OH SO CHEESY
The back roads in the French countryside were close enough to Switzerland for a quick visit en route to Italy so we tacked course and veered east to get some grandiose mountains into our scenic repertoire. Along the way, we stumbled across an open air market basically on the France/Switzerland border so hopped out and sifted through mounds of French antiques, homewares, fresh produce and clothes. We both walked away absolutely chuffed with our new treasures. Kez came up trumps with a vintage silk shirt for €4 and Ads picked up a genuine polyester blanket for future camping adventures for €3 and an overwhelming cigarette odor free of charge. After we gorged on the fresh food on offer, we eventually made our way into Switzerland’s sexiest city, Geneva. We were both immediately smitten with the spunk Geneva offered… but it came at a cost. Having heard that Geneva was notoriously expensive, we were sure that we clever enough to do it on the cheap with our new found resourceful skills on budget travel. Probably not the most realistic philosophy in a city that stings you $12AUD for a Big Mac. Nevertheless, we found a relatively reasonable room in the centre of the city’s happenings with free parking which was a major bonus, even though our lil Vic could have fit into the wardrobe. We quickly unloaded our luggage and made our way to what we dubbed as “Designer Drive”, a strip that is chockablock of high end boutiques, jewelers and Swiss Army knives. Ads got his tool on and scoped out the best knives with 30+ utilities and stocked up. Kez couldn’t be less interested knowing that it was cutting into her precious window shopping time, but soon gave the nod of approval once she spotted the corkscrew function. It was then time to ogle at the larger than life designer windows and their even larger price tags which soon became boring and as pointless as all hell so we decided to find somewhere to settle in with a few brews and hopefully a bit of tuck. You know things are tight when you catch yourself looking at the prices before the actual meals – and the cheapest we could spot on the menu was some pizza, the staple of the elcheapo traveller’s diet. We thought we’d get away with just sharing one between us but the waiter got very excitable when we placed our single order and insisted that they were only the size of a side plate (for $25). So we quickly skimmed through the menu and ordered some fondue – a traditional Swiss number of melted cheese (liquid consistency) cooked with garlic and white wine and dipped with bread. Even though we upset the minister of finances for a simple dinner, the artery clogging fondue made itself onto our “Sunday night hangover dinners” list for when we get home, which will most likely become a weekly event. The next day, we walked along the shores of Lake Geneva and snapped away at the Horloge Fleurie (flower clock) which is made of 6500 flowers and sports the world’s longest second hand (2.5mtrs) as well as the Jet d’Eau fountain that shoots water up to 140 metres in the air at 200km/hr. We soon got over the touristy sights and agreed it was time to get back on the frog and wack some more clicks on Vic. Kez had already plotted out a nice scenic route over the Swiss/Italian border but Ads had other ideas and fanged it for the impressive Mont Blanc tunnel. But he wasn’t so clever after all when they hit us up for €40 to go through it… and it only went for 20km. Ads left the navigating to his geographic savvy wife after that and stuck to driving the blue beast.
WIN:
Swiss folk. Stylish, sophisticated and sexy…
FAIL:
Missing out on what would have been Mercedes-Advertisement-Scenery by going through Ads’s beloved tunnel.
theflightclub 