Boundless Horizons

Day 1 – Travel to Geneva

Our Easyjet flight to Geneva had a 10:45am departure, so it was nice to set off at a reasonable time for the airport! Bag drop opens two hours before, so we arrived at 8:45am and grabbed breakfast after clearing security. We took off on time and landed a couple of minutes after 2pm. All in all, a smooth journey! The views as we were flying over Switzerland were amazing. We have Easyjet Plus since we fly enough to Disneyland Paris with our annual passes to make it worthwhile so we were row 1 and ahead of the pack for going through passport control.

Geneva has a great free tourist transport card which our hotel emailed us about in advance. We downloaded the pass to our phones and it covered all public transport in the city, starting with the train ride from the airport to the city centre.

Since we were only in the city for one night and we were leaving by train in the morning, we booked Hotel Bernina which is directly across from the station. The hotel was recently renovated so our room was bright and modern, we’d definitely stay here again.

After dropping off our luggage, we set off towards Lake Geneva to see the Jet d’Eau. The transport pass included the ‘Mouettes genevoises’ shuttle boats and from our research, taking line M2 would give us a great view of the fountain. Those little boats move fast! A boat was loading as we got to the pier and we were across to the other shore in minutes.

We stopped off at a lake-side bar called La Dolce Vita for a drink, then strolled through the Jardin Anglais. The next stop was the Victorinox flagship store where Rhys bought me a Swiss Army knife for my birthday! Buying it in the store meant I could have it engraved with my name, and it makes for a perfect souvenir. We packed it into the bigger suitcase as soon as we got back to the hotel so we didn’t accidentally leave it in hand luggage.

Did you know the world’s longest wooden bench is in Geneva? It runs along the Promenade de la Treille. I thought it was an interesting decision to have the bench facing away from the fabulous views!

As we strolled through Old Town, a thunderstorm started! We decided that was a good sign to find somewhere for dinner. Most of the places we passed served fondue, but we had a fondue restaurant booked for the following night so we wanted something different. Eventually we came to Osteria della Bottega which looked cute.

Our meal was excellent, and their home-made pasta was delicious. By the time we were done, the rain hadn’t eased up so we decided to take the tram back to the hotel rather than walking. We had the free transport card anyway so it didn’t cost us anything.

Since the tram dropped us off outside the train station, we popped into the supermarket for some supplies. In particular, we were after some bars of Swiss chocolate to try. On each supermarket visit in Switzerland we picked up another bar or two and Rhys kept track of how we scored them. Tonight was Favarger and Freys – both tasty, but Freys took an early lead for being slightly creamier and more melt-in-the-mouth.

Then it was back to the hotel to get ready for Zermatt tomorrow!