Day 7 - Bonjour to Paris and Geneva- Switzerland - A biking we will go!

July 2015

Minigan's Travels -Summer 2015

Bonjour to Paris and Geneva!
Day 7 - A biking we will go.....

Day Seven

Legs don't fail me now!

Friday morning.  We woke to a presentation of croissants for breakfast.  What a wonderful way to wake up.  Graciela has left for work so unfortunately we do not get to see her. 

We sit on the balcony eating out croissants, drinking our coffee and looking at the mountains.  I wish I could wake up like this every day. 

Mike proposes a plan to day to bike ride around Geneva.  We gladly accept.  Mike promises he will take it easy on us.  He is "basically" true to his word although there were a couple times I was beginning to wonder.  

They have four bikes so we all pick our bike and head out.  I was a little concerned before we headed out that traffic may be a concern  (there is a lot of traffic everywhere and most of the time you are on the street with the cars....... and busses).  Once we took off, I realized I had nothing to worry about.  The cars are very respectful of pedestrians and bike riders.  

We start by riding through customs from France into Switzerland.  This has become a favorite part of my story to tell people.  "We rode our bikes from France into Switzerland!"  (I fail to tell people it's only a couple miles.)    The long hill dropping down into Geneva is very nice.  Fresh air blowing past you. 

  

We ride down to the lake and maneuver through the crowds of people already there.  
Fête nationale Suisse  (Swiss National Day) is the following day but the festivities have already begun.  Mike shows us some of the interesting sites in the area and then we head back toward Geneva proper.  

We probably look like a little bike tour in progress with Mike in the lead.  We cross streets, we pull up next to cars in the traffic lanes and just basically pretend to know what we are doing.  

As we are riding, we cross a street and go into a park area.  Surprise!  They have chess and checker boards painted on the ground and everyone is playing.  We are amazed!   Some groups are there just having fun and then there a couple games going on that looked very serious .  The man in the picture below played the entire game with his suit jacket in hand.  He didn't lay it down once and sometimes used it to gesture.  One of the checker games freed up so Mike and Jim decided to play.  They gathered a little crowd and even had one lady trying to tell them where to move next.  Quite enjoyable!   

Our next adventure......... THE HILL.  This was one of the few times I doubted Mike's faith in us. Did he "really" think we could make it up this hill?!  You will notice there are no photos of this hill. We did not make it up this hill!   Jaimey and I ended tangled up in each other (without falling completely over!) and when Jim tried to help, he ended up getting sideways and stopping too.  It's funny to think back about it now but at the time it was happening, not so funny to any of us.  We walked the bikes the rest of the way up the hill to meet Mike (who I'm sure was pretending not to know us.  Who could blame him?!).   Now we are in Old Geneva.  Beautiful buildings, streets, vendors.  Everything about this was beautiful. We choose to stop and have a bit to eat at one of the outside restaurants.  Then we found the ice cream shop for dessert.

Next stop.....  The Rhone River.   More specifically, riding along the Rhone to the "Rhone and Arve Jonction" where the Rhone River and the Arve River  join..   Riding a bicycle along the Rhone River is not something I would have ever dreamed of doing.  It sounds like something out of a movie or a book.  Riding casually along the Rhone, watching the people enjoying themselves, slight breeze blowing...........    Yep, my kind of living!  And then we get to the Jonction.   I have never seen two rivers with such drastic different colors meet.  It was quite astonishing to stand at the Jonction and see. We stay for a while, take photos, etc. and then head back toward town.  

 As we ride, we see the fountain at Lake Geneva is going.  This was the first time we had seen it going off so we had to ride down to see it and take photos.  The fountain, the Jet d'Eau, was originally installed to relieve pressure.   Now it has more powerful pumps and it strictly a tourist attraction.  The fountain shoots 460 ft. into the air and can be seen from a very long way away.  And our course, allows for some pretty amusing photos.  We have to park out bikes and walk out to get next to it.  Thin walkway. We spend quite a bit of time in that area watching the swans, watching the people.  Mike had agreed to watch a couple of hiker's backpacks while they walked out to the fountain which allowed us to rest and enjoy a bit longer.  

(Note:  Our only "run in " with the police was on our way to the fountain.  We went to cross a bridge on our bikes and we stopped and told we had to walk.  The policemen were very nice about it and we immediately got off our bikes and walked.  (did they know we had wine with our lunch?))

Now to head home for a short rest before evening festivities.  We leave the lake area and Mike tells us we have two hills to go up be he's sure we will be fine.  HA!  These are not hills we have to go up, they are mountains.  That go straight up.  I will never know how Graciela makes it home from work each day having to ride her bike up these hills.  I'm convinced she is a woman of steel!  We make it up the first hill and about halfway up the second hill.  Jaimey and I decide our legs will fall off if we ride another foot.  We begin to walk.  I glance behind me and Jim has gotten off his bike also but the next time I look back, he pedaling away again.  I guess he just needed a short rest......... 

We get home and rest for a bit.  Graciela comes home from work.  We discuss dinner plans for the following evening.   She runs to the market while we continue our "rest" for just a bit longer.  When she gets back we decide to walk into town and grab a bit to eat.  We end up at a Chinese Restaurant where most of us could not understand a word the waiter was saying.  Have you ever heard Chinese-accented French?  Thank goodness for Mike and Graciela.  The food we finally ordered was delicious!   There was so much food so we just shared everything.   We told stories and laughed and had a very pleasant evening.  They are so much fun to spend time with!

Now to walk back home.  There is a full moon so we stop on the way to take photos.  Then it's time for sleep.

Bonne Nuit!