Mon voyage: Winter break part 1: Geneva

For our winter break (Feb. 23-March 3), Claudia and I started in Geneva, Switzerland. I took my first train ride which was fun, but a little scary as we had many close calls and almost didn't make it! The night we arrived, we had fondue for dinner, a delicious Swiss specialty!

The next day, we explored the area and went to the "old city" area, where they have many shops. We found a Starbucks when we turned the corner by our hotel, which was a nice surprise! To get to the old city, we crossed the bridge over the lake, Lake Léman, behind which you can see some Swiss mountains, though it was very foggy and hard to make them out. We were going to walk along the water but it was just too cold!

Clock by the lake

In the old city area

One of my favorite statues I saw here

After walking around a while, we stumbled upon an art gallery. I am so happy we went in because it was free and absolutely wonderful! The woman working there was from the United States so we talked with her for a while and she told us about the artwork, which was done by Yves Clerc. He does paintings where he uses many layers (around 25 or so) of paint to give different colors and textures. He also has some neat combinations of painting and photography. He doesn't name his artwork, but instead assigns a number (starting at 1 with his first piece), which indicates how recent or old it is. I really enjoyed them all! Here are some pictures, all copyright Yves Clerc.

My favorite!

Part painting, part photograph

One day we saw the UN, but we couldn't go in. We went to a bath house, where we went from sauna or steam room to jumping in the lake (it was about 15 degrees F outside)! We also went to the botanical gardens, which I will only post a couple pictures of here since I have way too many!