The Beginning...of Our Travels: Geneva and Gruyere

It has been just about 2 weeks since we left Canadian soil, and since then I have seen 9 cities, taken 7 train rides (not counting returns), been to 4 airports and met 18 new people. Doing well so far! This weekend we took a last minute trip to Geneva, in Switzerland. From where we are living in Lyon the city is very close to us, only 2 hours away by train.
Also, we found that wood, whether it be carvings, embellishments or supports in houses and buildings is very popular among the Swiss. Lots of wood shutters at every window, as well as a huge emphasis on flowers kept the cities looking welcoming and quaint.


Geneva was small and we were able to see almost everything important in one day - it's a shame the weather wasn't very nice (it was cold and windy) because the Lake that Geneva sits upon is the largest in Europe and there were tons of fun water sports to be had. We took a short train ride around the lake to get a better view! Most of our activities in Geneva were indoors. We got lucky and some special exhibitions that are normally closed to the public were open for the day -- so we took advantage. 

In one of the wings of the Zubokov House

We were able to see city hall and its chambers plus a special museum dedicated to Tatyana-Zubov which housed 16th century antiques. We also saw the famous flower clock, which is a working Swiss time piece that is planted in a garden, with new floral arrangements and plants making up the numbers for the clock. While I'm sure that the gardening is tedious, both Cassandra and I were disappointed with the clock -- we expected a tower with more colorful and exciting flowers. Instead what we got was a shrub trimmed into the shape of a 6. 

At City hall with a real live eagle

The Cathedral in Geneva is also famous for its Gothic spires and well kept alters etc. Also, you can climb up one of the turrets for amazing views of the city. We went underground into the archaeological museum to check out the uncovered remains, and foundation of a Roman Cathedral that stood in the same place. It was a huge exhibit and the whole thing has been built so that you are actually walking through the ancient ruins and burial grounds from almost a millenia ago.

The next day, we headed for Gruyere -- the mountain town famous for their cheeses. Here, we visited a small museum and watched a demonstration of how the cheese is made before heading to the Medieval town up on a steep hill to take a look at the Castle which remains in its original condition but has been turned into a living museum. It was really cool to be able to walk through all the rooms and up into the turrets -- but the best part of Gruyere was the scenery. It's so perfect you can't believe it's real. For lunch we had traditional Swiss fare -- a cheese fondue with bread and potatoes and for dessert fresh strawberries with double churned cream! yum!

This is a view of  the castle and surrounding valley and hills - the picture is great but still the view in person was a trillion times better. The scenery was really breathtaking

Cheese Cave, where the cheese is aged