homemade, is that okay?”) It was delicious. I also had a delicious gazpacho, which was probably also “homemade”.

At 1:30 we started a tour. A bus took us around the city showing us the important buildings of Geneva. Geneva is an extremely important city because the European headquarters of the UN is here as well as the headquarters of the World Trade Organization and the International Human Rights Confederation and UNICEF, among others. We then had a walking tour of the “old city” which had a church built during the 11th and 12th century but when the Reformation happened, they turned it into a protestant church and all the paintings and everything inside was destroyed.

From there we embarked on a tour of the lake by boat. We learned that the fountain (Jet d’Eau) is in fact 459 feet high and is the tallest fountain in the world. The lake is 1188 feet deep. We rode around looking at various points of interest seeing some of the beautiful houses situated around the lake. It was a cloudy day, so we were unable to view Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe. We saw a beautiful built by the Baron de Rothschild. A member of the family still resides there. We also learned that the lake is called Lake Leman. The scenery from the lake is beautiful. Kate took a lot of pictures.

We would like to come back some other time and spend some time here to go to the UN and other buildings we saw today. Tonight we are debating on whether or not to eat at the restaurant in the hotel or order room service since we have to wake up early for the train to Munich tomorrow.  Hope you are all well.