The words "Geneva" and "frugal" are almost never associated. I was sure there were ways around this problem, so I enlisted my friend Sebastien, who is training for a job as a Red Cross delegate, as a guinea pig.
Together, over the course of a leisurely long weekend last spring, we explored my home city with his new eyes. I showed Sebastien around my favorite haunts and we tried out some of the restaurants and bars that are lifting Geneva into its new place as a member of the Cool European Cities Club.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
To avoid paying for taxis, location was our main hotel criterion. Our choice, the Hotel Cornavin, was also relatively cheap for a four-star hotel (US$144 for a premium double).
The hotel has made the most of its potentially ungrateful space next to the train station by transforming a standard nine-floor hotel in the city center into a soaring building filled with light and air by emphasizing floor-to-ceiling windows. The lobby is all cream and leather, and from the ninth floor to the lobby, an enormous gilded clock pendulum swings through a marbled atrium.
After breakfast, Sebastien and I wandered into the Old Town, a 10-minute walk across the lake on one of the two pedestrian bridges, and started a steep climb away from the bustle of the city center. We embarked on a tour of the beaten cobblestone streets by heading down the Grand Rue and peering desirously at the magnificent paintings and sculptures exposed in the gallery windows. In the space of 100m, we found several galleries and secondhand bookshops selling primitive African art and dusty maps.
We spent a happy few hours in the Barbier-Muller Museum, a jewel at 10, rue Jean-Calvin whose permanent collection of anthropological artifacts and African art is spectacular, and then around the corner at the Maison Tavel, the oldest standing house in Geneva. Destroyed by a fire that ravaged part of the city in 1334, the house was rebuilt by the Tavels, a family of nobles who gave it the character of a fortified mansion and urban palace, and outfitted it with the furniture and art still on display today.
The Barbier-Muller collection contains more than 7,000 articles and includes art from tribal and classical antiquity as well as sculptures, fabrics and ornaments from primitive civilizations. Entrance to the Barbier-Muller, like almost all other Geneva museums, is very reasonable, about US$4; the Maison Tavel is free and open daily.
After the museums, we stopped for lunch at a local favorite, Chez Ma Cousine On y Mange du Poulet (literally, At My Cousin's House We Eat Chicken) a restaurant facing the Palais de Justice. Yellow sponged walls, mismatched crockery and flatware, and tall carafes of carefully chosen wines from Chile, Australia and Italy create a cheery atmosphere.
Chez Ma Cousine serves only one dish: an unusually tender roasted half-chicken, tossed salad and mountains of spicy oven-baked fries, all for US$11. There's a great terrace and we pored over tourist maps as we settled on our itinerary.
The Cathedrale St.-Pierre is two steps from the austere Palais de Justice, and we huffed and puffed up the 153 steep steps of its tower to enjoy the only panoramic view of the navy blue Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman. The United Nations offices, at least five miles away, were visible, bathed in light. Behind us we could see Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe, and to our left sat the Jura, a low mountain chain but a local haven for hikers and cross-country skiers.
Next was the Parc des Bastions, a 10-minute walk. The landscaped park surrounds the literature and history departments of the University of Geneva, one of Switzerland's most prestigious, but the grounds are open to all. After a free game of chess, moving three-foot-tall knights and towers around on a large checkered board, we sat for a while under the bronze statues of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Geneva's heroes, and watched the students, idlers and lovers make the park their own.
We splurged for dinner that night at Au Coin du Bar, a romantic wine bar with only 10 seats (plus 20 in the basement), near the Jardin Anglais, a lakeside park. The menu is as tiny as the restaurant, composed only of daily specials; our lamb filets with black olives and Britanny oysters were fantastic.
The next morning, the Geneva flea market, held every Wednesday and Saturday from 8am to 6pm, was first on our schedule. We browsed through dozens of stalls selling collections of coins, old telephone cards and stamps, Art Deco chairs, and vintage champagne and wine glasses. I almost resisted buying a chocolate-colored leather trench in excellent condition for US$88, bargained down from US$117, but I caved in the next weekend and returned to snap it up.
Hot chocolate and chestnut stands jostle with a fantastic caravan cafe selling original pies and coffees, as well as chai (tea), and for US$16 we had lunch squeezed onto benches under the sharp sun, feasting on warm, crunchy accras (Brazilian fish balls), feta and zucchini pie, with delicious mulled wine.
We wandered along the Boulevard Carl-Vogt, an area known locally as "the new Soho," and admired some of the small clothing boutiques and art galleries. We grabbed sushi and cinnamon and butter crepes in the Globus Gourmet food hall, a slick lunch joint with communal tables in dark lacquered wood, and headed to Carouge, a 10-minute tram ride for less than US$2.
Carouge was built in the 18th century by the king of Piedmont-Sardinia and has a distinct Mediterranean feel to it. This friendly and picturesque little town is a haunt for artists and craftsmen, fashion boutiques, small bistros and gourmet restaurants.
We ended our day by caving in to tradition and springing for a fondue. The wooden dicor of Au Vieux Carouge hasn't changed in 60 years. Our waitress, also the owner, all platinum hair and denim skirt, was extremely chatty, even pulling up a chair to explain the finer points of fondue etiquette.
The food was more than worth the wait at this very popular place: creamy molten cheese fondue, rich with smoky Vacherin and Gruyere, sopped up with crunchy baguette chunks, boiled potatoes and dried, smoked beef. We hunkered down and attacked the fondue pot, pausing only to guzzle the cool, dry and slightly fizzy local wine.
When we finished, our waitress scraped the burnt cheese crust (the religieuse) from the heavy fondue saucepan for us; it is considered a delicacy in Switzerland. All this was about US$39, a true steal.
After two nights in the luxurious Hotel Cornavin, we spent our last night in the Auberge de Carouge, a diminutive family-run hotel on Carouge's main street, opposite a tram stop. The rooms are small, but some have slanted walls, which take away space but add oodles of charm, and the bedding is incredibly comfortable.
Breakfast was insipid, but something about this hotel seduced me -- perhaps the unassuming young owners or the soft color scheme in the rooms. The showers had fantastic nozzles (poor ones are a pet peeve of mine), the bathrooms were spotless, and I never wanted to get out of those butter yellow sheets. For US$105 a night for two, this was the deal of the weekend (it now costs about US$145).
I had, however, kept the best secret for last. My favorite place in Geneva is neither a bar nor restaurant, but a sort of public beach complex run by a nonprofit cooperative dedicated to keeping it accessible to all.
It is the Bains des Paquis, on the right bank of Lake Geneva, jutting far into the harbor almost directly opposite the Jet d'Eau, the lake's landmark fountain. Originally a set of wooden docks and cabins, the bains were completely rebuilt in Art Deco style after a fire gutted the buildings in 1932.
The complex is used during the summer as a public beach and is open every day for massages by professional therapists; just last year, the sauna and hammam rooms were renovated.
My tough deep-tissue massage lasted a delicious 50 minutes in a spotless wooden cabin overlooking the lake, followed by a session in the Turkish baths and sauna. And the massage cost me just US$28, since I was a student (for others it is US$48).
Making the most of unseasonably warm weather, and noticing that the fabled boat cruises on Lake Geneva were few and far between in early spring, we decided to end our weekend by driving through the vineyards on the north side of the lake.
We borrowed a friend's car, and from the center of Geneva, a 20-minute drive landed us at the beginning of the "vineyard drive." The drive is officially labeled on local maps, but it can be hard to follow. Most roads are public, though, and what views!
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s