Photographs and thoughts on photography and camera collecting
Since we’d brought the dog along with us I had to take him for walks. My first excursion took me to the municipality (town) of Troinex.
Walking along the Route de Troinex I came across this interesting flight of steps descending from the main road. I didn’t go down so I have no idea where it went.
Our daughter lives in one of the villages near to the foot of Mont Saleve (visible in the background as it is from almost everywhere in Geneva. As mentioned in an earlier post (See: Geneva – Introduction) it’s actually in France i.e. the building is in Switzerland, the mountain is in France). The day after we arrived we went for a walk to pick up our grandkids who had been at a friends for a while after school.
As we were returning home I noticed this lovely decrepit old building. As I approached to take the picture I noticed signs of activity so either the building was still in use, or it was being renovated.
Chronologically this picture was taken towards the end of our visit. I’ve decided to include it here because it gives a good orientation to Geneva for those not familiar with the city.
It was taken from the top of Mont Saleve, which is actually in France. In the background you can see the Jura mountains, which at this point are also in France. In between is Lake Geneva going off to the right. In the left foreground is the City of Geneva with its famous fountain (the Jet d’eau) visible in the picture. On the far left of the picture River Rhone runs out of the lake, having earlier run into the lake in the Swiss Canton of Valais. From this you will infer correctly that Geneva is almost totally surrounded by France.
Looking down the Rhone from the center of Geneva the city divides into two parts: the left bank (Rive gauche on the near side of the lake in the picture) and the right bank (Rive droite on the far side of the lake). The left bank contains many of the shopping areas as well as the old town, the opera house, the symphony hall, the Parc des Bastions; Parc des Eaux Vives; Park La Grange, Jardin des Anglais etc.). The right bank houses the UN complex, the railway station, the bus station, and the Botanical Gardens. The airport is also on this side of the lake.
We lived in (or near) Geneva for eight years. Unfortunately this coincided with a time during which I had largely lost interest in photography and I seem to have only a few pictures from this period. We visited Geneva in 2010 and 2011 and I have some pictures from these visits – mostly from the Rive Droite. Our daughter lives in one of the villages close to the foot of Mont Saleve and somehow I spent most of my time during this visit on that side of the lake i.e. Rive Gauche so pretty much all of this years’ pictures come from this area.
In the preceding post (See Geneva – Introduction) I mentioned that there was a third factor that convinced me to go on vacation this year. I worry about being away because I don’t like leaving our animals, particularly our dog, Harley (I don’t worry so much about the cat. Cat’s are pretty independent and as long as she gets regular food and water and little human contact every day she seems to be happy enough. We can provide that easily enough by having someone come to the house every day). The dog is another story, however. Somewhat irrationally I don’t like kennels so that option is out. We used to know a couple who took dogs into their home. This worked well for us and the dog seemed to enjoy it too. Unfortunately, after a while they decided that they no longer wanted to do it and we have, so far, not been able to find a replacement.
So with no viable option for looking after the dog while we’re away I’ve tended to stay home. This time there was considerable pressure from both my wife and my daughter so I felt the need to find some way of going. What we decided to do was to take the dog with us.
When I was posted to Geneva in 1990 we took a cat with us. When we lived in France the cat moved too. And when we returned to NY in 1998 the cat came back with us. So we weren’t totally unfamiliar with the process: get a microchip implanted; get all of his shots done (even if some of them were still valid they all had to be done AFTER the microchip was put in; take all of the documentation down to JFK to get them stamped by the Dept. of Agriculture.
Luckily Harley is a small dog and so we were able to take him into the cabin with us. We had to get a carrier of an improved size. This had to go under the seat in front, and he had to stay in the carrier for the duration of the flight.
It turned out that he is an exceptionally good traveler. He’s a very sweet dog, but if he has a failing it’s that he likes to bark a lot. I had visions of us waiting to board and being refused because he was barking a lot. Instead I was surprised that from the time we put him in his carrier at home to the time we got off the plane in Geneva he barked only once. This was on the plane and only then because another dog in the cabin barked first. On the way back he didn’t bark at all. At the end of both trips he jumped out of the carrier as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
So Harley too is an international traveler having now been to Switzerland and France.
In the above picture he’s sitting in his carrier as we wait to board.
Picture taken by my wife with her iphone 6s.
We spent almost all of May visiting our daughter and her family in Switzerland. She tends to have a lot of business related travel around this time of year and my wife usually goes over for a few weeks to help out with the kids while she’s away. I usually stay behind to look after the houses and the animals. This time, however, I decided to go too. There were a few reasons for this. First the grandkids were growing up quickly, particularly the younger one. The last time I saw her in person was in 2014. At that time she was still a baby. Now she’s a little girl and I’ve missed a lot of it. Second I hadn’t had a vacation since we last went to Geneva in 2011 and I had an urge to be back in Europe for a bit. I’ll keep the third reason for a later post.
Here’s a shot of our plane taken from the terminal as we were waiting to board. I wanted travel light so I only took my Sony RX100 M3. Most of the pictures taken during our visit were from this camera although a few were taken with iphones and at one point I borrowed my son-in-law’s Nikon D80. I knew he had one and I had a yen to try a digital Nikon.