With that thought i mind i picked up the ipad and typed geneve-tourisme.ch. an awesome place where one can get the best information about the city and places to visit, and realised after fiddling on google maps, that the office of geneva tourism was a two minute walk from my hotel, and that every saturday (which happened to be today) there is a walking tour for tourists for 10 francs. Oh good! I thought, a good way to get a hang of the town and look at a few places! I got up, took a quick shower and was getting ready when the girl on top of my bunk bed invited me to join her group of friends going to visit the Geneva lake! I had already seen the polite, beautiful people of Geneva, but turns out, it brings out the best in everyone. This one, Ma'ka from Georgia had heard that i was alone, and wanted to make me feel better. I thanked her profusely, but told her i should go with the tour as that means i could cover most of the spots before my conference began (did i mention i am here for a conference?).
I walked out with a skip in my walk and reached the tourism office. There, i was helped by another beautiful woam who told me that the tour had already left, and since they had no policy of taking money from someone new, she couldn't let me venture out on my own, looking for the group as i had suggested, and take the fees for the tour as well! So, instead, she took out a map of the city, circled all the places the tour takes and drew me the route that would get me back to my hostel. I was set for the day!
I came back to the hostel to pick up some extra money as i had realised that 100 francs isnt going to be enough if i got lost and wanted to take a taxi back home. In the hostel, i met another dorm mate, alone and unhappy coz a friend had just backed out of her weekend plan of visiting the city! Voila! I had a partner to walk around with! I invited her to come along, gave her another map feomthe tourism office and we set rolling!
We covered the geneva lake, the beautiful scenery and gardens near it, the pallette clock museum, the national monument, the flower clock, the cathedral of st. Peter, numerous big and small churches on the way and ofcourse the old town. It was beautiful. At the lake, i basked in the winter sun and thought about how water inspires a certain calmness in me, someone one would usually compare with a stormy sea, someone i myself would compare with a stormy sea. The clock museum merely reminded me of the obsession of humans with time, measuring it immaculately, and how so many thing depended on it. Isn't it wonderous that of of all the truths known to mankind there is one absolute one, that time doesn't come back? The cathedral of st. Peter was magnificent. Beautiful and daunting, i was reminded of the various ways in which religion can be scary. The view from the towers was awesome, ofcourse and i can totally tell why the hunchback of notre dame would love staying here (although he didn't and i hated that movie for its stupid conventional ending). The old town was so charming that i remembered my own village, where people called out to each other from their kitchen windows and where wives would find time to chat with each other amidst their daily work. There were people cooking in front of their houses, and selling cake and coffee to anyone who would buy. The whiffs of fresh out of the oven croissants that i had, simply made my day.
All in all, it's good i missed the tour. I explored on my own and it made me a firm believer that if you really want to see the world, you better do it alone!
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