Geneva; Saturday, 21 December, 2019

The difference from the previous day couldn’t have been starker as I pulled back the curtains in my hotel room and looked on out a clear blue sky. After a quick breakfast in the hotel I headed out into the sunny morning intent on doing lots of outside things today (the weather forecast indicating that tomorrow wasn’t looking too great).

First stop was to take the number 15 tram out to the end of the line at Nations square. This is the home of the UN in Geneva – with lots of buildings around the square housing various different constituent parts such as the UNHCR and parts of UNESCO. Whilst you can’t get into the UN buildings, for obvious security reasons, you can still get a good view of the serried ranks of flagpoles flying all the flags of UN members.

Also located on the square is the statue – broken chair. This simple statue is of an enormous chair, with one leg blown off – the jagged edge where the leg ends in mid air making it clear this isn’t a clean break – the statue is in part a memorial to all the civilian victims of land mines and cluster bombs and was placed here as a reminder to world leaders of their responsibilities to their own citizens.

From the square it was a short bus ride down to near the lake and the large botanical gardens. I spent quite some time wandering around the gardens, in particular in their three glasshouses that have a number of different zones within them.

Having stopped for lunch near the botanical gardens I headed round the lake to the Eastern shore to pick up the ferry. Its possible to take a 60-minute cruise around the lower part of the lake to take in the scenery – mostly the mountains and the Jet d’Eau. But those cruises are quite expensive and pretty much follow the route that the local ferries run, and the local ferries are included in the free travel pass that the hotel gave me on check-in, so why bother wating money.

I caught the M4 ferry across the lake, back pretty much to the Botanical Gardens. All the way across there are excellent views of the mountains, including the snow-capped peaks deeper into the alps, along with a stunning view of central Geneva at the end of the lake. I made a round trip on the M4 ferry back to the starting landing stage where I was able to change straight away onto the M3 ferry which heads back down the lake towards the centre, stopping on the opposite bank to the Jet d’Eau. From there I caught the M1 ferry back into the very centre of the city.

From there I had a nice long wander around the old town before finally heading back to the hotel to freshen up as the last of the days light disappeared.

I headed out a bit later in search of dinner, which I had in a nice restaurant in the lower part of the old town, before going for a bit more of a wander and then heading back to the hotel