After Athens, I took a short trip to Geneva Switzerland. I'm glad I did because it is a very nice ville and I've always wanted to see it. I couldn't find The Convention, but it was still a great visit.
I tried to find a good hotel deal but Geneva is expensive so that wasn't so easy. I finally chose Le Montbrillant which ended up being very nice. It has two restaurants, pretty awesome rooms and is about 10 feet from the train station. That was very convenient!
Their flyer which included some good information
My room was awesome! It was on the top floor, had windows on both ends and plenty of space. The bed was great and there was a kitchenette. Above left is the outside of my door. They painted a design on each room which I though was a nice effort. Above right and below are two pics of the room.
After checking in, my next stop was to rent my bike! I picked Genève roule mainly because they had a website (which is always nice) and they were right next to my hotel ... like 50m away. It was a great location and the bikes were good (at least my bike was good). They gave you locks and helmets were optional. Below is a shot of my bike down by Lac Léman.
Above left, my Genève roule bike on the right, a little lighthouse just beyond the Jet d'eau.
Above, the same lighthouse showing a fantastic sky and on the left is the source of the Jet d'eau.
Here is a look-up shot of the Jet d'eau and another from across the bay.
Above left is the famous horloge fleurie (and my bike). It thought it was funny that it showed about 9:30 (or 21:30) when it was about 19:00. Interesting for Swiss precision. It was correct the next time I saw it. On the right is a statue commemorating the Swiss people. I liked the castle on the head of the lady on the left.
I took a couple of shots of this building simply because I thought it was very appealing. I think it would be a great room leading out to a swimming pool or huge blacony.
Here are a couple shots of the St Pierre Cathedral (with my bike). It was closed but I returned later.
This lighthouse is across the bay from the lighthouse see above. On the right is just a shot showing the rocks leading into the bay. Most certainly not a beach.
My first supper was in the hotel since they had a specific menu. The food was fine and the service was good initially, but sadly the service turned very crappy. I guess the trick is to eat there in a big party. I had to get their attention, remind them I ordered a menu, etc. It was quite annoying. Regardless, my appetizer is above right, some great salmon and above left is my main dish of turkey. Also very good.
This was the "promo shot" of the restaurant before the service fell off the deep end. On the right, a shot of a goose looking for food. How cool is it that they're always dry? Awesome.
Here are some shots of the inside of St Pierre Cathedral. I thought the chandelier was very classy. The pic above right is looking up a hand railing towards the alter. Below is a shot toward the rear of the church showing the quite impressive organ.
The next day I visited the Musées d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève which had some great stuff. Below is the front of the museum.
I like models and this was a very nice model of the museum.
Above left is a very nice marble statue of Venus and Adonis by Antonio Canova in 1795 (same year Jim Beam started and 200 years before I graduated). Above right, a heron frightened in the reeds. I thought this was cool because 1) it's a bird and 2) it has great detail. And by the way, it's from 1722 by Jean-Baptiste Oudry. He created dozens of wildlife images.
Above left is L'Allée au Jas de Bouffan by Paul Cézanne around 1890. On the right, Femme à l'ombrelle dans un jardin (woman and umbrella in the garden) in 1875 by Renoir. Great painting!
This isn't my picture but I really liked the scene. It is l'Hiver (winter) by Alexandre Calame in 1851. I loved the moonlit scene. The light almost makes you forget how cold it is. On the right is one of two or three very nice furnaces. These are impressive and remind me of Germany. In particular Bavaria.
Above left is La Maison de Chatou by Maurice de Vlaminck in 1908. I thought the bold lines were terrific. Makes me want to get into acrylics. On the right is Claude Monet's La Cabane de Saint-Adresse from 1867. I took a picture of this because to the best of my knowledge, I hadn't see this Monet. It's nothing particular special, but it was new to my eyes.
This is Le Lac Léman et le Mont-Blanc around 1918 by Ferdinand Hodler. Nothing particularly amazing and not easy to find on the web. However, I loved the simplicity, the bold color and the ability to capture the scene. It's probably nothing more than a sketch to Hodler, but I liked it.
This is a great bust of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux by Auguste de Niederhäusern (or Rodo).
I rode by the League of Nations Museum and the Ariana Museum (above). Sadly I missed the tour window and didn't have time to return. I think it would have been a great tour. I didn't visit the Ariana because it holds ceramic and glass which wasn't at the top of my list.
There was a cool flea market I stumbled upon as I was going to another museum. I took this picture of these clocks because they made me think of my parents. My dad likes clocks. I was in a hurry so I ate just across the street from the market...
Yep, McDonald's with Geneva in the background.
The next place I visited was MAMCO - Musée d'art moderne et contemporain which turned out to be a nice surprise. It had four floors and plenty to see.
Above and below were Drawing by Allan McCollum (Wiki) from 1988-89.
I thought these panoramic shots of them turned out cool.
These are also McCollum's work. They are part of his series, Surrogate Paintings. You can see the similarity with his Drawings series above. I liked the simplicity of the paintings and the individual pictures were all solid objects. Meaning the "picture", the matting and the frame was a single plaster cast. It's a little easier to see what I'm talking about in the five pictures below.
Another McCollum (above left) and on the right, Untitled (after Piet Mondrian), by Sherrie Levine (I think) in 1983. It would have been cool if it was an actual Mondrian, but I liked the simplicity, symmetry and just a touch of color.
I thought this array of bar codes was cool. They were by Philippe Thomas (discussed below).
Above are two classic contemporary pieces. On the left C'était la mer, 1992 by Philippe Parreno. It is just fabric, but I thought it actually made pretty good waves. On the right is Corridor Store Front, 1967 by Christo. Although probably not his best work, it was cool to see a work by Christo.
There was some cool stuff by Philippe Thomas and much of it fell under a concept called readymades belong to everyone. Above is a promo poster for that concept. And below left is a cool street street advert on its own little block. Cool. Below right is a pretty neat scheduling board also part of the readymades belong to everyone series.
There was a cool room - looked like a large play room - that had some trains in there.
I like trains so I tried to take some artsy perspective shots.
I didn't get the info on this piece, but I thought it was cool.
It's like a film clapper just floating in wide open space.
It was hard to get a good shot of these elevators because the wall was too close, but for some reason they looked very nice to me. Above right is a closeup of one of the Starbucks Studies (2013) by Franck Scrurti. I'm not sure but I think I had seen these before - quite possibly in a Starbucks. One nice thing about the museum is they had little flyers hanging in the rooms which explained the exposition and you could keep them if desired. I would certainly recommend the MAMCO if you get the chance to visit.
Above left is the the Russian Orthodox Church. It makes a good photo but photos were not allowed inside. On the right is a cool Gnomic Globe to determine the time. It sat behind the conservatoire et jardin botaniques de la ville de genève. There is also a very nice park there and many people were grilling.
The next place I visited was the Baur Foundation or Musée Des Arts d'Extrême-Orient. I really like a lot of oriental art, but this museum was primarily objects (ceramics, jade carvings, sword fittings, etc). But the building was very nice and the the collection is pretty large. The museum had some cool ideas. When you walk into a room, a sign would detect your motion and illuminate. It gave kind of the overview for what was in the room. Then they had books which explained every object in the room and the objects were all well-labeled. For the sword pieces they had these cool drawers which illuminated when you opened them. It was a nice setup.
Above left, is the booklet they give you when you get a ticket and on the right
is a nice plate with some great color and a very Asian rabbit.
One thing I always like to see is how the orient portrays sea life. I remember some of the menus in Japan which had fantastic watercolor paintings of lobsters or shrimp or crab. Above left is no exception. It is a little pitcher in the shape of a crayfish. On the right is a crazy creature and I thought the color was exceptional.
Geneva is a very nice town! Visit if you can!
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