Happy accidents

I don't know that anyone says to themselves "I think I will go to Geneva for vacation this year." In fact, the Rick Steves Switzerland book does not even have information about the city of Geneva. Which is really unfortunate because Geneva is a great very livable city. The transit system is pretty much perfect, it has a touch of the medieval and a touch of the modern, and there are tons of beautiful parks.

We ended up accidentally bumbling into a bunch of interesting things today. First, and very much on purpose, we decided to tour the United Nations. 

We followed it up with some Maltesers.

We then ran into a solar car rally. They have been traveling for a while with a collection of postcards from youth around the world about their individual commitments to ending climate change. The rally was delivering the cards to the United Nations as was explained to us enthusiastically by a woman from Austria. There were cars from all over the world.

They were working on getting into formations for a picture from a skyscraper. I don't quite know what they were trying to spell out but it was proving difficult.

Next we went to the museum of the international Red Cross and Red Cresscent. It was a very interactive museum explains both the past and the present work of the Red Cross. Each part of the museum was designed by a different person with a different cultural background so there was a lot of variety. It was also a good combination of the factual and the abstract. I think Ellie's favorite part was the game of hurricane where you need to prepare an island for an impending disaster by building shelters, doing drills, and stockpiling food deploying people with the correct skills to do the work. We played it about five times. 

If you ever happen to be in Geneva check it out.

After a quick bite sitting on the steps in a public square watching people try to avoid a fairly untalented street performer, we decided to check out the music festival. When I saw the rehersal yesterday, I was thinking way too small. Here is the schedule for just today.

We hopped from venue to venue for a while. It seemed like every person in Geneva was out tonight. They will still be going well past midnight. We started with hip hop and rock (and crepes), then migrated to classical. We did not stay any place very long because variety is fun and it was getting late.

So there you have it. Some days you accidentally end up at a giant citywide music festival and a solar car rally. 

Tomorrow we pack it all up and head on home. 

Crunchy olives and beet chips

I will start with our day and end with pictures from yesterday now that we are in the land of wifi.

We packed up, ate a breakfast that involved quite a bit of cheese, and made the slow walk, train, train, train, and train journey to Geneva.

It was cloudy and rainy at the top but we saw some good cows on the train ride. They are very serious about cows in Switzerland.  We also watched several episodes of Doctor Who. Elise is becoming a big far, so that must mean I am doing something right. 

Our room in Geneva is quirky. There are two balconies, a triple bunk bed, and a shower, but the toilet is down the hall. Also the air around here smells like cookies which is marvelous. 

We happened upon a streetwide food and drink sample and open house evet as we were doing the aimless wander. Ellie sort of used her French, though at times it was more Frenglish than anything. We had tea and blueberry sorbet and probably would have had more but we had just finished a large meal.

As we were walking back to the hotel we stopped by the park because there were some curious sounds. We caught the orchestra rehearsing for a big outdoor concert tomorrow night. We plan on checking it out.

We also stopped by the grocery store to get snacks. We decided to purchase items based on maximum entertainment value, ergo crunchy wasabi olives and a can of beet chips along with some unidentifiable fruit bar thingy.

So that was our evening in Geneva. The weather is cool and a bit rainy and the people speak French. I will contrive to convince Ellie that it makes more sense for her to talk in fluent French with impeccable accent than for me to mangle the language. Seriously, the only thing I remeber from my one year of French class about 20 years ago is how to ask if I may please sharpen my pencil. I struggle to think of appropriate places to use that phrase. 

Here are a few pictures from yesterday in the mountains. That Swiss flag in the first picture is on top of the lookout platform at our lodge. This was the view from our window. 

The next couple are from the lifts. They were a bit terrifying at first.

And of course Switzerland has tons of flowers and cows.

Tomorrow we check out Geneva. It will be our last full day before we head home. 

Over under sideways down

We are up in the mountains with sketchy internet access, so this is going to be an abridged posting with subpar pictures. Have no fear, tomorrow there will be picture postcard images aplenty. 

This morning we took the train from Interlakken to Kleine Scheidegg via Lauterbrunnen. 

We spent the day going up and down the mountains via train, lift, and foot.

We also took advantage of some play areas and had some lunch. The big hike we were planning to do was closed, but we made due.

Tonight we are sleeping up in the clouds.

Lava pie

Today was a super lazy day. Well, it did not start out that way. We woke up at 6:30 this morning to pack, eat breakfast, and catch the train to Brig so we could catch the train to Spiez so we could catch the train to Interlakken. The first train was a close call after a squishy ride on the metro. Fortunately the woman at the ticket counter got us through the process in record time.

We found the Swiss trains very swanky. Also not very crowded which was a nice change of pace. We had spent quite a bit of time being crowded so a little silence and space was a good thing.

We saw many mountains as we passed through the Swiss countryside. We arrived in Interlakken and it was cold and clear. It was quite different from hot and crowded Milan. After we dumped our bags we wandered around and saw some paragliders and hang gliders. 

We also checked out the city walk signs. This one was quite intriguing because considering the elevations and altitude it sounded impossible.

We also did some eating, reading, sleeping, and relaxing. 

Before we called it a night we took advantage of the less litigious nature of Switzerland.

Don't judge me too harshly - for those of you old enough to remeber, McDonald's used to have deep fried hot apple pies. They were amazing and the filling was like molten lava. In the United States they stopped selling them about 30 years ago or more. And yet, in some countries you can still get them. Once we remembered that we should check we have been looking at the menu of various McDonald's. But alas, it was not to be in Italy. However today we hit pay dirt. 

Ellie pointed out that Interlakken smells like home - cool and crisp and rainy. Tomorrow Klinne Siddig, some hiking, and some mountain gondolas. 

Milano, just like the cookies

We got up early this morning and explored for coffee. We found some.

We packed up and wandered down to the train station. I have to stay, the place we stayed in Monterosso was one of the nicest rentals I have ever had.  So if you are looking for a place for two or three people in Monterosso check out Appartamento Piccolo Príncipe. 

The train tried to Milan was rather brutal. The train was packed, the train was running quite late, and I was across from someone who was taking more than his fair share of the foot space. My patience was running low. Finally, however, we arrived in Milan.

Milan is a marked contrast to the other places we visited in Italy. It is very modern and busy and fast. The area by the central train station is not a pretty place and we were hot and tired. We hopped on a Metro and made our way to the hotel which is cute and quirky. We then found food at a local chain that was rather good and quite frankly I would have eaten my shoes at that point and enjoyed them greatly. We then ventured down to the Duomo. 

You know how Target Field can seat about 40,000 people when they free up the standing room only seats? Yeah, so can the Duomo in Milan. They started building the thing in the 1300s and did not finish till the 1800s. In between it was as if the Renissance vomited all if the flair they could on the building. There is not a quarter inch of the thing that does not have a carved something or another on it. And we got to walk around on the roof.

It was very high up. We cheated and took the life, but there were still a fair amount of stairs.

Inside is quite remarkable. The space is huge and there is a tremendous amount of stained glass. Of course pictures don't capture it so well.

Afterwords we stopped and got lemon ices and considered our food options. We were almost paralyzed with indecision, but finally decided to go down by the canal. We did not know where down by the canal or for what purpose, but we figured that someone would be willing to feed us something.

We walked on one side of the canal and were started to get pretty depressed about the food options. Then we crossed to the other side and found many promising looking options. We decided to go to a place the translated to the White Rabbit. The services was enthusiastic and despite the considerable language barrier, we ended up ordering great food.

We dined long and late and even ordered dessert.

Tomorrow we leave early for Switzerland. Goodbye Italy!