Une petit séjour en Suisse
June 8 to 13, 2015 / Near Geneva and therabouts
After a week in Paris, we decided to accept an invitation from our friends, Ralph & Louise, to visit them near Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva is in the southwest corner of Switzerland that juts out into France, and by rights it probably should have been French were it not for the Swiss have a somewhat stubborn, independent mindset.
The Swiss have consented, however, to be included in the European Union's Schengen Area , so there is no official passport control or border crossing post. In fact, the only thing that told us that we had entered Switzerland was a sudden set of speed bumps and a traffic attendant asking us for 50 Euros (about 40 Swiss Francs) for the annual highway tolls sticker. Sigh. Not an expense that we had planned on for a 5-day visit. But then again, the roads were excellent.
Geneva was the temporal home of John Calvin, and it now hosts the headquarters of a number of well-respected international organizations -- although not FIFA, that's in Zurich. The city is also so perfectly laid out and orderly that you'd be afraid to cast a shadow in the wrong place. I think that they may have a law against that, come to think of it.
Given our short stay, we only really saw a small area near Lac Léman (more commonly known as Lake Geneva due to its Smoke on the Water cameo). We made a pilgrimage to Gruyère, did a few short day hikes, and visited Mont Blanc Chamonix to see what's left of the ever-shrinking Mer de Glace.
The little that we saw of Switzerland was stunning, so I'd definitely like to go back some day, Inch'Allah / D.V to do some more hiking and skiing. Time for a new bucket list, I guess. And maybe time for me to get hired by FIFA (and open a Swiss bank account) so I can afford to visit there again.
Des photos
Here are a few pictures that I took in Switzerland. As always, please click on the thumbnails to see them in a larger format.
