Day 28: Vevey – Geneva

We woke up at 7am this morning in order to have enough time to get our of the hostel by check out time, and do some last minute exploring of Vevey. We had most stuff packed up and had eaten by 8:30, so we headed outside to the local market that was in the public square in front of the hostel (pretty much just a big parking lot). We have to admit, we were a little disappointed with what we found. I guess we’re pretty spoiled with our St. Jacobs market back home. There were a number of food vendors, and a section that we wondered was a garage sale (mostly junk), and only a few crafts stands. Since our next hostel does not have a kitchen, we couldn’t take advantage of the food stands, which looked to be mostly from farms nearby (we think).

It took us 20-30 minutes to stroll through the market, and so we spent a few minutes sitting by the water.

We decided to head back to the hostel early and catch the 9.26 train, which we ended up being about 15 minutes early for. The train ride was about an hour, but went by pretty quickly. We both listened to music and watched the scenery go by (most of which was vineyards).

When we arrived in Geneva, we felt rather lost (or at least Mary did), and it was a challenge to orient ourselves to figure out what way we needed to go to find the hostel. It didn’t help that the map that Jeff printed off that was supposed to give us our directions was pretty much centred on the hostel with the train station nowhere in sight. Eventually, we found the hostelling international sign on a street sign, and followed it to the hostel.

Our first impressions of the hostelling staff were not great. They checked us in, but told us that there were no lockers for us to use while we were out until we could get into our room. Later, we discovered that lockers were just around the corner, though they cost 2fr to use. Instead, we left our bags behind the reception desk, but we packsafed them first. Mary did not feel comfortable leaving her clock unattended, so she put it in her backpack to travel around the city with us. Hopefully it does not mind all the travel. The salesperson indicated that it was already packed for shipping, so it should be okay.

First, we tried to find the tourist information place to get a map. It’s quite inconvenient when the info place is not at the train station, because then you have no map to find tourist information. We failed at finding it, and ended up walking all the way back to the train station to orient ourselves and look at a pubic map to figure out what street it was on. Eventually we found it and planned out our day.

Second, we headed to a park across the river to have our lunch. The park was very busy since it was right next to a dock that was loading passengers onto a boat. We noticed that once the boat was loaded, it basically went to the other side of the bridge to stop and pick up more passengers. This seemed odd since it was a big steam ship. We ate our lunch of bread, cheese, jam, and some pears. We attracted a single pidgin, but he left when we made it clear he wasn’t welcome (I much prefer the little birds, which I’ve found out are apparently sparrows rather than finches, as I have previously called them). During our walk, we noticed that they've planted spider plants in the flower beds around town. We found this pretty strange, since they're houseplants at home. They seem to go around ripping up the flower beds and replanting them fairly often though, so maybe these are just the summer plants.

Third, we walked around the park in search of the flower clock. We eventually found it next to the road and surrounded by tourists. We had to wait quite a while until people stepped back to let anyone else see it, and then there were people posing in front of it. Eventually, the area cleared and we were able to get a picture.

Fourth, we headed towards St. Pierre Cathedral. We had heard that there was some sort of museum attached to it, so that’s where we went first. It was the Archeological Site located UNDER the cathedral. We found this site very interesting! We went underground, essentially under the cathedral and surrounding area, and saw the foundations of the old roman churches and buildings, including 3 cathedrals and various buildings attached. The research done there had discovered a burial of a chiefton dating back to 1150BC. The skeleton was only partially excavated, and portions were visible. It took us quite a while to get through the entire site, and it was all extremely interesting, though a little confusing since the area had been rebuilt and changed so many times over the years, and the museum was trying to show off a portion of every stage.

The skeleton (in a prior century, someone dug a circle to exhume the skull. We have no idea whether it's still there):

The floor of a room used by a bishop to welcome guests. Contained very ornate mosaics:

A model of the church after the 3 cathedrals had been built; one for worship, one for teaching, and one for funerary activities (we think?):

The present day cathedral from the outside:

The inside of the cathedral:

Finally, we headed back to the hostel to get into our room. On our way there, we came across a Coop City, and went inside to purchase dinner. Yesterday, we cooked up the rest of our penne pasta with the intention of eating it for dinner today. We bought some Italian dressing, a tomato, and a cucumber, along with Fanta and some apples for tomorrow.

We got back to the hostel and finally got access to our room (took a couple tries since the person didn’t program our key cards properly). We got settled, and then relaxed for a while and searched for internet (which we have clearly found – some sort of free wifi for the city of Geneva). Mary might have fallen asleep for a while. Our room is very small, but pleasant. We have a corner room with a little balcony, though it is covered in bird poo. The door leading out to the balcony has not only fancy shutters that you can roll down to the ground and then change the angle of on the outside of the door, but also has blinds on the inside. I’m sure we’ll be able to have a nice dark room tonight! The room is a little strange in the sense that there are actually 4 beds, but so long as no one tries to join us, it should be okay (we booked a double room, so they probably have the bunks for the purpose of families?). We also have a personal WC, but we must walk down the hall to get to the showers. Also, the towels they gave us are really hand towels, so we’re glad we brought our own. The staff haven’t been very helpful. They were unable to give us any sort of map of the area or information about Geneva.

At around 5 o’clock, we headed down to the cafeteria to eat our dinner. We’re getting pretty good at eating salads from a bag, though I’m sure we look ridiculous. We cut up the cucumber and tomato using our Swiss army knives, and added it to the ziplock back already containing the cold pasta. We dumped in the salad dressing, sealed the bag, and shook it up. We ate from the bag using our sporks. We also had fanta, which we drank directly from the 1.5L bottle. A few people were also in the cafeteria area using their laptops, and I’m sure they thought we were ridiculous. The meal was incredibly tasty, and we wish we had more cooked pasta so we could do it again. As it is, we’re going to have to go out for dinner for the rest of our time in Geneva, since we do not have kitchen facilities.

After dinner, we went back up to our room and relaxed, which brings us to now. We’ll probably just laze around for the rest of the evening, and go to bed fairly early. We’re pretty exhausted from all the travelling and trying to figure out a new city, so we don’t feel very motivated to go out again. We will need to figure out what we will do tomorrow. It is Sunday, so most things will be closed. Hopefully we can find something. We will most likely have dinner at the hostel, and they have no excuse to not be serving it – they’re fully booked.