Djurdjevic - Personal Photos

January 23, 2011

Personal photos, September 2005

Switzerland 2005

French Countryside Enroute to Geneva; Geneva...

Geneva, Switzerland, Sep 21, 2005 - Last night was very cold at Chateau Creancey, so I had the heaters (radiators - water) going. Even so, I had to bundle up under the covers. The radiators just took the chill out. It was refreshing, though, and I had a good nine-hour sleep (long for me).

After a good night's sleep, I was already awake this morning by the time the church bell from this little church up the hill sounded 7 bells...

At breakfast, I met two ladies from Colorado who were spending a month in France in search of inspiration. What kind of inspiration? They were painters (artists). And did they find it? "Oh, yes, very much so," the more famous one of the two replied.

When I was loading my bags into the car, Bob, my new furry Irish hound friend, came out to say goodbye. He looked quite sad to see me leave. So was I...

The drive from Creancey to Geneva took less than three hours. It was again mostly on freeways, and thus easy and relaxing. The only part that was relatively exciting was that I cut it really close on my gas fill-up. When I decided to look for a gas station, I had about 30 miles to go, according to my onboard Citroen computer. And wouldn't you know, there was none on the freeway for another 20 miles or so. And that was too close for comfort even for me. So I got off the freeway and filled up at a cute little French Alpine town of Bellegarde (above). [When I saw the name at first, I thought it was Belgrade. :-) ].

The weather in the Alps can change as quickly as in the "Serbian Alps" (Mt. Kopaonik). This is what it looked like as I was approaching Geneva, having gotten off the freeway early so I could enjoy the countryside, full of cows ready for milking! :-)

This is where I came across my "Curiosity item No. 1:" I drove from France into Switzerland without any immigration or customs controls. And Switzerland isn't even an EU country!

And then came my "Curiosity item No. 2:". On my way through the Geneva suburbs, I came across the world famous C.E.R.N. research facility that Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" popularized. What a coincidence, I thought that I should just happen upon it, as I snapped a picture from the car. It actually didn't look like much from the outside, yet it reportedly houses some of the world's biggest brains.

I was in Geneva by 2PM, and decided to head straight to the airport, figuring I'd try to find some nice hotel there. Sure enough, I spotted a big Movenpick hotel, within a mile of the airport. Movenpick are a well respected Swish chain of hotels and restaurants that I remember from way back in the 1960s. As it turned out, this is a great first class hotel, on a par with the Belgrade Intercontinental. I have a very nice and large room (you'll see...). They also just brought in a lovely fruit basket and a bottle of wine - with the manager's compliments, again like the Intercontinental.

I decided to spend my last afternoon in Europe sightseeing around Geneva. The last time I was here was about 23 years ago, so my memories are kind of fuzzy. I've found downtown Geneva to be fairly unremarkable. So I was surprised to see how pretty it appeared it some of the pictures I took, such as the one above. The bridges over the river Rhone make it look like a Swiss Venice.

One of the highlights of my walking tour of downtown Geneva was this Starbucks coffee shop, the first one I have seen on this entire trip in Europe. I ordered, of course, my favorite drink, but found it lacking, both in taste and service, except in price (7.40 Swiss Francs; about $6). Wish somebody would suggest to the Europeans that they try smiling a little when they take that kind of money for a cup of coffee, especially if they are in a service business..

Once I got to Lake Geneva, the view improved considerably. Here is the south shore...

...and this is what the north shore looked like. Most of the buildings you see here are banks, many with Middle Eastern names. That is the one thing remarkable about Geneva: That's where some of the world's biggest hitters' stash their money in numbered accounts, much of it earned from oil.

I walked across the bridge into the old town, which I've found more interesting, though still lacking the flair of many other European old towns.

Here's, for example, the church of St. Madeleine. To my surprise, I discovered it was protestant (this being the French part of Switzerland, I had erroneously assumed that the churches would be mostly Catholic).

As I climbed the hill to the highest point of the old town, I reached this church - St. Peter's. "That's Catholic for sure," I surmised.

Wrong again! Despite its very "catholic" appearance and its name, St. Peter's, built in 1230 during the great cathedral building era in Europe, has not been a Catholic church since 1536. That's when the local protestants joined in with the republics of Berne and Fribourg to oust the Catholic bishop and the pro-Rome duke. They formed an independent protestant city of Geneva. Later on (after 1550), during the persecution of protestants in France and Italy, Geneva became a safe haven for these refugees. "Ethnic cleansing" 16th century style? Indeed. Except that they had not thought to call it that back then. "Xenophobia" is how a Geneva history book I had purchased and read at St. Peter's describes this period. I was not alone. A class of about 30 high school students was also getting a history lesson from their teacher - in French.

Jean Calvin, a French reformist, also spent some time in Geneva. At a tender age of 27, he was already so influential that he helped the city elders write church and secular laws. As a young pastor, he even married a couple at this cathedral in July 1536, according to a written record I saw. Thanks to Calvin's dedication to his reformation cause and his unrelenting teaching schedule (he taught theology three hours a day up until the day before his death in 1564), Geneva became known in the 16th century as the "Protestant Rome."

I am glad I did my Geneva tour for that reason alone - having learned something new about history that corrected some of my misconceptions.

From the Middle Ages to the 21st century, here's Geneva's main shopping street. Despite the appearances (tracks), there are no of street cars here. Public transport on this street is actually trolleys. You can see one in the above photo.

When Karen and I ended our European 2004 trip in Prague, the Czech capital was full of cow sculptures (I've forgotten the reason). So it's only appropriate that I should end my Europe 2005 travelogue with shots of some of the many cow sculptures that I saw in the streets of Geneva. :-) Move over (East) Indians, cow worship seems to be on in Europe...

This was the view of the Geneva airport from my hotel, the morning I was getting ready to leave. And so, au revoir from Geneva, on this sunny and partly foggy Thursday, September 22!