After a 75-minute flight down from London, I've been enjoying the last few days getting to know a bit of the one major city in Switzerland that I've never visited before: Geneva.
Geneva is Switzerland's second-largest city, and the chief city of the French speaking region of western Switzerland. That French cultural and linguistic connection helps to explain why so much of Geneva ends up looking like it was lifted out of the same architectural studios that shaped so much of modern Paris.
Having said that, though, Geneva (or Genève, to give it its proper title) is actually not in the Alps at all, even if those magnificent summits are within easy viewing distance on a clear day. In my two full days in the city, the higher terrain of the Alps was generally hidden in clouds, except for one glorious moment early on the second day when all the peaks -- including Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in all of Europe west of the Caucasus -- shone out clearly behind the closer and lower mountains. The view was taken from the 11th floor of my hotel, looking almost directly in the direction of the sun. Hence the "sun ghost" in the picture.
The city sits on a fairly level and sizable tract of agricultural land around the western end of Lac Léman (often called in English "Lake Geneva"), at the point where the lake empties out into the Rhône River on its way to the Mediterranean Sea. This makes Geneva a near-ideal city for walking, as hills of any size are rare, with one striking exception.
It's also an ideal city for visiting due to its extensive public transit network. The regional transit authority operates thousands of buses and trams over a massive network which even extends into France to serve suburban communities there. My hotel (which is near the airport) offers a free transit pass for the duration of your stay to all guests -- and the tram stop to ride to the central station is just a block down the road.
Enough background --let's go for a walk and see how the comparison to Paris stacks up. Each city has its towering landmark. Paris, of course, has the Eiffel Tower, and Geneva has a fountain -- but what a fountain!
With nothing nearby to give it scale, the Jet d'Eau in the middle of Lac Léman appears beautiful but not overly remarkable, until you realize that it is 150 metres tall, nearly half the height of the Eiffel Tower and the tallest landmark (watermark?) in the city. To reach that height, the water comes shooting out of the nozzle in the base at 200 kilometres per hour!
The rest of the central city gives more than a nod to Paris, with street after street of similarly-styled apartments, offices, and hotels, almost all of which fall somewhere in the 5-8 storey range (in Paris, the required height limit was for decades set at 6 storeys). What neither city has in its downtown core is anything in the way of skyscrapers.
More public buildings heighten the resemblance in other ways, with exterior sculptures and other features reminiscent of famous Parisian landmarks.
Even a public washroom in a park achieves real architectural distinction, sadly not enhanced by graffiti.
The Rhône River gives Geneva its companion to the Seine, although the bridges here are packed much more closely together. Two of these six bridges are reserved for pedestrians and cyclists.
Geneva's Basilica of Nôtre-Dame is much more modest than its Parisian counterpart. As the chief Roman Catholic church in the city, it is sometimes inaccurately described as a Cathedral. It cannot be a Cathedral as it is not the principal seat of a Bishop. The Bishop of Fribourg, Geneva, and Lausanne is based in Fribourg.
While a few streets in Geneva are blessed (?) with those lovely old fashioned cobblestones that can raise blisters on almost anyone's feet...
...there are also more modern features better adapted to safety. Ever
found your shoes slipping on street markings on a wet day? These painted
crosswalk bars are all grooved with swirling curved lines, to give
excellent traction -- a useful feature when you have to run to avoid a
charging tram!
Actually, the tram operators and all drivers around Geneva are eminently civilized towards pedestrians and each other. I heard one driver honk their horn once during the two full days I spent in the city. It really startled me.
In the centre of the city, and a short walk up from the lake, you find the principal railway station, Gare de Cornavin. It has a distinguished main hall in the full height of Art Deco style.
Cornavin is the principal hub of the transit network. If your destination in the city isn't served by a direct tram or bus from Cornavin, you can get there with only one change of vehicle from here, and the numbers of the connecting lines are announced or displayed for every stop along the way.
On the south side of the river there rises a sizable hill which is the highest point of land in the central city. It's been fortified and occupied time out of mind, and some parts of the enclosing slopes have been shaped into cliffs. On the summit, you will find the oldest surviving parts of the city, including the great Cathedral of St Pierre.
Here again the name "Cathedral" is a misnomer. It's a Protestant parish church and has been since the sixteenth century and the Calvinist Reformation, which is said to have begun on this hilltop. Like St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, a Church of Scotland parish, the name "Cathedral" is retained here not to signify the seat of a Bishop, but to convey the historic dignity of the building.
It's a stiff climb. First this long, straight hill on one of several narrow streets rising up from the Rue de Rive...
...and then you step through this narrow doorway, the Passage des Degres de Poulet...
...and climb a long flight of eighty or so steps to reach the top of the hill. Here, you can walk through a narrow alleyway and a steeply-sloping cobbled square around the church, photographing it in bits and pieces from different angles.
When you step inside, you find the kind of cool, impersonal, undecorated environment which marks out the Protestant churches in many parts of Europe. In fact, I was surprised here, as at Basel, that the stained glass windows portraying saints had not been removed during the most doctrinaire heights of the Reformation.
One other and most prominent landmark is worth mentioning. To the north of downtown, a short distance, can be found the large Ariana Park which encloses the headquarters for Europe of the United Nations. The most prominent building on this campus, the Palais des Nations, was the meeting venue for the original League of Nations after World War One. When the League failed due to its own structural weaknesses, the new United Nations after World War Two took up the use of the same property. It includes significant offices of some of the many U.N. agencies which try to tackle world economic disparity through all kinds of development programs which have nothing to do with blocking military action. The Nations park can be reached by Tram # 15 from Gare de Cornavin.
The word "Peace" displayed in the six official languages of the United Nations: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish -- these being six of the most widely spoken languages on the planet.
Directly across from the main gate in the Place des Nations stands this striking wooden sculpture of a broken chair, intended to protest the use of cluster bombs and land mines which main thousands upon thousands of human beings.
Since
Geneva is the watch capital of Europe and most makers of Swiss watches
are headquartered here, it's not surprising that watch stores are a dime
a dozen. The watches certainly are not.
Apologies for the blurring -- my phone doesn't like plate glass windows.
"But," I hear you ask, "what about all the kitschy, schlocky souvenir
stores? Where are the Swiss flags? Where are the cuckoo clocks? Where
are the Swiss Army Knives? Where is the chocolate???"
They're all on Rue des Alpes, the street which runs directly from Gare
de Cornavin down to the promenade on the lake. Also on Rue des Alpes:
the currency exchange shops, and the parking for tour coaches, You have
been warned!
At the end of the Rue des Alpes, and facing the lake, is the Brunswick Monument. It shares with the Scott Memorial in Edinburgh the kind of ugliness that achieves true distinction, in a backhanded kind of way.
I was actually more taken with the fierce gryphons and lions that guarded the monument against all comers.
And finally, if you really want to know, my hotel gave me the answer to those questions about souvenirs on the night I arrived. Here's the hospitality gift they gave me:
The disguising label was so thoroughly detailed that I simply did not realize until I picked the "knife" up that it wasn't a knife at all, but a chocolate bar.
No comments:
Post a Comment