Geneva, Switzerland

These next several blogs will be about our holiday travels.  Our original plan to ski for Christmas week in Chamonix, France had to be changed since there was hardly any snow in The Alps and conditions were dire at best.  Instead, we will be skiing there the first week of March.  (The folks who we rented the chalet from were kind enough to make this out of policy change for us.)  So, we had already booked flights to Geneva, Switzerland which is approximately one hour from Chamonix.  Thus, we spent the first couple day of our vacation there.  We enjoyed our time there, but a day or two was enough.  Plus, it was very expensive---food was easily double what we are used to paying in the U.S. or Barcelona.

In the background is the giant fountain which is a main feature of the city.  It pumps 132 gallons of water per second over 450 feet in the air.  It can even be seen from a plane flying at 33,000 feet.

You may recall that the Swiss are famous for their watches.  

We saw watch stores and signs everywhere!

We walked across the Rhône River; Geneva is situated on Lake Geneva, which flows into the Rhône.

We passed a few more Christmas markets in Geneva...

they were small, but they had a few nice things.  Always love the goodies!

A watch clock above the entrance to the Metro...

And yet another clock in the gardens...are they proud of their clocks, or what?

Again, the fountain...

You have also heard of the Swiss army knife!

This time cuckoo clocks

This guy had his own hand-made instrument made from miscellaneous parts.  

His music was really good!  He had a substantial crowd listening...

not easy with all the street musician competition.

We took a trolley tour the first afternoon.  Honestly, I do not remember what these building are, but they may give you a feel for the city.

This old town part of Geneva was very quaint and even had some hilly, narrow, and winding cobblestone streets.

We came across one of those small town fairs...yes, kind of rink-dink.  However, the boys saw this ride they just had to try.  It swung, spun, and lifted them higher than vertical.  No thanks for me!

These were really cool lit-up figures hanging in the air near the bus station.  

I don't think they were holiday decorations.  There were more that I did not photograph.  

My camera was not capturing them clearly...

The following day, we decided we saw plenty in the town of Geneva, so we took an hour+ train ride to the other side of Lake Geneva to Montreux.  What a picturesque and charming town on the shore of the lake.  They also had a Christmas market...and this one was HOPPING.

One popular food with the Swiss is the fondue.  It's everywhere!  At the Christmas market, they even had fondue to go...warm, melty cheese poured into a handheld baguette.  The boys each had one.  It had a little overtone of white wine flavor, but they ate it anyway.  We watched the cooks make the fondue on site, pouring in and burning off plenty wine. 

Once we walked through Montreux and the Christmas market, we started along the lakeside path for a 45 minute walk to the Chillon castle.

Along the way, there were many large plant-type sculptures.

A persimmon tree!  

I never knew the fruit hangs ripened after the tree loses its leaves.

There were many ripe persimmons that were splattered on the ground below.

We are getting closer to the castle...

And we arrive!  The Chillon castle is a medieval fortress over 1000 years old.  

It was never taken siege, but it changed hands several times.  Most notably, the castle belonged to the House of Savoy, one of the oldest royal families in the world.

Underground areas were for storing food and keeping prisoners.

Courtyard entrance of the castle.

After this photo, the boys went their separate ways from Ray and me.  They explored that castle very well...and more quickly than Ray and me, who read many plaques.  Plus, Ray had the audio guide.

The dining room (one of them!)

The boys discovered the keep tower.  Nicholas came searching for Ray and me, finding us in a distant corner of the castle and led us to back to the other side...and up, up, up to the top of the tower.

A few final photos from the outside of the castle.

We took a quick train ride back to Montreux (the boys were done walking for the day)

and to the increasingly crowded Christmas market.  Although I have no photo, we watched the anticipated event (although we only knew it was happening when it started) of Santa Claus and his sleigh and a few reindeer ride on cables along the shore of the lake for a hundred yards or so.  

The crowd went wild.  :)

We found a nice restaurant on the lake 

and had a yummy end to a fun day in Switzerland.