Into the Alps

Geneva (week 35)

As soon as we turned north to drive out of Milan, the Alps opened up like a grand vista before us, the haze of the previous days dissipating and revealing the glory of the mountains.  We took the most Swiss route our GPS offered, crossing into Switzerland through a 1-restaurant town (taking our last chance to have Italian pasta).  We stopped at the customs office where we were greeted in German (not what we expected on the Italian border) and picked up our highway sticker - all cars traveling the highways in Switzerland are required to pay the highway tax and display a windshield sticker showing that they have done so.

Picasso: Baigneurs à Garoupe (Bathers at Garoupe)

We stayed in Évian-les-Bains (yes, that's where Evian water comes from) on Lake Geneva because it was far cheaper than staying in Switzerland.  We then drove into Geneva for a day.  Tip to drivers: the Saint-Antoine parking lot is large and central to the old-city museums and churches.  Tip 2 to drivers: take the elevator out, because there is a signpost just as you exit showing location of various sites.  We did not exit thus, and spent 30 minutes wandering in circles trying to get our bearings (because other than the labels at the elevator, there are virtually no tourist directions).  However, once you get yourself sorted out, old-town Geneva is a marvelous place, with numerous free museums of high quality.  We chose the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, featuring floors dedicated to, among other things, prehistorical artifacts; Egypt, Rome, and Greece; and fine art.  For a free museum, the art is impressive, featuring multiple works by each of Cézanne, Renoir, Monet, van Gogh, and Picasso, plus a whole room of Rodins.  We took in the fine art plus the Egyptian and Greek antiquities exhibits.

On the left are some of the 6 000 000 index cards detailing WWI PoWs

While the others had lunch, Craig ducked into the curiously heterogenous-looking Cathédrale Saint-Pierre Genève, now no longer technically a cathedral since it is a Protestant church.  We then made our way to the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent to see their museum, recently redone in 2013.  It is an immersive and interactive place, where you can hear about the work of the Red Cross in disaster and war zones from witnesses, look at PoW records of WWI vintage (reproductions - the originals are there in humidity-controlled vaults), and even play games.  The boys' favourite was "Hurricane", where you have 5 minutes to prepare your island for an upcoming weather event by making buildings and training the residents with drills (done by tapping "cards" on a display around a big circular table .... so there's running involved unless you have a large group).