Exploring Geneva: City Tour, Parc des Bastions, Carouge

Good morning, Geneva.

This post is the last instalment of the Switzerland travel series. Spent the night at Hotel Cornavin and this was the view from the breakfast area.

Breakfast area was packed and it was kind of unusual, as compared to the other hotels that we'd been to during the trip. There were quite a few Indonesians among the crowd.

In Geneva, not only we took the water taxi (boat) but also took a ride on the bus. Making use of every public transport available. Plus it's free anyway if you have the Geneva Transport Card.

Geneva is the birthplace of the Frankenstein story but apparently locals don't even know about this statue's existence. 

Just less than three minutes walk from the Monumento al Monstruo de Frankenstein, there's this huge site known as Plainpalais skate park for the public to practise skateboarding, roller skating, and BMX riding.

Huge Starbucks Coffee outlet occupying the end lot.

Spotted the University of Geneva, founded by renowned theologian, pastor and reformer, John Calvin.

This morning in Geneva was far better than the day before since the sun was out and the sky was bright. It was quite gloomy the day earlier. Also with the withering trees, it gave off a sense of autumn rather than winter. 

The above are photos of parts of the Reformation Wall, a monument which honours the major figures of the Reformation. The monument stretches for 100 metres long and overlooks the Parc des Bastions.

The whole area is known as Parc des Bastions (Bastions Park), the site of Geneva's first botanical garden. It's located next to Place de Neuve (New Place).  The giant chess sets and the skating rink are free to use.

The Grand Théâtre of Geneve, one Europe’s premier opera houses, was undergoing renovations when I was there in November 2017. I came to know that it eventually underwent a three-year renovation for restoration works and finally reopened in February 2019.

Paid a visit to the Carouge in Geneva, known as the "Greenwich Village of Geneva", a hotspot with Mediterranean charm. This place is like a village in the city and there are many craftsmen and designers. The Carouge Market is also quite popular here.

We also stopped by at the Eglise Sainte-Croix (Holy Cross Church) in Carouge. There seems to be little information about this church but someone said that the chime of the church is the second largest in Switzerland. The interior is really quite pretty.

Next in our itinerary, we stopped by for a chocolate tasting session at Mr & Mrs Renou Patisserie Chocolaterie. Back in 2017, the store was newly opened and one of the founders was recognised as France's best chocolate confectioner few years earlier.

If I recalled correctly, that hole is the remnant of what happened after a cannon ball was blasted onto the building.

We got a glimpse of Victoria Hall, a concert hall located in downtown Geneva. Only had a look at the outside since we were just passing by.

After all the sightseeing, we headed to Katrepices for lunch. It's a restaurant that specialises fusion of Swiss, French, and Mediterranean dishes.

I'd always chosen to go for sparkling water during the whole trip. Rather than still water. Haha.

Overall, out of the different restaurants and places we had visited in Switzerland, I felt that I like the food in Geneva the best. Suits my palette (everyone has their own preferences of course).

Bidding goodbye to Hotel Cornavin.

So actually, we had some time to spare before our flight. If I remembered correctly, we were planning to squeeze some time to head to Lucerne (or was it Bern? or Lausanne?) but there were some issues with the rail system on that day and the trains were delayed. What are the odds? So in the end we just headed back to Zurich early.

As compared to the time when we arrived in Zurich, this time the Zurich Main Station was much more lively since the Christmas market was up and running. The place was crowded too.

Killed some time here and finally took the flight back via Swiss Airlines back to Singapore, then to Kuala Lumpur.

In-flight meals were decent. We all asked for aisle seats and managed to get them, thanks to the organising tour leader. But, even better - the flight was actually rather empty so we all ended up having the whole row of seats to ourselves. Which meant, with the little people on the flight, most ended up occupying three seats for themselves (cause...laid down to sleep).

Thus came the end of the trip.

Overall, I had such a great experience. It was a really relaxing trip, laid back most times. We didn't have to rush and just kept to our own pace most times, except that we needed to be punctual and still follow the planned schedule.

Of course, I think what made the trip even better was the hospitality by Swiss Tourism - all the guides were friendly and everything just went smoothly. Truly, it was a once in a lifetime privilege, and I'm forever thankful for the opportunity. Happy that I finally got to finish write down about this trip.

Maybe the next posts would be about my Italy trip in 2018. We'll see.