Sabbatical - 8/11: To France By Boat
After one hot day of walking around Geneva, I decided it would be a good idea to follow the lead of all the swimmers and boaters I saw by getting on the lake the next day. Fortunately, CGN has a number of boat tours that go from Geneva to many points throughout the 72 kilometers of the lake, and it was very easy to book a ticket for the SS Simplon, a one hundred year old paddle wheeler. That days itinerary was to head north along the lake to Yvoire, a fortified medieval city on the French side of Lake Geneva.
This was a good decision. It was a hot sunny day, but out on the lake there was a pleasant steady breeze. We rapidly left Geneva behind us and passed a number of very expensive looking houses on the shore as we moved north to Nyon, about 25km from downtown Geneva. After a brief stop there we headed across the eastern shore of the lake to Yvoire. This branch of the lake, the petite-lac, is quite skinny (I'm confident that I could have swam it), so this leg of the trip was barely 15 minutes. And so it was that for my first visit to France I arrived by boat, which is a personal first.
Yvoire was fortified back in the 14th century, and hasn't changed much since then. The medieval town is surrounded by a substantial wall with a gated tower. Inside is a church and a great many old stone buildings. Back in the day it was a trade center, but now it serves mostly as a tourist destination for people who like old stone buildings or who are trying to visit all of the most beautiful villages in France. It was quite picturesque, but it's not very big and one runs through the available options quite quickly. I hopped on a different boat, the SS Rhone, and headed back to Geneva.
Once the boat docked I snagged some ice cream and then wandered into the old part of the city. The previous day I'd found the Musée Rath, which is a comparatively small art museum in the old town of Geneva that only hosts temporary exhibits, so I headed back there. When I was there the exhibition was focused on panoramic paintings and photos. I learned that museums in Europe (or at least every museum I went to) had materials in multiple languages to accommodate tourists, so even though I was in a French-speaking city in quad-lingual country (French, German, Italian, Romansh), I got very good English-language exhibit guides, a pattern that thankfully continued throughout my trip.
For dinner, I opted for a curry at a (sadly) mediocre Indian restaurant. I wandered around some more, but Geneva is pretty boring on a Monday night so I sacked out early.
The 17th photo and onward in this set are from August 11.
This was a good decision. It was a hot sunny day, but out on the lake there was a pleasant steady breeze. We rapidly left Geneva behind us and passed a number of very expensive looking houses on the shore as we moved north to Nyon, about 25km from downtown Geneva. After a brief stop there we headed across the eastern shore of the lake to Yvoire. This branch of the lake, the petite-lac, is quite skinny (I'm confident that I could have swam it), so this leg of the trip was barely 15 minutes. And so it was that for my first visit to France I arrived by boat, which is a personal first.
Yvoire was fortified back in the 14th century, and hasn't changed much since then. The medieval town is surrounded by a substantial wall with a gated tower. Inside is a church and a great many old stone buildings. Back in the day it was a trade center, but now it serves mostly as a tourist destination for people who like old stone buildings or who are trying to visit all of the most beautiful villages in France. It was quite picturesque, but it's not very big and one runs through the available options quite quickly. I hopped on a different boat, the SS Rhone, and headed back to Geneva.
Once the boat docked I snagged some ice cream and then wandered into the old part of the city. The previous day I'd found the Musée Rath, which is a comparatively small art museum in the old town of Geneva that only hosts temporary exhibits, so I headed back there. When I was there the exhibition was focused on panoramic paintings and photos. I learned that museums in Europe (or at least every museum I went to) had materials in multiple languages to accommodate tourists, so even though I was in a French-speaking city in quad-lingual country (French, German, Italian, Romansh), I got very good English-language exhibit guides, a pattern that thankfully continued throughout my trip.
For dinner, I opted for a curry at a (sadly) mediocre Indian restaurant. I wandered around some more, but Geneva is pretty boring on a Monday night so I sacked out early.
The 17th photo and onward in this set are from August 11.