Barcelona, Spain/Geneva, Switzerland – Day 16
July 10, 2015
Today we woke up early and left the apartment at 6:00 AM to head to the train station. We got to the train station at 6:15 and then took a half hour to get to the airport.
At the airport we got a quick bite to eat of some greek yogurt at a little cafe and then went to the gate to board our flight.
We got to the gate, but they made us change gates without explanation and then they bused us out to the middle of the runway to our plane. Pretty weird…
The plane ride itself went by relatively quickly and only lasted an hour and a half. I was so glad because I actually slept for pretty much the whole flight!! 🙂
Once we landed we picked up some FREE train tickets and proceeded to try to figure out how to take the train to the main station in Geneva. It was super super confusing, but thankfully we found someone who spoke English and told us how to get there. We ended up sitting in first class by accident, but nobody stopped us and nobody checked out tickets so it was a win for us! We also just didn’t realize we were sitting in first class if I’m being honest haha.
We got to the city center and then boarded a tram which took us to our stop at Industrielle where we met up with the owner of our AirBNB who set us up at our apartment. It’s a pretty nice little apartment, but it’s hot!
Then we changed and headed out to explore Geneva. We decided our first stop should be the St. Peter’s Cathedral in Old Town so we started walking that way. On our way there we decided to stop for some lunch, but realized quickly how expensive Geneva is!! Holy cow! The price per meal is each over 20 franks (franks are about equal to a dollar)!! So we checked out a bunch of restaurants before settling on a health foods restaurant that was vegetarian and gluten free and dairy free and was more reasonably priced. It also felt good to eat something so healthy, especially while fighting this cold.
After we decided to stop at a little chocolate stop and buy a couple of truffles because we are in Switzerland after all! I tried a champagne truffle and it was very good.
Then we continued on towards the cathedral. Once there we went inside and looked around for a little while, it was very beautiful, but not quite as intricate as the Cathedral of Valencia. This is not to say that it didn’t use to be much more intricate as much of the interior was destroyed, including numerous statues and paintings, when Geneva accepted the Reformation in 1535. It is currently also an archaeological site where they have uncovered part of he basilica it was built upon 850 years ago. In this museum you can see a Roman Crypt, Monk’s Cells, and the Allobrogian Tomb.
After the Cathedral we walked towards the Lake. Along the way we took in some beautiful sites and walked through a VERY expensive, high end shopping area. We got to the lake and got our first full view of the Jet d’Eau. The Jet d’Eau translates to mean water jet and is a huge fountain in Geneva Lake built in 1886. It was originally built to control pressure from a hydraulics plant, then it was amplified and centered in the lake, and is one of the tallest fountains in the world. It pumps 500 liters of water per second to a height of 140 meters!
We walked down a narrow boardwalk all the way out to the Jet and then past it and sat and enjoyed the view for a while and then walked around for a little bit longer. Then we walked the hour back home.
We decided it was necessary to get some fondue for dinner. “When in Switzerland.” So we made a reservation at a place called Cafe du Soleil with good reviews. We decided to taxi over because it was going to be a really complex tram ride, but then the taxi cost over 30 franks!!! Insane!
We got there and the prices were also insane! So we decided to just order two fondues and split them between the six of us. Luckily the portions were pretty big and the split worked out and the fondue was delicious! Gruyere cheese fondue…YUMMMMMM!
After we took the tram back home and passed out super hard. We walked like 12 miles today!
xoxo J