Switzerland: Geneva City Center

Downtown Geneva

Breakfast at Kim's, the back on the bus for Geneva station. But this time, no connecting to trains to other cities or buses to the airport. This time Geneva is our destination.

The weather had changed intense blue and sun in the Alps to clouds and gray this morning. Tones were muted, and the sky flat.

Geneva is the center of French speaking Switzerland, and is in fact on the French border. The city proper is home to 200,000 souls, but anchors a region of nearly 1,000,000 in Switzerland and France. It certainly feels bigger than 200,000. The city proper has a huge international community comprising 44% of its population, largely due to the presence of many United Nations offices (including the World Health Organization where Kim works), and many international business headquarters.

At the River

Another surprise for us in Geneva was the reduced level of order and cleanliness compared to German Switzerland or Sweden. It felt more like the nicer cities we have experienced in the US. More grit, more graffiti, more diversity. We walked the main business district from the busy station looking at all the watch shops and curios as we made our way to the Rhone River.

The Flower Clock

The Rhone exits Lake Geneva between the new and old city, where it is crossed by many bridges. We saw the famous fountain in the lake, the many water taxis ferrying tourists about. We crossed the bridge to the park with the famous flower clock where Ann got to try the most amazing automated pay toilet. It seemed more like a Swiss bank vault, with its massive automatic door. Yikes. Good thing they had an emergency phone inside in case it failed and you got stuck there.

Here on this side of the river was the waterfront of the original Geneva, long ago a village, then a far Roman outpost in northern Europe.

Patek Philippe Watches

Then across the busy road we spied a building signed "Patek Philippe". Well we had to go look closer, as Ann's uncle is collector of these handmade watches. They had very creative window displays, but we couldn't bring ourselves to go in to a store selling 15,000 USD watches.

The old city is on the low hill above the waterfront where we stood. We were on our way to St. Pierre cathedral and the Reformation Museum. Geneva was a center for the Protestant Reformation, home to Calvin for time, and a refuge for the French Protestant Huguenots. Time for some history and architecture.

We climbed the base of the hill and stepped into another, older world.