Geneva Day 2

Kristen seems to fall into a bit of a routine when it comes to sightseeing and visiting other places. She finds the tallest thing around, and makes me climb it. Today she took it to a bit of an extreme. We left the hotel this morning, destination......France. As I mentioned yesterday Geneva is surrounded by France so it didn't take long before we were at the border. I was concerned yesterday about what would happen if you cross the border. Well we literally walked across the border today, just waltzed right into France, and....................nothing happened! Not a thing, might as well been crossing Memorial.

Anyway we made it to the cable car to go up Monte Saleve, and I had a bit of a code brown as I realized it went up some 1000 meters in like a minute and a half. In the cable car you don't have any real point of reference so it doesn't feel like you are moving that much or that fast. But then once you do get that point of reference you realize you are flying up the mountain.

At this point I just wanted off, but Kristen just stared happily out the window. From the top it was just fantasitc. The whole city down there below you. Everything that we had seen down there the day before, was all in miniture. Apparently the winds off the mountain were good for paragliding, Seemed like lots of fun, but again, scared the bejesus out of me.

As they say what goes up must come down, and we flew down the mountain, and skipped across the border back into Switzerland.

A little lunch in us, and we set out for the next HIGH light of the day. Kristen had the Cathedrale St-Pierre on the agenda, Not only did the tour of the church include 150 steps to the top of the towers, but we had to climb up some riduculous streets to get to it in the first place. As we were walking up I thought who exactly decides when a street is too steep and needs stairs or not? Pretty sure the street was steeper on the non-stair part then the stair part. The Church itself wasn't much but was fully of full of some really great history. It is best known as the adopted home church of John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. Looking down on the city from the top of the Church, was great, looked like something out of movie set.

Before dinner we ran out to the Jet d'Eau.  Saw it from afar yesterday, but today we got up close and personal. Originally installed further down the lake as a safety valve for the hydraulic power network, it became so popular they it was moved into town and its been the main tourist attraction since 1891, and upgraded to the current jet in 1951. Originally the fountain was just 100 feet, but now its close to 500 feet. 130 gallons of water per second are shot skyward at 125 mph. At any one time there are something like 16 tons of water in air. I braved the water and ventured out to the base of the fountain, big mistake but amazing to feel the force. There was probably 30 mph winds coming off the fountain, and the water coming back down into the lake. I was only there for like 20 seconds and eventhough it was just spray, I got soaked.

Not sure why there is so little safety restraints around the fountain. Just a little two foot railing and nothing else. Gotta be drunks falling off of the eddy all the time.

Kristen's travel book had us visit a little restaurant famous for its fondue. Not sure why I am always a whining baby everytime Kristen wants to get fondue. I always go into it being really sad, but by the end I am the biggest fan. As usual, I was in the pot scraping cheese off of the bottom after Kristen had long thrown the towel in. 

 

All in all dinner was great, except for Peter Gabriel's greatest hits they had playing all night.  Seriously, what is it with American 80's music and Europe.  Its all you hear everywhere you go.