Friday 7 October: Geneva

Our last morning in Interlaken - we packed up and said goodbye to the wonderful staff at the Goldey. It's about a 20 minute walk to the station, but the day was grey and overcast. We had beautiful weather for the preceding three days, so we can't complain.

Our train to Geneva was an InterCity double-decker. We sat in the top deck which gives an excellent view. The intercities are fast and very comfortable, and the trip took about 1hr 40 minutes.

At Geneva, our hotel was the Warwick, a 4 star establishment just over the road from the station. We checked in, then went exploring. Geneva is built on the shores of a lake, and there are various ferries and pleasure boats operating. We walked across a bridge over the Rhöne to the left bank, had a coffee and did a bit of (partly successful) gift shopping. Sue got herself a nice Swiss watch.

Geneva is very different from Interlaken - it's a much bigger city for a start. The traffic moves faster and the footpaths are more crowded (but not excessively). The biggest difference is that the language has suddenly changed from German to French. We had just got used to saying danke shoen instead of grazzie, we now have to start saying merci.

Back to the hotel, then a long walk in the opposite direction to the United Nations area. Geneva was the home of the League of Nations, and is still the headquarters of many of the UN organisations. Unfortunately it was after 5pm when we got there, so the Palace of Nations was closed to visitors. We walked around the surrounding parks, then caught one of the very smooth new trams back to the Warwick.

Having been profligate in our spending lately, we settled on a Burger King dinner. Mind you - this is still Switzerland, where even burgers are expensive by Australian standards. Back to the hotel for a quiet night, and off to Paris in the morning.