We left Lyon today and headed for Annecy through the Jura region to Geneva as a stopover. We were traveling through winding, narrow, hilly roads, remembering that it was through this rugged terrain that the Resistance smuggled people out and into Switzerland. Many of the small towns and villages had white monuments to commemorate this fact, but the most impressive of these was in Cerdon. As you drive around another hairpin bend, you are confronted with a huge white monument that appears to be growing out of the hillside, it is a monument to the Resistance and the Marquis. To the left of its base there are 90 simple crosses mounted on plain granite slabs. Many of the headstones have the inscription ‘unknown’. A rough downhill track will take you to the village of Cerdon and another graveyard with 700 occupants. From what we could ascertain, this path is part of the part that formed the route to Switzerland.
While we were there a kindly old French gentleman tried to engage us in conversation. What we have found with the French is that as soon as they hear you utter the few French words that you do know, they get so excited that they carry on talking at full speed without a pause, leaving you standing there with that blank look that comes from total ignorance. And this kindly gentleman was no exception. We really did wish our French was better, so that we would know what he was talking about. Did he live nearby? If not, did he have a reason for being there, a connection? Did he have a story to tell? It is at times like this that you really do feel that you are missing out on something.
From here we carried on to Geneva. Once you get through the traffic going in and out, this is a great city. It doesn’t seem like Switzerland at all, in fact according to what we read 40% of the population here aren’t Swiss. Maybe that is why they are all so nice. They have a saying ‘Geneva belongs not so much to Switzerland as to the world’ which is not surprising when it is the home of UN, WHO, Red Cross, etc.
Like we said, once we got through the traffic, our first impression of Geneva was ‘Free Parking!’ We couldn’t believe it. That was a first for Switzerland for us, even the smallest of villages with paddock loads of space, charge for parking, so naturally we wondered if we were in the right place. Our second impression was that Geneva had closed for the day. It was Monday and everything seemed to be closed, or certainly very quiet. But then perhaps it was just because it was a good day to stay indoors. It was very cold and the wind off the lake was blowing right through you.
We were looking forward to seeing the ‘Jet d’Eau’ on the southern shore. Calling this a fountain is an understatement. Water shoots up with incredible force 200 kph 1360hp 140m high plume. At any one time there are 7 tonnes of water in the air. Only today it wasn’t playing. Maybe it was too windy.
So we went for a walk through the old town instead, and a very cool old town it is, with narrow backstreets cobblestone roads, large green parks with grass that you are allowed to walk on without getting yelled at. In fact the whole time that we were there we didn’t get yelled at, there were no irate gestures, and there were no tooting of horns. Geneva is what you expect the rest of Switzerland to be … nice. We saw an art gallery with an inscription outside that went something like this; ‘One artist sees the sun and paints a yellow spot, another artist sees a yellow spot and paints the sun. Art is making your imagination real.’
On our travels we have often laughed at the range of museums that we have seen. There is a level of specialization that we haven’t seen before. We have often said that we should have kept a list of the more unusual ones. Well Geneva has the ‘Musee d’Histoire Naturelle’, which houses every species of tiger known to man and stuffed for perpetuity.
After dragging ourselves away from this nice little town we headed for Annecy, North West of Lake Annecy. As we got closer the hillsides turned to mountains and we were given the very strong impression that this is the domain of the French Alps, and these puppies are huge. These Alps are the home of such distinguished names as Mont Blanc, but that will be tomorrow’s story.
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