If you even slightly like chocolates or fancy cheeses, you will die of happiness in Switzerland. I know the Swiss are famous for these things, but we really learned just
how famous until we saw the PLETHORA of chocolatiers are cheese shops in downtown Geneva, filled with the most delicious goodies you can imagine!
On Friday morning, I headed to Geneva, Switzerland to meet up with Alexandra (friend from college who is also studying abroad in London.) Oddly enough, I had to fly to Rome first, and then up to Geneva (if you think about this geographically, it was totally ridiculous. But the cheapest flight, so I guess I can't complain.) As soon as we landed in Switzerland, we took a train to Geneva and then set off to find our hostel. Since the reception desk was closed for their lunch break when we arrived, we decided to grab lunch at a small place around the corner. We were in a not-so-glamourous part of town so we were floored when the prices for crepes and paninis in the shop were around 13 Franks (and the US Dollar to Franks exchange rate is about the same, so this was totally loco.) We didn't see one restaurant that served a main dish for less than 25ish Franks.. even a small salad was around 17. Luckily, we were able to discover many inexpensive chocolatier shops. THANK GOODNESS. Our favorite chocolatier shops were ones that had homemade huge blocks of different types of chocolates. You could choose the type you wanted - dark, white, milk, with raspberry, nuts, orange, pistachios, pepper (that was a weird one), fruit, etc. They would then break off a piece in whatever size you would like (since it was paid by weight). This turned out to be totally fantastic because we would ask for itsy bitsy pieces of every since type of chocolate to try them all, which probably drove the woman helping us totally nuts.
HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?!?!
So back on track.. After checking into our hostel, we set off to explore Geneva and our first stop was across the river to the famous French Quarter. Geneva is in the french region of Switzerland so everyone spoke French, and the creperies and fondue restaurants were in abundance. We loved the bustling area and peeked into many small shops and artsy stores. We meandered to the famous Saint-Pierre Cathedral in Geneva and first went to the museum below the Cathedral to explore the archaeological remains of several preceding churches dating back to the 4th century! Walking through the underground ruins beneath the current Cathedral was actually cooler than I expected, and we even walked past half-revealed graves displaying skeletons and alongside wells that were 30 feet deep. Creepy.
Geneva!
Underneath the Cathedral in the ruins of what was there before!
We then ventured back in the direction of our hostel and stopped at a famous French macaroon shop where Alexandra convinced me to try my first ever macaroon. Totally see what all the hype is about now that I've tried the real deal! Later that night, we headed out for dinner and it didn't take long before we figured out we were staying in a very ethic area of town.. we couldn't find a restaurant that wasn't thai, chinese, iranian, indian, japanese, lebanese, you name it. I was actually thrilled because I hadn't eaten any foods of these sorts since being abroad. We settled on an awesome Indian restaurant where I proceeded to ask our waiter for the spiciest curry they had and even though my whole body was on fire for about an hour, it was awesome. (I also tried, and fell in love with, naan. What else have I been missing out on?!)
We kicked off Saturday by heading to the small town of Carouge, which had small-town charm, colorful shutters, quaint coffeeshops, and dozens of eclectic shops featuring handmade crafty things. After spending a few hours roaming around Carouge, we headed back to Geneva and went on a free boat cruise around the river. Okay, so it was actually free because we were given an all-inclusive travel pass by our hostel, and this in fact was a small water taxi, but we enjoyed staying on the little boat for awhile and not actually getting off at any of the taxi stops. A classy boat cruise for people on a budget, if you ask me.
We finally decided to get off our river cruise when we reached the stop for the Botanical gardens. We jumped off the taxi and walked up to the gorgeous gardens where we saw beautiful flowers and many, many random animals. Including a peacock that roamed the sidewalks with us, some pretty birds, and rams! I did not know what a ram was until Alexandra informed me it's like a mountain goat. But the rams were friendly and even posed for a few pics.
New friends! They were polite enough to assemble themselves and pose for the picture, too.
We then headed to the United Nations Headquarters! It was a great place to see, especially after spending an entire year participating in the Model United Nations club in 8th grade. There were also almost about a hundred people gathered across the street, holding flags and signs supporting Gaza since there is so much turmoil happening there at the moment.
Saturday night we had made reservations at a famous fondue French restaurant downtown. We walked in and immediately all the waiters smiled and greeted us, and the the host rushed up to greet us warmly. We told him we had reservations at 8, and he looked up our name and quickly was like, "Oh yes, yes, one moment!" We then watched him go up to a couple sitting at the table in front of the huge front window and ask them to MOVE to another table in the back. He then ushered us over to those seats and we were totally confused what had happened - we couldn't figure out why he wanted us to sit in the window? Were we celebs or something?!? They were obviously great seats with a view of the hoppin' street scene outside, and we felt bad the hostess had actually asked that couple to move. (We literally talked about this for awhile and were thinking that by them placing young women in the window it gave the impression to all the people checking out their menu outside the impression that it was a cool place? We still don't know.) Anyway, the cheese fondue was great! They however did NOT have chocolate fondue for dessert.. what kind of fondue restaurant doesn't have chocolate fondue?! So funny.
Fondue, yum!!
On Sunday, our first destination was Le Telepherique, a gorgeous view-point at the top of the mountains. We took a bus until we hit the Swiss alps, which were actually very close, and then took a tram up to the top! We passed through the clouds and everyone in our tram/cable-car-contraption cheered because we could finally see the blue sky and the sun! The view at the top was INCREDIBLE and it was almost heavenly. As in, I felt as if I ran fast enough I would be able to jump onto the beautiful clouds and actually be IN Heaven. (That's how it works right?)
On the tram going up to the top!
I wish I could ice skate over there!
Downwards bound.
We headed down the mountain and back to Geneva to make our way to the airport and back to our respective countries. I again had to fly to Rome first, and then back up to Torino. To bad I couldn't just have skydived down to my apartment as we passed it on the way to Rome. Would've saved like five hours. When I got off the plane in Rome, I was VERY engrossed in the hilarious novel I'm reading, so I only partially paid attention to the departures board for my my next flight. I saw the word Torino and headed to that gate. I then sat down and continued reading, even (awkwardly) laughing out loud at times, until I heard over the airport loudspeaker, "Trott, LAUREN TROTT." I had about five seconds to realize I couldn't nonchalantly walk over to the counter, since this lady was YELLING. So I flew up and ran over the desk where the lady looked VERY angry and out of breath as she half-yelled, "The plane is WAITING FOR YOU. Gate 13! Go! RUN." All I can say is WHOOPS, my bad. Turns out I was waiting at a different gate going to Torino half an hour later. I ended up sprinting to my
correct gate and running onto the place just as they shut the plane door and began taxing off. I apologized a zillion times to the flight attendants, hopefully loud enough so that the entire plane of Italians starring at me would hear too and feel bad for the girl saying "MI DISPIACE!" in an American accent. I blame my book. Or the fact that I've been on way too many flights by now, so I just expect my body to gravitate to the correct gate.
Overall a lovely trip to the beautiful Switzerland!
