We arrived in Geneva on a delightfully sunny day – the kind that makes you wanna hurriedly chuck your luggage into your hotel room and head out exploring straight away!
And so that’s what we did!
The hotel was thankfully within walking distance of the city centre so we head out on foot, strolling leisurely around beautiful Geneva…
…till the hungry rumbling in our tummies quickened the pace of our walking to take us to Café Gallay for dinner.
The rest of the evening was spent pretty much doing nothing – just relaxing, drinking wine and taking in the sights and sounds of the city.
The next morning, we got up bright and early – eager to see more of Geneva but the weather had different plans. Yesterday’s sunshine had turned to rain but thankfully, not so bad that we couldn’t still make the most of it (again, coming from London, we’d never get anything done at home if we let a little rain stop us from exploring… 😄, we’re kinda used to it now).
Thankfully, the rain didn’t last long and within minutes of walking into Carouge, arguably one of the prettiest parts of Geneva, the rain had pretty much stopped – leaving us free to wander its cute little streets.
Said wandering soon led to a cafe recommended to us by a local called Valmandin.
Valmandin is more than just a café, though. Sure you can go there for your caffeine fix but it’s also a great place to find all sorts of coffees from different parts of the world, just waiting to be tried (and perhaps taken back home with you).
A couple of espressos later (with a couple of bags filled with coffee beans to take home), we venture out further in Carouge, this time in search of that famed Swiss Chocolate.
We didn’t have to wander too far. Another spot recommended to us by locals was Philippe Pascoët, where, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to catch Philippe himself going about his daily business of creating these delicious treats.
We got ourselves a couple of boxes, which didn’t actually last that long – I think they lasted for all of 15 minutes. What I do I know is that by the time we arrived at pick up spot for our paragliding, the chocolates had all disappeared.
Which brings me to my next thing – paragliding. To say I was nervous would be something of an understatement. It was my first time doing this and I had no idea what it would really be like.
With that, we hopped into our guide’s car and head over, across the border to Mont-Salève in France.
The view from the mountain is pretty great over Geneva, which is a much-welcome distraction for a first time paraglider and before long, we were strapped in with our guides and running off the mountain, with the paraglides (I don’t even know what the official thing is called – pretty sure it’s not called that but you get what I mean), catching the wind long before you get anywhere close the edge of the mountain.
And off we went, swooping in over France and then onto Switzerland, taking in a bird’s eye view of Geneva.
While my guide understood my initial nervousness and tried to make thing fun and calm for me, Lloyd’s was a bit more adventurous and after asking Lloyd went ahead to show him some paragliding trick (if you check out the video we did from Geneva here, you’ll probably be able to catch Lloyd’s screams as they went doing aerial acrobatics over Geneva).
I’ve gotta admit though, that view was incredible.
Slowly, we made our way over to a field in Geneva where, after landing (and laughing hysterically for some reason – probably the adrenaline), we decided it was high time for lunch.
Lunch saw us grab a picnic and head over to the River Rhone, a deliciously cool, crystal clear, relatively slow flowing river right in the city.
It was just the perfect spot to chill out in the city and made me regret not bringing swimming trunks with me this afternoon so I could join in with the others just swimming or tubing down the river.
After grabbing a few iced drinks to cool down, we headed over to La Jonction, a spot where two rivers meet. The beautiful, crystal-clear Rhone and the murky, less appealing Arve. It’s such a strange phenomenon to see both rivers side by side like this.
^That above is what the other side of the river looks like, by the way.
Leaving La Jonction, we went off to do what is easily one of the best things to do on a sunny afternoon in Geneva!
More on that in the next post. 😁
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