Four City Tour with PM2AM, Interlaken-Lyon-Mont Blanc-Geneva Posted on: 12th October 2016 :: Photo Credits: Silva, Prayaag, Alap, Pabitra, Manish ::
Continued from: Mont Blanc (France)
Day : 2
Location: Geneva (Switzerland)
We reached the drop-off point in Geneva at 3 PM. The guide told us that we can get free bicycles (refundable deposit) for 4-hours to roam in Geneva. So we straightaway went to the nearest bicycle rental location. But unfortunately, no bicycle was available there at that time. The next closest rental location was about 30 minutes away by walk. Trusting Google maps, we started to walk towards that location. But soon we found out that the street names on google maps were not the same as those written on the actual streets. This made things worse and it took us more than an hour to reach the desired spot. Finally, we got the bicycles in our hands at 4.30PM. So we only had about 2 hours to explore Geneva, return the bicycles and get back to the pickup spot. CERN was out of the plan, as it was quite far from the main city.
We started with the ‘Parc des Bastions’ (Bastions Park) in the heart of Geneva. There we saw the famous ‘Giant Chess Boards’. Many elderly people were enjoying their day in the park and playing on these giant chess boards.
The park also featured the ‘Monument international de la Réformation’ or the International Monument to the Reformation (usually known as the Reformation Wall). It depicted the prominent figures of the Protestant Reformation from different parts of Europe.
Then we cycled across Geneva to see the Broken Chair sculpture.
Just across the street was ‘Palais des Nations’ or the office of United Nations at Geneva.
Due to lack of time, we had to return back to the bicycle rental shop soon. From there, we walked across the Geneva Lake and saw city’s most famous landmark ‘Jet d'Eau’ literally meaning ‘water jet’
With one last look at the beautiful city of Geneva, we boarded our bus back to Aachen. This was the longest trip we had so far in Europe and made us eagerly look forward to many such trips in near future.