Despite the rather long-winded title, basically this series of posts is going to be about my fabulous and crazy adventures in Europe. On the 27th of May I left Sydney, Australia with an extremely heavy suitcase (oops) and a mere 24 hours later, found myself staring at the Swiss alps floating by under the wings of our Boeing 737 like so many fluffy marshmallows.
We were flying so close I could actually see markings in the snow, and, far from being scared, I was so filled with wonder I was in danger of breaking out into ‘The Sound of Music’. Imagining Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and all their good-looking children scaling the peaks to escape the evil grip of Nazi Germany, it was lucky that my husband distracted me before I was moved to start in on ‘Climb Every Mountain’ . That potential crisis averted, we landed in Geneva, Switzerland and picked up our chariot for the next 6 weeks, a noble Peugeot 207 .
Impressed with its sleek interior and inbuilt navigation system, our excitement soon dissipated when we realised it was so hi-tech that we couldn’t figure out how to turn the radio off whilst leaving the sat nav on. And so it was that on our drive into Geneva we ended up straining to hear the directions to our hotel over some extremely bizarre Swiss avant-garde choral music – yes, welcome to Europe you silly uncultured Australians, this is how we roll over here! Consulting the manual for the Peugeot, I realised that, extremely helpfully, it was all in French. Oh dear. Struggling into our hotel after 24 hours in transit, the receptionist took one look at me and upgraded us to a mini-suite (yes occasionally it is actually an advantage to straggle around looking like something the cat dragged in)… and so our day in Geneva began!
The Old Town was the first place we visited, and I was slightly surprised to find myself walking the ‘Rue du Purgatoire’ (or ‘Purgatory Street’) – right next to the church, no less! I thought I would have had to wait until after I died for that particular privilege!;
Wandering around other parts of the city, there was no mistaking the fact that we were in the watch-making capital of the world;
Or that we were now in yahoo of the greatest number of chocolateries known to mankind (be still my beating heart!);
There were a few unwelcome surprises, such as this mannequin in a children’s clothing store (what were they THINKING!?), which, once seen, was not soon forgotten (a very successful representation of Chucky – note to proprieter: perhaps not the best way to sell lots of clothes to children?)
All horror-movie characters aside, we also enjoyed promenading along the lakefront near the big fountain;
And even saw some beautiful swans swimming on the lake;
After a good sleep it was time to leave Geneva behind and strike out for our next stop; Montreux!
