The day I played tourist in Geneva

Armed with our cameras, S from Schwingen in Switzerland spent a relaxing afternoon doing a walking tour of Geneva.  I later on found out that if you only have 1 day in Geneva, this is pretty much what you could do in a couple of hours.

We first started here at Lake Leman and the towering Jet d’Eau which happens to be the world’s tallest fountain.  Because I had an errand to run, we then continued across the Rhone River into Geneva’s ritzy shopping and banking district – Rue du Rhone.

This street will hold many memories for me for I spent many an afternoon just roaming along this street, window-shopping and meeting up with friends.

After a trip to the post office, we continued the tour starting from the very heart of Geneva’s Old Town – the Place du Bourg-de-Four.  This has always been a meeting place of many and today people still gather around the 18th century flowered fountain or on the terrace of the nearby bistros to enjoy a chilled beer or gelato on a sunny day.

We then walked on further to the beautiful Bastions Park where I marveled at the Reformation Wall containing the effigies of Geneva’s founding fathers.

S even took time to make a new friend along our walk.

Beautiful chess pieces at the Bastions Park.  A relaxing afternoon spent just watching people playing chess.

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Out on a walk..

We were blessed with some really wonderful weather during our last week in Geneva, so I decided to ask S from Scwingen in Switzerland out for an afternoon walk.  It was to be my last ‘exploration’ walk of Geneva before we left.

Meeting point?  The famed flower clock located at edge of the Jardin Anglais (English Garden).  You could tell that Spring is definitely in the air with the bright, pretty florals that are used to decorate the clock.  Armed with our cameras, we took a leisurely walk around the lake.

It was such a gorgeous day and I was really pleased to have captured this sight of a beautiful rainbow going through the Jet d’Eau.

S also mentioned that it must be my lucky day for the weather was perfect for the walk that we were going to take.  Well, lucky or not, I’m just thankful that I spent the last week doing this with S.  She really is the perfect companion to hang out with if you’re ever clueless about exploring a place.    Will share more about what we did for the rest of the afternoon soon.

First up, another kind of walk that I’m going to take with the fur-kid!  We’ve gotten a little pudgy over the past couple of months, the Man’s put us on a strict exercise regime and today is my first day walking the kiddo.  Here’s to better health for us both. 

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A quick tour of Lausanne

Since we were expecting slightly warmer temperatures last weekend, we decided on a whim to make a short trip to visit Lausanne.

Lausanne (pronounced as loh-san) is Switzerland’s fifth largest city.  This hilly city enjoys a spectacular lakeside location (which we didn’t get a chance to see because we didn’t have enough time).  Other must-sees in the city according to my new-found friend, Shinn include heading over to Ouchy to see the Musee Olympique and Lake Geneva, visiting the Eglise Saint-François and for a bird’s eye view of Lausanne – the Lausanne Cathedral.

With only about 2.5 hours in the city, we arrived to a some-what grey Lausanne and did a leisurely walk around the Rue de Bourg and Place de la Plaud where boutiques and shops lined the narrow and hilly streets.

With my fave gal!  Check out how we have matching bags with our some-what matching leather outerwear.  I didn’t know if the leather jacket was going to keep me warm, so I decided to layer my faux fur-vest over the jacket for good measure.

Then, we took a leisurely walk to visit the Cathedrale de Notre Dame.

My fave pic of the trip where we took a snapshot of our shadows as the sun slowly set behind us.

I guess this marks one of our very last excursions with one of the closest family that we’ve grown rather attached to during our stay here in Geneva.

I got the chills here in Geneva

More pictures of the cold snap.. this time round, snapshots at Lac Leman here in Geneva.

The Man helped to take most of the photos.  I didn’t get very far after stopping at the first junction to take the first couple of shots.  It was really freezing cold, so I pratically ran and headed back to the car to snuggle up with the little Style Princess.

Remember to keep warm during this Big Freeze here in Europe.

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The big freeze here in Switzerland

This has been one of my harshest winters that I’ve ever experienced with cold winds and subzero temperatures sweeping across most of Europe.

This vicious cold snap has caused almost 400 deaths in Europe and crippled the transport systems in some countries, but reports suggests that it shows no signs of easing up yet. Brrr…..

Friends have been blogging about the dreadful cold weather in Geneva and shared some really ‘cool’ photos in their posts – here, here and here. I couldn’t resist getting in on a piece of this action so we decided to see for ourselves the frozen waterside promenade at Lake Geneva at Versoix.

I hadn’t expected on large crowds to be at Versoix but it definitely was a rare and interesting sight, so loads of people specially made a trip down to the lake just to view this chilly phenomenon.

Frozen waves over at the lake.

And these frozen cars ain’t going to be going anywhere for they are literally stuck to the ground, thanks to the ice.

The trees were also not spared from the cold and harsh winds.

The icy conditions made it very difficult for people to explore the surroundings. I slipped and fell on the ice because I lost my footing. Well, I guess I hadn’t expected it to be that icy. ;( Ouch!

It also looks like the cold snap isn’t going to be easing up on us anytime soon, so keep and stay warm if you are in my part of the world. I know I will with a cuppa of specially brewed hot ginseng tea!

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Staycation and a giant fork spotted!

In celebration of my upcoming birthday, the Man has been extremely sweet to plan a series of weekend trips as part of the birthday package. 

Last weekend, we were up in Le Mirador Kempinski Lake Geneva for a relaxing stay.  Too bad it rained out.  But, perhaps it was not a bad thing for we got to make full use of our stay in the room overlooking a magnificent view of the famed Lake Geneva.

Dressing up for dinner with my little black dress with lace plus my new fashion accessory from the Imp.  It worked really well giving my simple black dress a different kind of funky vibe.   And we made our way down to Vevey for dinner.

There are five primary cities around the lake that offers a breath-taking view of the lake namely Geneva, Lausanne, Nyon, Vevey, and Villeneuve. As we explored the lake, I saw a giant fork from afar and excitedly told the Man that we should head there to grab some shots of the giant fork.

Turned out that on top of the famous statue of Charlie Chaplin, the fork is also an emblem for the town of Vevey.  Made of stainless steel, it is 8m high and 1.3m wide. It was designed by Jean-Pierre Zaugg, a sculptor from Neuchâtel, Switzerland and embedded in the lake in February 1995 to commemorate the Alimentarium’s tenth anniversary. It was initially intended to grace the lake-shore in front of the Museum for one year but it has remained as part of the Lake Geneva landscape ever-since.

Out at Lake Léman

I haven’t decided if I wanted to join the American International Women’s Club yet so I decided to participate in one of the activities to see how I like it.  The activity of choice was an excursion organised by the Photography Club.  Armed with the Man’s SLR, I met the group of lovely ladies including L from the Swiss Watch Blog over at the Jardin Anglais (Geneva’s flower clock).

The weather was so good, making it a great day just to be out and playing with our cameras.  Every month, the ladies from the Photography club will meet up and snap photos relating to a specific theme.  July’s theme is water, which is why meeting at the Lake was perfect for we were surrounded by water.  All we needed to do was to draw inspiration from what’s around us.

Well, I didn’t follow specifically to the theme.  But, I took a couple of what I thought was really pretty pictures that I’d like to share:

Different scenes of the Jet D’eau as background and foreground

Pretty pink florals in bloom

Swans in action at the lake

I have other photos that are specific to the ‘Water’ theme, I’ll share that soon.