Graham & Kerry had to go to Amsterdam for a conference for a week and Peter & Margaret were going to be on their own in Geneva for a few days before travelling up to Lucerne for 4 days and then on to Interlaken for 6 days. Seeing as they were going to be on their own in Geneva for a few days we flew over and joined them as I didn't need to get a visa for Switzerland.We flew over on Easy-Jet at 6:30am on Monday 5th May arriving in Geneva at 9:15am where Peter & Margaret were waiting at the airport to meet us. We both recognised them from their photos we had seen on the Internet and they recognised us as soon as we walked out of the arrivals area. Graham & Kerry were due to fly to Amsterdam a bit later that morning so we found a coffee shop where we had coffee and waited for them to meet up with us. I didn't realise that Peter is so tall and that Margaret is fairly short, so there was Peter and me (tall and short) and Yvonne and Margaret (tall and short) walking along chatting "40 to the dozen". As soon as we had exchanged greetings with Peter & Margaret the conversations started with so much history to catch up on and so little time to cover as much of the past as we could remember. Graham and Kerry joined us a bit later then we had to catch up with them as quickly as we could before they had to leave to catch their flight to Amsterdam. Graham and Kerry are are both involved in the financial sector and seem to get on very well together. They both do a lot of travelling for business and for pleasure. Kerry is an American and her family are the USA so she and Graham fly over there quite regularly. It was wonderful being able to have a brief chat with them before they had to rush off leaving us "old folk" to do our own thing.
Peter & Margaret had already been in Geneva for almost a week so they knew how to get back to Graham & Kerry's flat. We took the 10 minute train ride from the airport into the city centre then walked the few blocks to the flat which is a comfortable 2 bed-roomed flat on the 1st floor of a block of flats on one of the main streets. There is a tram stop right outside the entrance to the flats and a bus stop just a little further up the road, so Graham & Kerry don't have a car. Apart from the excellent public transport options, many people use bicycles or motorcycles which makes a huge difference to the traffic flow through the narrow city streets. In Geneva they drive on the wrong side of the road and we just couldn't get used to looking the wrong way down the street at the pedestrian crossings. The picture shows one of the main streets which runs past the front of the main railway station and as you can see even the main streets aren't very wide, and the minor roads are really narrow. The city centre is very compact so walking is definitely a preferred option to driving in Geneva. The streets are very clean but it is a city of contrasts as there are some lovely new buildings right beside old shabby buildings that look quite derelict.Arriving at the flat we dumped our cases and continued our chatting about they bygone years and our respective life experiences over the years.
After lunch on the Monday Peter & Margaret took us for a stroll down to the lake waterfront and the harbour where we caught the tour boat which took us on a 1 hour round trip on the lake. 
It was a really enjoyable trip and very interesting to see the large number of boats and yachts moored in the various harbours around the shoreline. It was very windy on the lake so unfortunately the famous water spout wasn't working so we didn't see it up close but on the Tuesday it was working so we took some pictures of it from the waterfront. There is definitely no shortage of money in some quarters of this the financial hub of the world. The western side of the lake has blocks and blocks of apartments occupied by "Joe Average" whilst the east side of the lake has all the very posh and expensive houses of the wealthy. Some of these houses are huge mansions with their own private jetty, boats and posh cars in the driveway. The west side of the lake has some huge places situated along the shore, most of which belong to the United Nations or other world organisations. All these places have really beautiful, well kept gardens and neatly trimmed lawns which come right down to the walkway on the waterfront.Once we were back on terra-firma we strolled along the waterfront walkway, yakking all the while, until we came across a little cafe with
reasonable prices where we had tea and coffee before making our way back to the flat via the shops. Margaret needed to get some bread and milk to so we all traipsed through the grocery store looking at the goods and prices of things, all the while making comparisons to SA and UK prices. They don't have big departmental supermarkets like Pick'nPay or Checkers in Geneva, only grocery shops and smaller shops catering for specific requirements. I was flabbergasted to discover a Bata Shoe shop in one of the shopping areas, so I just had to take a photo of it. The logo and branding of the labels etc are exactly the same as the Bata stores in Africa, however the prices are nowhere near the same as African prices. The shops seem to cater to specific areas of the market and even although the outside of the shop may appear to be tatty and run-down, the goods and prices are certainly very up-market. Interestingly, there seemed to be a high proportion of the people who smoke although many of the younger generations are out jogging and actively following their fitness programs. From the shops we wended our way back to the flat where Margaret and Yvonne prepared supper while Peter and I reminisced about events in our respective pasts. Peter said the last time he saw me was on Warner Beach when I was still in nappies.Peter has good memory of the past and was able to tell us the stories about the house that Aunty Snowey & Uncle Dick built and how Gansel moved in with them and the influence she had on his life and his interest in motorcars. Neither he nor I know why Gansel went to SA when she left Haddon & Sly in Salisbury and why she didn't stay with us on the farm in Rhodesia seeing as she was already in the country. Mystery also surrounds the movements and final resting place of Gandpa, Henry Kellow Snell.
After supper Yvonne and I took an evening stroll along the street from the flat so Yvonne could have a smoke and do some window shopping. We didn't go too far
as we were tired after waking up at 3 in the morning to catch the plane at Luton Airport. We got back to the flat and had a coffee then we all headed for bed. Both Yvonne and I slept like logs and didn't wake up until about 8:45am on Tuesday morning. Peter & Margaret had been awake for ages but didn't want to wake us because they said we needed the sleep. We had breakfast and Margaret packed some cheese & ham rolls then we headed off for our walking tour of Geneva, a walk we thoroughly enjoyed. We started off heading away from the lake and strolled down some really narrow streets to an open park near a junior school. The parks and gardens in Geneva are really pretty and so well trimmed and neat. It seems that women do most of the work in the gardens as we saw women trimming the edges of the lawns and driving the motor mowers. From the park we took a stroll past many blocks of apartments arriving at the concourse in front of the UN Offices. The picture shows all the fountains working but they were all switched off when we were there. We were able to walk across the dry concourse to the Broken Chair near the main entrance to the UN Offices, otherwise we would have had to walk all the way around or get drenched in the fountains. I won't clutter this email with too many pictures but if you want to see more photos go to our Google Albums via the link at the end of this email. The Broken Chair at the entrance to the UN Offices is a memorial to all the people who have lost limbs in landmine incidents around the world. Leaving the UN behind us we ambled along to the Botanical Gardens which were really beautiful and peaceful with stunning trees and amazing shrubs all in full bloom. With the songs of the birds in the trees, the scents of the flowers and the buzz of the odd insect it was hard to believe that this place is in a big city. We ambled a around the tropical hothouse, the open ponds and further on to the small aviary where Margaret made friends with a white parrot type bird who just would not let her stop scratching the back of his head. Moving on from the aviary we stopped in at the cafe for something to drink. 
It was whilst sitting having our tea and cool drinks that I received a couple of SMS's from Denny which I read out to Yvonne, Peter & Margaret. Felling refreshed we wandered around the paths but always making our way towards the lake. Along one of the paths from the Botanical Gardens steps lead down to a pedestrian underpass which goes under the main waterfront road and comes out on the waterfront walkway which runs along the shoreline of the lake. We strolled slowly back towards the city taking in the sights across the lake and admiring the huge mansions and beautiful adjoining gardens. Here, fences and hedges are conspicuous by their absence in this open park-like environment where the houses have no burglar bars and there is no razor-wire to be seen anywhere. As we came out of the pedestrian underpass there was a sign indicating that it was 5km to the city, this surprised us because we really didn't think we had walked that far out of town. All along the lake side of the walkway is a stone wall and looking over the wall you can see down into the clear water to the bed of the lake, often seeing fish and other aquatic creatures that like the cold water that has come down from the melting snow on the mountains. We found a lovely shady spot to sit and have our rolls for lunch while gazing across the lake but unfortunately there were thousands of midges who also fancied the same spot so we moved further on and sat in the warm sunshine beside the UN Offices to have our lunch. Whilst we were there Yvonne and Margaret decided to take a few photos, one of which is the one of Peter and me at the beginning of this email. After our lunch break we ambled along towards the city at our own leisurely pace, taking in the sights and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. As we ambled along a woman with a pram came past at quite a pace then we noticed that she was wearing roller-blades and all the skating gear including a crash helmet, so she was skating along and pushing the pram, it looked ever so strange. Peter commented saying, "I bet the baby has a crash helmet too." We ambled along until we came across the cafe, where we had coffee the previous day, and we had an ice-cream each before wandering into town to get Swiss chocolate to take home for ourselves, the grandchildren and their parents. What a mission that was, trying to decide which chocolate to get and at a reasonable price. We simply could not return from Geneva without some Swiss chocolate, we would have got "a right ear-bashing" (ha ha ha).After our little shopping spree we headed back to the flat as it was getting towards late afternoon and there were some very weary hips and knees amongst us. After a welcome rest Margaret and Yvonne went into the kitchen to make supper while Peter and I chatted about the models he has built over the years. Seems that Peter & Margaret's kitchen duties are similar to mine & Yvonne's - the girls do the cooking and the boys do the washing up afterwards. After supper Yvonne and I took a stroll around the nearby streets while she had a couple of smokes, them we went back to the flat and chatted for a while before going off to bed so that we would be awake early enough to catch the 8 o'clock train to the airport the next morning. We both slept ever so well again and were awake in plenty of time to have breakfast before heading for the station. Peter & Margaret came with us to the airport to make sure we didn't get lost and to spend the last bit of time with us. When we went through to departures, Peter & Margaret were going back to the lake to do a day trip around the lake on a paddle steamer, a trip that Peter was really looking forward to doing. We haven't been in contact with them since we left Geneva as their cellphone doesn't work in Switzerland and they don't have access to the Internet whilst Graham & Kerry have their laptops with them in Amsterdam.
Our flight back to the UK went smoothly until the pilot did a hop-skip-and-jump when we touched down at Luton airport. By the time we had gone through the arrivals process and got a taxi to take us home we walked through our front door at about 11:30am. Eweeh wasn't happy with us and refused to talk to us when we got in but after a while he gradually started talking again.
We had a most enjoyable few days away and even although we didn't go rushing from one sightseeing place to the next we saw and did as much as we wanted and we had plenty of time to talk. I'm sure there are many things that we have forgotten to ask or talk about but it was wonderful to be able to chat about so much we didn't previously know.
For more pictures and a few video clips go to our Google Albums at (opens in a new window): http://picasaweb.google.com/rysnell/GenevaTripMay2008
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