Tuesday & Wednesday May 21 – 22, 2024
For the past year, I’ve planned to take TT, Rel and Kenna on a graduation trip. We decided on Switzerland and Greece. TT had big biking plans in Switzerland, I had Coldplay tickets in Athens, the girls wanted Greek Islands. We made it all happen between TT starting a new job, Rel studying for her nursing exam and Kenna & TT needing to be back for a wedding.
We flew SLC to Amsterdam. The flight was fairly uneventful and our landing was the smoothest landing I’ve ever experienced. We walked all over the freaking airport looking for the lounge I paid extra for us to be able to hang out in during our layover – and then found out I could have gone for free. Ah well. The kids all found a chair and slept. And then we all slept on our flight to Geneva. The city sits right on Lake Geneva. We got our rental car and it took us 45 minutes to go 2.5 miles. The lights take 5 minutes to change and only let two cars through each time. There are motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, vespas, street trams and buses everywhere. When we got to our hotel (Hotel Bristol), we discovered there was no parking. The bell hop had to ride with me to an underground parking garage that was a medieval winding one way super narrow dungeon, in which bell hop had to get out and walk backward down in front of my car to keep me from hitting the walls. Geneva is an absolutely beautiful city with watch billboards ads on practically every building. We went out and walked around and found an italian restaurant called Pizzaria Molina. We sat outside under umbrellas while it rained pretty hard.
Thursday 05/23/24 Geneva – Lousanne Vevey – Montreau
The jet lag was kicking my butt pretty much right away. I was wide awake at 2 am, finally went back to sleep and then could hardly wake up the next morning. We were scheduled for a tour of Geneva and surrounding areas. Our driver, Peter picked us up in a Mercedes van. It was cloudy and rainy on and off. First we drove to Lousanne, where the official Olympics museum is. There was a ton of small kids on field trips there. My favorite part of the museum was seeing all of the different medals that each city makes for the athletes. I guess I just assumed the medals were always the same, year after year of games. I had no idea that each host city was responsible for designing and making their own. It was also extremely interesting to see the height and weights of the winning athletes over the history of the games and how wildly different they were.
After the museum we went to a restaurant for lunch called Saffron that sat on the lake shore with amazing views. We walked a little bit along the water after and found a perfect Dr. Suess tree, statue of Freddy Mercury – apparently he settled there at some point, some fun kid playground equipment.
We drove through the hills of some of their wine country, saw and learned about Charlie Chaplin’s mansion, now a museum, and raised his eleven children. We didn’t stop there. Then we went to a castle on a little island right off the coast called Chateau Chilein, built in the 12th century. I loved the ceilings and the views. The sun had finally come out and we could see the peaks of the Alps. We watched the ferry come in surprisingly close and fast.
The drive back was long and during rush hour, I kept dozing off. We got back to the hotel about 7 and headed off to a fondue restaurant called Burmetis, where we tried the meat and cheese. Rel didn’t love it. The wait staff was pretty rude and told us we could only have the table until 8:30. We left and went to get gelato and explore. We rode their giant ferris wheel. I am always a little fluttery in the stomach going on those things, especially when my kids stand up and rock it. We watched the beautiful sunset from up there. We also learned that the Swiss do not have their own language, they have four official languages: German (the most popular); French; Italian: and something called Romansh. And thankfully for us, most people also speak English.
TT got his bike delivered to the hotel and got ready for the beginning of his epic ride across Switzerland.
