Reclaiming Genève

Whenever I return to Genève I reclaim it by walking and walking and walking… I love knowing my feet are trodding above where people from before Roman days have walked. Even Julius Cesar spent time here.

It’s the mixture of old buildings, cobbled streets (and yes, also the modern that would send Prince Charles into spasms of agony) against the lake and mountain. Wednesday, my first day back I literally walked across the city from Rive to Grand Saconnex and back down to the lake.

Serendipity
I wanted to check on my favourite cherry tree across from the World Council of Churches. Sigh. It was in bud not rosy bloom. but I continued my walk through the alphabet buildings of the UN are. A woman stopped and asked me how to get to the lake. I told her I would walk with her and that was the serendipity. She was a Russian translator with an apartment down the street from the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. We exchanged cards and invitations to visit. But in the 20 minute walk we also exchanged details of our lives, laundry and myriad details. Had the cherry tree been in bloom the time it took me to photograph it would have meant I missed this brief encounter that left me smiling a good part of the day.

Macho Mallards
Four days passed before I could walk by my beloved lake (okay it belongs to the Canton of Geneva) near the house, which is different than the lake downtown with its traffic. A female duck was swimming and a male was trying to get her attention. Suddenly a second mallard appeared and the two engaged in canard fisticuffs to get her attention. She gave them a look that probably if translatable would have said idiot and flew to the other side of the dock. Neither the males noticed.