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Istanbul in May

With Mark here to visit, we decided to take him on a short trip to Istanbul, Turkey. We were joined by his lovely friend Megan, who is currently living in London.

It was a great time had by all. We stayed in an apartment in the old part of town, a short walk to the Blue Mosque and the hundreds of touts who do their best to part you and your money. We spent time walking around town, visiting the mosques, palace and Grand Bazaar. After being in town for about 5 mintues, we found ourselves in a carpet shop and are now proud owners of three Turkish rugs - expensive, but beautiful souvenirs!

A highlight was a 2 hour ferry ride up the Bosphorous river to the mouth of the Black Sea. A walk up the hill to the castle was worth it for the great views over the water and glimpses of Istanbul on the horizon.

Back in Istanbul, I can highly recommend a wander over to the new side of town to visit the great shops, bars and restaurants. The food is terrific and a few shots of raki put everyone in an excellent mood.

After a few days, Mark and Megan left Istanbul to meet Fiona in Berlin and Peter and I did a weekend tour down to Gallipoli, which was a great experience. More on that soon.

See all the Istanbul photos

Happy Birthday Peter!

Mark arrived in Geneva this morning, on his first big overseas trip. We haven't seen Mark for over twelve months, so Peter, Fiona and I were all very excited and looking forward to his arrival. Just in case he couldn't spot us through the crowded Geneva airport, Peter prepared a welcoming sign.

Mark is here for one month, in which time he will see a bit of Switzerland, as well as Istanbul, Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam. Not a bad little holiday! After a quick walking tour of Chambésy, we settled into a lovely Sunday afternoon out on the terrasse, sipping Swiss wine and eating raclettes.

Tomorrow will be a different than usual birthday celebration for Peter as he will have two of his four children here. Next year we will have to aim for 100% child attendance, especially as it will be a major birthday!!

A walk around the lake

Despite windy conditions, snow and all that goes with it, we have walked for about 45 kilometres this weekend - that's about 9 hours worth! Walking has become our latest hobby and it's great. Up until now, cycling has been our "sport"of choice, but walking is rapidly overtaking it. Fresh air, spectacular views and the chance to re-discover nearby surroundings at a different pace.

The current plan is to follow Route 4 around the lake (Leman) from our place to Montreux. To date we are up to Morges, just outside of Lausanne, so we have another 40ish kilometres to go.


Route 4 is also the Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle (Way of Saint James), the Christian pilgrimage that starts at various points across Europe and leads to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. However, we are following it in the opposite direction.



Just to prove that the weather wasn't all bad, here's a picture of the cute village where we ate lunch, while bathed in sunshine.

Now it's Spring, but it's snowing

It is officially the second day of Spring, not to mention the first of the Easter weekend, and NOW it snows!! There hasn't been any snow to speak of in Geneva all winter. The forecast is for snow over the next four days. How will all those lovely little flowers and new leaves cope?

Oh well, there go the plans for a long weekend of walking around the lake. Happy Easter everyone!

Chateau d'Oex Balloon Festival

Hot air balloons at Chateau d'Oex, 10 minutes down the road from Fiona's place.

Weekend in Brussels

Grand Place
Originally uploaded by Jess & Peter

We just spent a weekend in Brussels, our first visit to Belgium. Arriving on a blustery, wet, cold morning to deserted streets, was not the best introduction. We were left wondering if we had actually arrived at the 'Central Station' or some remote suburb. It seems the locals don't get going until about 10am, so we had an hour to kill, which was spent warming up in the only coffee shop we could find open for business.

The weekend may have started out a little disappointing, but it got better. The BELvue! museum gave us an interesting insight into Belgium, a country we knew very little about. After the beautiful but overwhelming Museum of Musical Instruments, we enjoyed a lunch of moules et frites (steamed mussels and chips), the national dish, then spent a sunny afternoon looking around town.

Sunday was spent doing a lot of walking and visiting the Belgian War Museum and Autoworld - the most interesting museums we could find that were open and good refuge from the cold. We also sampled the scrummy hot Belgian waffles that are sold on just about every street corner. Perfect on a winter day!

See our other pictures on flickr.com.

Sunrise over the Alps

Skiing in Schonried

Another year gone....

It is hard to believe that we have been away from Australia for nearly three years! We still enjoy life in Geneva - the work is interesting, great opportunities for travel and the European lifestyle is rather pleasant. It's especially nice to now have family living here. After finishing her degree, Fiona moved here in December and immediately started work as a Pilates Instructor in the amazing Swiss town of Gstaad. Her workplace, The Palace Hotel, is something that must be seen to be believed!

Going back to uni part-time at the start of last year meant I had the perfect excuse to be neglectful of this web site. Hopefully some people are still visiting it from time to time!? To make your life easier, you can subscribe to receive the very occassional updates via email. Just enter your email address on the right there and click subscribe.

As has been tradition, here is a list of the cities we've stayed at least one night in during 2007. You will note it is shorter than in 2006 and 2005 (another bi-product of being a student). Still... we have managed to do quite a bit. Switzerland is really a terrific base for exploring Europe!

Rome, Italy
Budapest, Hungary
Vilnius, Lithuania
Kaunas, Lithuania
Šiauliai, Lithuania
Nida, Lithuania
Prague, Czech Republic
London, England
Vienna, Austria
Grenoble, France
Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Lindau, Germany
Schaffhausen and Rheinfelden, Switzerland
Zermatt and Interlaken, Switzerland
Halstead, England
Blarney, Ireland
Singapore, Singapore
Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia
Bangkok, Thailand
Champéry, Switzerland

New countries on that list are Lithuania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria and Thailand. We had six lots of visitors stay with us during 2007. Always a good way to boost the local tourism activities! Our year included a trip home to Australia in October/November to attend some family events: Claire & Dave's engagement party and Fiona's graduation performance. Being a quick visit meant there wasn't time to catch up with everyone, but hopefully that can be remedied when we are in Adelaide in November 2008 for Claire & Dave's wedding.

Wishing everyone a very happy new year!!

Merry Christmas!

 
We (Peter, Jess, Fiona and her friend Ianthe) are currently in Champéry, a small village in the Swiss Alps. It will be a white Christmas for us! It hasn't snowed since we arrived last Thursday, but there is still plenty of snow around. The weather has been quite mild, with temperatures around 4 degrees during the 3 hours of sunshine that bathe this valley.

The girls have tried their luck at skiing and snowboarding, along with the hoardes of other winter residents here. I have been cross-country skiing twice, but Peter is yet to venture into the world of winter sports. Perhaps some toboganning tomorrow.

Christmas Day is likely to be spent lazing around the chalet, which is very nice, with a beautiful view of the mountains. We have bought a turkey and all the usual trimmings, including some French champagne.

Merry Christmas everybody!!

Kieren & Nikki visit Geneva

Our long awaited visit from Kieren and Nikki finally occurred this August. With more leave up his sleeve than Nikki, Kieren arrived early to take advantage of Peter's new tour guiding skills and see as much of Switzerland as he could. They had fantastic weather for sightseeing in the mountains and much to our "delight", Kieren managed to squeeze in some canyoning near Interlaken, which he enjoyed. He took some terrific photos of the Jungfrau mountains on he and Peter's train journey to the highest railway station in Europe.



Nikki had a tiny two weeks in Europe, and with Barcelona and Paris to visit too, could only afford a few days in Geneva. She also got great summer weather and we had a lovely day trip to Annecy that weekend. On Mon/Tues, we couldn't let her escape without the obligatory chocolate tour and visit to the UN, so she got the highlights.

On this day last year

The not so picturesque Genoa
Originally uploaded by Jess & Peter

Ah, memories. The not so beautiful streets of Genoa. We were on route from Spain to Greece with Judy. What a fantastic holiday that was, in spite of the Genoan blip. On this day we had the stunning Greek sunsets ahead of us.

Grande Dixence

Grande Dixence
Originally uploaded by Jess & Peter

The water behind the wall.

Grande Dixence dam

Grande Dixence dam
Originally uploaded by Jess & Peter

Peter is at the foot of the Grande Dixence dam, the highest gravity fed damn in the world. Behind that wall is a whole lot of water.

We visited here on a weekend tour of the Valais organized by the Geneva Welcome Centre. The tour even included a walk through the tunnels inside the dam wall.

Claire and Dave

During July, we had the pleasure of a visit from my lovely sister Claire and boyfriend (now fiancée!) Dave. Here are the gorgeous couple pictured at the UN Beach Club on their last evening in Geneva.

Dave, a passionate follower of the Tour de France (and not a bad cyclist himself) was here to fulfil his childhood dream of seeing the race live. This was his first visit to Europe and he certainly made the most of it. After achieving goal 1 (seeing the Tour) he attacked goal 2: cycling up the Alpe d'Huez, famous mountain stage of Tours gone by. This is no small mountain. It has 21 switchbacks, is 13.8 kilometres long and is very, very steep (see the pic). Chasing Lance Armstrong's best time of 37mins 36 secs, he finished in an impressive 1hr 15 mins ish, all without stopping.

With a keen appreciation of cycling himself, Peter wasn't quite up to tackling the Alpe d'Huez, but he did (proudly) manage to cycle up to the Col del la Columbière (800 metre climb) with Dave a couple of days before. They had to stop a few times on that trip.

Although it was Dave's dream, Peter was pretty happy with his experience as a live spectator of the Tour. They had some fantastic clear weather in the mountains and the atmostsphere must have been great.

While the men were out with the Tour, Claire and I enjoyed spending time together back in Geneva, a bit of shopping, a bit of lunch - lovely. It was great to see her over here again and I'm so pleased she got to see Geneva in all its summer glory. A bit of a different scene to when she visited last time during a wintery November.

Claire and Dave also visited Prague, Paris (where they got engaged!!) and Hong Kong on the way home. A very busy 2.5 weeks!

Five days in Vienna

I recently went to Vienna for work, accompanied by Peter, our first visit there. I didn't get to see a whole lot of it, having to work and all, but we had a quick squiz at the major sites on Saturday, before heading home.

Peter on the other hand had a bit more time to look around. He even went over the border to check out Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, only 60kms away.

Work aside, the highlights of the visit for me was catching up with a colleague over dinner, seeing the Rathaus on Friday night, and the Belvedere Palace.

Here are a few pics - more on flickr.com.


Belvedere Palace, Vienna


Bratislava, Slovakia


The apartment we rented in Vienna

Weekend in Prague

Ah.... Prague in June. What a wonderful weekend - beautiful buildings, bridges, beer, Mozart, and the local speciality: duck. Two days simply wasn't long enough.

See a slideshow of the pics.

Visit from Andy

Finally time to catch up with some long overdue blog posts! In early May we had a lovely visit from Andy, Peter's godmother. At 88, she seems to have more energy than many of our younger visitors!

Andy and Peter had a lovely time touring the local sites, such as the good old chocolate factory and Gruyère castle.

The next weekend, after Andy and I went shopping at the Ferney market, her friend Pat arrived. The next day the two of them took off for a Lyceum club conference and tours of nearby France.

A week later they popped back in for one night to see us on their way to their mediterranean cruise.

We were so glad to have this visit from Andy and were in awe of her lifestyle. We just hope our lives are this full at 88!

A week touring Lithuania

It's nearly a month since we got back from this trip and I am finally updating the blog with the details! Our friends Bob and Zydre, who have now, sadly for us, left Geneva to go back to live in Australia, invited us to join them on their holiday in Lithuania. Zydre is Lithuanian/ Australian, so we leaped at the chance to see a new country with a native who can speak the language.

Lithuania is one of the three Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). It is located on the Baltic Sea (funnily enough), sharing borders with Latvia, Belarus, Poland, and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. It declared independence from the Soviet Union in March 1990 (recognized in 1991) and is now part of the European Union. The population is about 3.5 million people (half that of Switzerland) and it has a surface area slightly smaller that Tasmania, which means you can see a lot in a week!

Now you have the vital statistics, let me tell you that Lithuania is a lovely country. It has a keen sense of identity and culture, made all the more real for us by our fantastic guide Zydre. The country is fairly flat, and not gorgeous, but the people are friendly, the food is good (albeit a bit stodgy at times) and there are some beautiful cities and places by the sea. We had a great time and saw many things. Here's a summary of our trip, complete with photos:

Peter and I arrived in the capital, Vilnius, on the Saturday afternoon. We found our way to our hotel in the city, only getting lost briefly, and did a bit of sightseeing. Here's Peter in the main city square with the clock tower and cathedral in the background.

We caught up with B & Z on Sunday morning, picked up the hire car, and hit the road. Here you can see Zydre and I checking out some wooden carved poles in a park alongside the motorway.

You may be able to tell from our stance that it was */&%*!!! freezing. This was the only downside of the trip. Temperatures were around 10 degrees with a wind chill factor of about -10! We weren't well prepared for this after experiencing 20 degree days in Geneva immediately before.

Next stop was the Curonian Spit, a 98 kilometre sand dune, half being Lithuania and the other half Russia (Kaliningrad). Here we are crossing the lagoon on the ferry.



This is the view to Russia from the top of the dunes above Nida, the town we called home for the next two nights.









Braving gale force winds, we put our fingers in the Baltic Sea. The beach was nice and the seas choppy. Reminded me a bit of Middleton.


Back on the mainland we briefly visited Klaipeda, Lithuania's third largest city and only seaport. It used to be part of the German empire (then called Memel), which is evident from the style of some of the older buildings.

Across in the North Eastern part of the country, we visited the incredible Hill of Crosses. Placing crosses in the ground began as a show of faith and resistance to occupation. In Soviet times, the Russians would remove the crosses, but they would 'mysteriously' reappear every morning. Now there are about 50,000 crosses and crucifixes there. Really an amazing sight to see.




In Kaunas, the second biggest city in Lithuania, we stayed in an apartment in the suburbs. It was really nicely renovated, and a great spot, but as you can see from the photo of Peter at the entrance, it was typical a "Soviet-style" apartment block. We were glad for an authentic experience.



We visited the open air museum to learn about country life and see tradition Lithuanian housing. From the inside of an actual Jurta (hut made of tundra), originally built in Siberia, this lady told us of the 1941 deportation of about 35,000 Lithuanians to Siberia, the northern coast of Russia. They lived in camps doing hard labour in freezing temperatures. This lady survived the ordeal.



Last stop before returning to Vilnius, was the resort town of Trakai. Here there is a beautifully restored castle.


So that's it! If you want to see all the photos, and there's only 176 of them, check out the set on Flickr.

Easter in the Swiss Alps

Our third Easter in Europe was spent in a place we have grown to love: our friends' chalet in Gryon. We enjoyed the beautiful sunshine and the great company of B & Z who will soon, sadly for us, be heading back home.

One of the highlights of our weekend was our drive up the Valais to see the Aletsch Glacier - the longest glacier in Europe. It was a stunning sight. There was still plenty of snow, and skiers, but with the sun beating down, it won't be there for long. In the sun, the melting snow has an amazing velvet sheen.

We did an hour long walk alongside the glacier. The view across the Valais was fantastic with the Matterhorn clearly visible. Peter and I plan to return in the summer when the snow will be replaced with pasture and the glacier should really stand out.

See all the photos we took of the glacier on Flickr.

Budapest - Paris of the East

Finally, time to write a post about our recent trip to Budapest! It was our first visit to this beautiful city, and to Hungary. On the Friday evening flight out of Geneva we had the pleasure to sit next to a friendly Budapest local named Pal who gave us his list of must-sees. Budapest was also Shane's (Kieren's friend who visited us recently) home for eight months last year, and during his stay with us in February we heard great things about the place.

Our hotel was right on Heroes' Square, an important monument at the end of Andrassy Avenue, the Hungarian equivalent of Paris's Champs-Elysées. The M1 Millennium Underground, which leads from the city centre to Heroes' Square is a beautiful restoration of the oldest underground on the European continent (1896).

The highlights of Saturday were the Hungarian National Museum, the Legenda boat tour of the River Danube and Margaret Island, and a visit to the Hungarian House of Wines. After a morning of wandering through the Pest city streets, the boat tour was a welcome rest. Budapest is actually a merging of two cities: Buda on one side of the river and Pest on the other. The boat tour did a good job of explaining the history and coming together of the two. It was also a big hit with me because I won the raffle - a DVD and bottle of Hungarian wine!

After the tour we walked up across the famous Chain Bridge and across to the Buda Castle district. It was getting late so we went for a short walk around the castle and then sought out the warm cellars of the House of Wines. For about $25 we got a wine glass to keep and could try up to 50 different Hungarian wines (we got through about 15 before we'd had enough!). They were OK but not great - we guessed that's why we hadn't heard much about great Hungarian wines!

Sunday was a beautiful day and we started out by wandering down Andrassy Avenue, stopping off at the very interesting House of Terrors, former headquarters of the Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian Nazis), then the Communist-led Political Police and State Security Police. The house has been restored and the exhibition is a horrifying and engaging description of two very sad eras of occupation in Hungarian history.

The rest of Sunday was spent wandering around the Castle district and soaking in some sun and Hungarian culture. The public transport system is brilliant and the Budapest Card made it easy to get around.

Budapest is a beautiful city and too big to see in a weekend - maybe we will have to return one day. See more photos on Flickr.

Brief visit to Rome

We went to Rome earlier this month as I had a meeting to attend on the Monday and Tuesday. The weekend was spent partly finishing my uni assignment and doing a spot of sightseeing. We'd visited Rome with Simon in January last year, so we'd seen most of the major sights. Sunday was a beaufitul day, nearly 20 degrees, so we soaked up the good weather just wandering through the Roman fora and sitting in a cafe in the Piazza Trastevere. Bellissimo!

Here's a link to a few more photos.

Carnival time in Geneva

Colour came to the streets of a wintry Geneva today with the annual carnival.

Taking a stroll through the old town with Shane, a friend of Kieren's who has been staying with us this week, we stumbled across the carnival parade.

It was a rainy day, so the bright costumes, music and dancing were a welcome sight!

I took a short video of the salsa group.

Some winter colour in Geneva