a Geneva business trip

I've been able to do more work with Landor (my former employer) from the UK and was asked to go to Geneva for a project kick-off. It's really nice to be able to do something professional again, but with the stress that my old team had getting the presentation ready, I'm also glad I'm not there. Since Geneva was a business trip I didn't get out much, but I did bring my camera and have a few shots to share in case you don't get over there.

My first impression of Geneva was a good one. The cab driver that took me to the hotel was quite unusual. She was only the second female driver I've ever had and she was the epitome of European sophistication–wearing a nice dress, well-done hair, trendy sunglasses, boots, the whole nine. She drove a fancy SUV that was perfumed inside and had fashion magazines in the backseat pocket. Ok, so that was a little deceptive. None of the other drivers looked like that and despite my first impression of the clean sophistication of the airport and my driver, the city itself has plenty of graffiti, trash, and seedy areas to bring it back down to earth.

Overall, Geneva is a very attractive place surrounded by Lake Geneva and mountains. I didn't get a great view of the mountains most days since the buildings block them and we had very cloudy, drizzly weather that resulted in the mountains being enveloped as they received a dusting of snow. We even got some flurries in the city on the day I left. Even so, when you did get a peak it was impressive.


The lake is in the bottom left corner and mountains in the upper right.

Our hotel was right next to Lake Geneva so I was able to take some sunrise shots as I trekked to Starbucks in search of breakfast one morning...


Geneva is very French considering it's surrounded by France. It even looks like France might have partial ownership of the lake. The architecture in the city is very formal and what I would consider French, but definitely European. The smaller, residential homes I saw sporatically as I was driven through the city had hints of Swiss chalet.



As you would expect, nearly every large prominent building that I saw was owned by a bank. What did surprise me, however, was how hard it was to find an ATM.

The food was pretty good, although quite expensive. We went to a "traditional" Swiss place one night and had the "festival of ravioli," which is a Landor tradition. It's an assortment of mostly cheese ravioli, tortellini, and penne covered with more cheese and baked. Fondue also seemed quite popular there. The next night we went to the Old Town section of Geneva for dinner and I had a tasty beef filet and frittes (maybe real "French" fries) that were very good.

I didn't get to see much of the Old Town, but this a square.


Besides cheese and chocolate, Geneva is famous for the Jet d’Eau. It started out as a practical pressure release for some water turbines on the Rhone river and, having proved a popular tourist attraction, it became decorative and was moved to a more prominent location in the lake.

Today, the height of the jet is an incredible 140m, with 500 litres of water forced out of the nozzle every second at about 200kph. Each drop takes sixteen seconds to complete the round-trip from nozzle to lake and, on windy days, the plume can rapidly drench the surroundings...

It's also pretty when illuminated at night.


And finally, there was one funny sign. I just couldn't resist. Apparently the Swiss stick men are in an especially big hurry to escape the impending doom of fire or of their own fumes :)