Alright, I'm done with the cheesiness...for now...no guarantees that it won't ever come back. I took the tram into downtown Geneva today with a group of my new friends, planning to spend a few hours walking around and exploring the city a bit. Kevin and I were the only two who had never been downtown before (everyone else had arrived a day before us and gone downtown) and there is one sight everyone MUST see when they go to Geneva: Jet d'Eau. This is Geneva's most iconic landmark and is located in Lake Geneva. It shoots 132 gallons a second 460 feet into the air and is apparently visible from airplanes flying overhead. If that isn't a feat of human engineering, I don't know what is. Needless to say, it is extremely impressive:
After praising the jet for a while (aka taking tons of pictures), we continued walking along the water line for a while, but then veered off to go through a nice park that was in the middle of the city. I've noticed that Geneva has several grassy areas just for people to sit and relax and enjoy the weather, which is a cool effect in the midst of a city. The park we walked through was quite a bit bigger than these grassy areas, and I compared it most to Millennium Park in Chicago: a nice area where families can come and have picnics and the kids can play on the various jungle gym toys or kick a soccer ball around in the large open area in the middle. Or you could even take a stroll around or within the park on the beautiful paved sidewalks. It is probably a very nice way to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life without actually leaving the city. I think everywhere should have something like this.
We continued walking (our destination was the United Nations building of Switzerland), when we heard some dance music coming from somewhere to the side of us. Naturally we turned to see what it was, and to our surprise, there were boys from probably 10 to 25 taking turns breakdancing on the sidewalk. They had quite a crowd of onlookers, and some even had chairs set up to watch. And these guys were actually pretty good! We watched in awe for a few minutes, but then we started getting weird looks from members of the group, so we hurriedly moved on.
Before long, we saw dozens of fountains spewing water into the air and soaking children laughing and running through the fountains - we had reached the UN building. It was actually very cool. Immediately in front of us were rows and rows of these fountains, after which were rows and rows of national flags, separated by a road. Behind all of it was the UN building, an impressive and gigantic thing. Unfortunately we couldn't go inside (I'm not sure if we could even if it weren't a Sunday and it were open...). We spent some there, but before long, we had decided to head back to the water line. We took the bus because it had been quite a trek to get there in the first place.
When we arrived back at the lake, we decided to cross the river because apparently there was some huge cathedral that was a must-see. Well, we found it, and I can tell you that it is MOST DEFINITELY a must-see. You also MUST pay the 4 francs it takes to go to the top of the north and south towers because it will be way more than worth it:
St. Pierre Cathedral is (I think) the tallest place in Geneva, so you can see for miles in all directions. You can see everything: the sprawl of the city, the beautiful lake, the Jet d'Eau, the surrounding mountains, the people jumping off cliffs (<- Hey there's the small minority! Actually, they were parasailers, but "people jumping off cliffs" is much more interesting, don't you think?). It is a sight to behold and impossible to pass up. Everything about the cathedral was absolutely gorgeous: the exterior, the carvings inside, the organ sitting raised above the back of the cathedral, and especially the view from the top. I was sad to leave it.
We made one last pit stop for ice cream at a cute little restaurant with outdoor seating before making our way back to the tram station. But there was one more surprise for us (actually, two). One, we noticed power ballads playing from some speakers, and turned to see a guy performing ice skating moves on roller blades. The best part was that he had set up rows of plastic cups and was weaving in and out of them with intricate footsteps and rarely knocking any of them over. Naturally, we just stared for a couple minutes. Two, we happened to glance behind us, and within the spray from the Jet d'Eau was a beautiful rainbow:
What a way to end a fantastic trip to Geneva...I couldn't have asked for anything better.
No comments:
Post a Comment