Geneva Part 2

On our 2nd day, we knew we wanted to go up the gondola to Mt. Saleve.  If you look at the first picture of the boats in the lake in the previous post, Mt. Saleve is the mountain behind the buildings.  It is visible from all over Geneva.  It also happens to be located in France, not Switzerland.  We hopped the one local bus and took it to Veyrier, the Swiss town located at the French border that is right beside the gondola.  Once again, I messed up and we got out of the bus too early.  It resulted in about 20 minutes of extra walking for us. Thankfully, it was through a nice neighborhood.  We eventually found the road that crosses the border.  We took our passports with us, hoping that we would be stamped going between the countries. Unfortunately, we did not.  This is the "border patrol" station between France and Switzerland.

It was completely empty.  Nobody so much as looked at the crazy American family scurrying through a border checkpoint.  BUILD A FENCE!  anyway...

The side of Mt. Saleve that faces Geneva is a sheer straight cliff face.  How tall is it?  Here is the view looking up:

Here is the view looking down:

We went up the gondola and were treated to an amazing view of Geneva and the surrounding area.  It was breathtaking.

If you click on the picture and look at it original size, you can make out the Jet D'Eau in the water.  The air was so fresh up there.  We grabbed a snack and then headed up one of the paths to get even higher.  Some of the trails were a little steep, but we were able to stop on occasion for some pictures.

Nick led the way the entire trek:

We got to a large open field that was surrounded by trees and relaxed there for a bit.  Nick and I could see a clearing a little higher on a trail, so we decided to check it out.  We quickly decided to go back down for the girls.  We found the area where they launch hang gliders from.  There were several of them floating around at the time, but we didn't get to see them launch.  This was the view from up there:

We spent time looking around up there while Nick got as close to the edge as possible. 

We eventually made our way back down to the gondola and to the base of Mt. Saleve for our sneaky return over the border to Switzerland.  Again, nobody even noticed.


When we got back to Geneva, we were very warm from our journey.  We got an ice cream and then headed to the pier that has the Jet D'Eau.  It is very impressive to see up close.

You can walk near, and actually past the Jet.  When the wind is blowing away from the pier, you still get a nice cool mist that will cool you down, as happened on our way out.

However, if the wind shifts, you can get very wet.  This was when we were past the Jet.  The only way back to land is down this path.

They got soaked to the bone and loved it.  The biggest problem is that it's only about a 4' wide pier and there are no railings at all.  If you lose your balance or slip, you either fall into the rocks on one side, or the lake on the other. 

The Jet is even amazing at night.

Our 3rd day involved some shopping and walking around.  We found some awesome pretzel sandwiches for lunch, bought some great chocolate, and then headed to what every guide book says is "the best place to find a hidden treasure" in Geneva.  The Flea Market.

All we found were fleas.  Seriously, it was terrible.  The only thing I considered buying was this:

I don't know what it is.  I don't really care.  I just think it needed rescuing.  The one fun part of the flea market is that it is located directly beside a big skate park.  Nick loved it.  There were guys with skate boards, inline skates, and even the small Razor-like scooters.  We watched them for a while. 

Yes, that guy in the 2nd pic is going upside down on a scooter.  I think Nick wants to start trying that.  He's found a small "ramp" near our apartment that he likes to jump with his scooter.  That'll do for now.

Overall, it was an amazing trip.  We were glad to get home, though.  (Yes, home is apparently in Paris)  Sandy and I both commented that it was weird to want to go back to Paris because it was cheap.  How expensive was Geneva?  Here is a Dockers long sleeve button down shirt.

The cost of 110 francs equates to about... $125.  For a Dockers shirt.  I don't think so.

It took a while to decide which pictures I would post here.  Between the 2 cameras, we took about 350 pictures over 3 days.  Some were awesome, some were funny, and some needed to be deleted.  We even ran into the problem where Morgan was taking a picture, but was photobombed by some stupid American tourist.