Geneva

We stopped off in Geneva, just two hours from Lyon by train, for two nights with one goal in mind: to visit CERN, the location of the Large Hadron Collider. It would be an opportunity to “geek out” on science at one of the smartest places in the world. CERN is a science cooperative that sits just outside Geneva; the collider covers a 27-kilometer ring that runs under both Switzerland and France. CERN offers 1-hour guided tours, but you can’t sign up in advance, you can only register in person up to two hours before a tour begins. Jeff wasn’t feeling well and decided to rest in the hotel, so I ventured out on my own.

When I arrived via tram around 9:40 a.m., I learned that the 11 a.m. tour was full. I had realized this was a possibility and knew I could stick around to register up for the next (1 p.m.) tour. I met a Canadian, who also had to wait, and we went to the Microcosm exhibition about the collider to kill time. When we went back to the tour desk a bit before 11 a.m. we were met with chaos. Now that more people were arriving, there was absolutely no organization or ability to discern what was going on. The individuals responsible for arranging the tours had no system whatsoever for understanding who had arrived previously and in what order. After observing this disorder and learning that I wouldn’t make the 1 p.m. tour I decided to throw in the towel. Although they were adding a 2 p.m. tour, I was not standing around for close to another hour only to be bamboozled again by sheer incompetence. (It was that bad, I’m not exaggerating.) It is hard to believe that tours for the smartest place are operated by the dumbest.

It was a disappointment, but sometimes you must move on. I learned something as well – consider avoiding places that can’t organize online signups in advance. It is the 21^st century after all. You’d think the scientists would use science – the internet was supposedly created at CERN – to manage such simple tasks.

Geneva sits on a beautiful lake and has an old town area to explore. It also reeks of money and is super expensive. At least it gave us the chance to eat more Asian food.

Near the lake sits a lovely flower clock, which was accurate and ran with Swiss precision.

And we checked out the Jet d’eau, Geneva’s signature sight, from all angles even getting a bit wet.

We also enjoyed the display of Philippe Geluck’s “Le Chat” (the cat) sculptures along the Quai Wilson a lot. Geluck is a Belgian cartoonist/comedian/artist/etc. who features a cat in his comics. You’ll easily appreciate his sense of humor from this sampling of the 20 pieces on display:

Hopefully you can the see that it is raining under the umbrella! Also, we loved the fact that the "car hit by a cat" was a Mini Cooper.

Geneva was not a favorite city for us, perhaps due to the inability to do what we came for, but it was a nice pause and it allowed me to add Switzerland to my list of countries visited.

Onward to Italy,

Shana & Jeff