Switzerland 2015 Day 9 – From Annecy to Geneva

Supposed to wake up earlier but overslept. The tiredness had kicked in and each day it became worse. This was expected especially for long trips, people do get tired from traveling. However, it was much faster for us, as bringing a baby together for the trip was a different ball game altogether.

I went out on the street in the early morning to get a photoshot of the popular photo on the Thiou stream because the sun was not in our favour the previous day. It was really chilly in the morning but many were up and about exercising or moving from place to place. Taking a different route to the same place, I got to shoot some places that I didn’t see previously. Arriving at that spot, I saw a huge truck parked on the bridge casting a shadow over the spot. It wasn’t too bad so I shot and went back.

My other duty was to buy breakfast and so I went into a Boulangeries Chevallier that had all the beautiful pastries decked out in the shelf. Chose 2 and paid through their auto pay machine. Interesting one.

Went back to the hotel and called the previous hotels to find out if anyone found my laptop but no one found any. We all then left to visit the biscuit shop to buy more biscuits. After that, we checked out and were on our way to Geneva, Switzerland.

Driving took a short 45mins and similarly as when we left Switzerland to France, there was a immigrations post. There were random checks on some cars and fortunately, we were chosen so we were on our way to Geneva center.

Driving in Geneva was really a bad experience. Similar to Zurich, roads were everywhere, different modes of transport share the road and it was sometimes confusing. The traffic lights were most of the time against me and when it did turn green, it allowed very few cars (like 2 cars?) to go through before turning red again. Cars lined the parking slots on the roads, making the road for travelling really tight in the middle. Twice I hit my side mirrors.

Arriving at the Kipling Hotel, I drove into the garage after bringing down all the luggage as it was advised that there weren’t any lifts from the garage. Maneuvering into the garage was challenging as it was really narrow and as i reversed into one of the parking slot, my worst nightmare happened, I scratched the sides of the door against a yellow pole, resulting in a yellow paint gash on both the door handle and the door.

I was adamant not to drive around in Geneva. At the reception, we were given not only our card keys, but also a day pass for all modes of public transport. That was what we would be using for moving around.

After bringing all the stuff back into our room, our first stop was to go to the old town, by bus number 8 towards Rive and alighting at the Metropole. The bus was similar to the bendy buses that Singapore used to have.

Dropping off, we walked towards the lake where there was a jet fountain that shot up water really high. People could get closer to it but we didn’t do that and preferred to admire from a distance.

The old town was just minutes away and it was similar to the other old towns. Walking around the streets admiring the old architecture blended with modern sales of services was interesting. Walked to the garden where there was a long wall of statues, known as the Reformation Wall. There must have been some form of history but we hadn’t read it yet. During that time, there were many stalls and concert stage tentages at in the garden, likely a music event happening over the weekend.

Walked up to the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre and then back down to a shop called Spaghetti Factory for our lunch. They served quite a variety of Spaghetti which was quite good.

Went back to return bus stop and boarded the bus number 8 this time towards Appia, the stop where we could visit the Palais des Nations. This was the place where UN delegates met for discussions and even peace negotiations.

We took took the tour at 330pm in English. We were late in joining our tour and one of the staff spoke to us in Mandarin in order to help us. We were taken aback as he was quite fluent in it but it was surely amusing. It seemed that the tours were actually quite frequent, as frequent as every half an hour. It was quite an informative tour that brought us to a few halls where the delegates sit for discussions and negotiations. Bought some souvenirs at the store at the end of the tour before heading back to the hotel, taking the tram number 15 instead, which was closer to our hotel.

Back at the hotel, it was baby stuff before leaving for dinner. Wanted to visit the Patek Phillipe museum but it was almost closed by the time we arrived at the hotel.

Went to dinner at the end of the street that was part of the Manotel branches, at Hotel Edelweiss. The Restaurant Edelweiss was serving Swiss cuisine with some live Swiss traditional music being played. It was definitely a cosy atmosphere.

We ordered cheese fondue even though I wasn’t really fond of fondue. The one we ordered was a special one where the cheese was being boiled in a bread pot and we just eat away at the pot. The cheese was in fact quite nice, not the smelly cheese that we thought it was. The entertainment was also interesting where they were cows bells and blowing big horns. The restaurant was quite popular with big groups and therefore reservation was preferred. With that 15% discount that we were given for staying at the sister hotel, it was actually not too bad.

Night time activities had always been dominated by baby care and it was no different. Fell asleep after that.