Le Monde - A Poetic Travail » Geneva

Let’s play chess !

Cuckoo — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:28:11 +0000

In Geneva, whether it is a park, swimming pool, or any other public place.. .. you can find many large sized chess boards painted on the ground and people engrossed in playing chess.
I have seen this in other countries as well but this is about Geneva.

I always wonder why can not we have such playful outlets in our country and more so what will happen if even we have some. How long we are going to enjoy them or maintain them. Your inputs ?

P.S.- I am traveling and away from blogging. These posts are scheduled. Will try to come online for sometime to moderate/reply to comments.

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Travel and me

Cuckoo — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:11:47 +0000

Geneva was the first city I was posted and so it has a special place in my heart. I had seen some places before, but this was the first time I was on my own and alone. I was excited.
During my tenure I tried to grab as much as possible. Keen learner and an observant person that I am, there was so much to see, know and learn. I wanted to know what the locals eat, how they eat, how they speak and so on. I was keen to know about their culture, behaviour and tastes.

I wanted to explore the world. And it all started with weekends.

In spite of very hectic and tight schedule (at times working as much as 14 hours a day is no joke); I could manage to free my alternate weekends to visit places. I would work more hours on other days to get a full weekend.

I started with the city I was in. I used to walk down to various places in the city. That’s the best way to know insights of any place. Old city, lake area or the big park. The place was enchanting. Everything is closed on Sundays so Sundays were reserved to explore free parks and other outside beauties especially the lake area.
Take a novel, walk down to the lake, sit or lie down and enjoy your day basking in Sun. The first book that I read there was Kane and Able, my all time favourite book.

Or you can feed the ducks and swans or simply watch people parking their cars and cruising their yachts towards other cities. I could see so many people doing the same. No kids or dogs disturbing you, no hawkers pestering to buy their stuff and no staring eyes. You just have to relax. You are out there in open and still no one is intruding in your privacy.

Parked boats at Lac Lemon. You can see water jet in the background

Then slowly I started going out of the city either to a neighbouring country or to a different town of Switzerland. After St Gallen’s scary experience I made my Schengen visa and I was ready. Whenever I came to know of a group going to some place, I was always more than eager to give them company.

It was hard to resist. No one waiting at home and no one to report to. And it was so easy and safe to travel compared to my own country.

I knew travel bug had bitten me. It had started as an innocent infatuation but slowly I could see myself thinking about my next stop. Instead of reading novels in free time I had started reading maps. I would fantasize about living with ‘Travel’.
And thus began a journey. A journey never to end.. ..

Note:- The photographs are scanned from analogue camera prints, hence the quality is not that good.

Technorati Tags:- Geneva Lake

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A garden with a difference

Cuckoo — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:57:51 +0000

The other day I was helping my friend plan an itinerary of his honeymoon in Switzerland. He had some constraints such as no. of days, budget and also, he had a friend in Switzerland with whom he wanted to spend sometime on the only weekend available. So after discussing quite a few things we finalized the places to be seen and also the route.

While doing that I promised him to write some more posts on Switzerland. Though I’ll not to, but if you find an overdose of Europe here in next one month or so, blame him not me.

I’ll not speak about the tourist places alone but something about how I lived and breathed the place. How I enjoyed or hated it. The small anecdotes with even smaller details.

I’ll start with Geneva.
After initial settling down I had become friends with an Indian family. On some Sundays we used to meet for lunch. Once they invited me to a strawberry garden. I was bemused.

Only after reaching there I came to know it was a garden with a difference. You could eat as much strawberries as you can. Yes, this was a place where you could eat the produce to your heart’s content without shelling out a single penny ! I must say, it was fun plucking fresh strawberries, filling your tummy and watching so many others involved in the same activity.

Only condition, you can not take it home. You have to eat there itself. Do you think I was a bit covetous ?

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A Clock with a difference

Cuckoo — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:13:18 +0000

Rolex, Tag Heuer, Omega, Cartier, Longines, Jaeger-LeCoultre, MontBlanc, Richelieu, … are few names that we have heard in Swiss watch industry. There are more than 30 such brands.

Among other things Switzerland is famous for world known watches and clocks. These pieces manufactured in Switzerland bear the designation “Swiss made”. This label enjoys a trustworthy reputation throughout the world. “Swiss made” embodies a concept of quality that has been forged over the years.
A proud bunch of people own Swiss watches and I am one of them.

Oh but I am not speaking about those watches or clocks which you can buy and take home. This clock is different and changes its colourful dial very often.

Geneva being watch capital of the world is also called ‘Watch city’. To corroborate this, the city has a unique Flower Clock which is a symbol of Geneva’s watch industry. Situated on a small hillock, it’s at the edge of the Jardin Anglais, alongside Lake Geneva and is a famous landmark of the city.
Celebrating Switzerland’s watch-making industry, the most famous timepiece attracts crowd of hundreds every day.

It was my favourite stop on weekend walks, an excuse to check if my watch was working fine by matching with this one.
It is a masterpiece of technology and floral art. Earlier it had a sole dial but the new millennium provided it with eight circles which bloom with around 6,500 seasonal plants and flowers.

Did you know that the second’s hand of Geneva’s Flower Clock is the largest in the world at more than 2.5 meters long ??

Photograph Copyright: 2nd & 3rd – borrowed from a friend.

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