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All relaxing weekends begin with a 3.5 hour bike right, correct? Correct.  Sam, Casey, Kate, Karla and I rented bikes from the Genéve Roule bike place up off of Rue de la Terrasiére on the morning of Saturday, April 10. The cost of bike rental was about CHF 2 per hour, and I would have just borrowed Elim’s bike for free, except she was away on Easter break and didn’t leave the bike lock key here.  But CHF 2 per hour for a maximum of 5 hours is really not a bad deal.  We set off at a leisurely pace around the lakeside (Lake Geneva to us, Lac Léman to the rest of the world) opposite from Rue Muzy and went all the way to the start of the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Gardens). We rode through the garden up to the WTO, taking many pictures and stopping to play in the little playground we found. Yes, maybe we’re 4 years old.

They probably wouldn’t take too kindly to us climbing on this…  (but it’s fun…)

The flowers are blooming, it’s finally spring, the garden is beautiful.  The pollen counts are up, my allergies are kicking in (seriously though, when did I develop allergies? I disagree with this turn of events in my life), but the sun is shining brighter.  That’s all that matters.  Genéve is quite a beautiful city, despite its early closing hours, and riding through it on a slightly chilly, but mostly nice, Saturday morning made me happy, at the very least.

There are flamingoes and peacocks in the same frame…

There were many cute “dolls” in the garden.  I’m not sure what they’re called actually.  They weren’t garden gnomes, though.  That’s for sure.

On the way back from the garden, we decided to go to Carouge to the Saturday morning open market and have coffee. So we biked through the city to Carouge, not too far, just off the number 12 tram, so we followed the tram line on our bikes.  We had our coffees, which were absolutely delicious and absolutely necessary.  We tried sample cake in the market, and I lusted after the pretty, pretty vegetables.  After we walked through the TINY market in Carouge – Plainpalais is definitely better – we took some pictures, and decided to head back to Genéve and ride east along our side of the lake.  We wanted to go up to Coligny, but we only vaguely knew which direction the town was in, not how to get there.  The air smelled fresh, and by this point, the sun was finally coming up and burning off the fog everywhere, which made the ride much more refreshing and (for me, anyway) relaxing.

After a while, Sam decided she wanted to go to the gym, and I headed back along the lake with her and Karla as I was starting to tire.  I wasn’t actually tired yet, but I didn’t want to overexert myself after not having had real exercise in months. We returned our bikes and returned to Rue Muzy to kill some time before the University organized wine tasting in the afternoon.

At 4pm, the house emptied out, with everyone headed to Gare Cornavin for the 4:35 train to Russin, a 12 minute train right west of Geneva, close to the French border.  I stepped off the train, and I felt as though I’d just taken the Tuscany express.  The vineyards surrounding me reminded me of the Italian countryside, especially since spring has made everything green again. We hiked up a steep hill to the town, turned a few corners, followed a winding road, and ducked into a fairytale wooden doorway into the house of Madame Debayer.  We took our seats on short wooden stools set along the inside perimeter of the room and were each handed a wine glass and a list of the wines we would be tasting (that were all available to buy, obviously). The tasting was very technical, we were taught how to smell the wine, how to handle the glass, how to slosh the wine about in our mouths to test the acidity, and which food would be appropriate to complement properly the type of wine we were drinking. We started with a light Chasselas complemented with delicious homemade cheese sticks. I ate literally half the plate of the cheese sticks, but with good reason, as the three dishes following the cheese were duck, ham and beef… After the Chasselas, we tried the Sauvignon Blanc, then we switched to red wine. We then had a Pinot Noir and a Merlot (I think? I forgot to make a note of which wines we tasted.) I had the cheese and bread with the last red wine, (and learned  that cheese is generally had with heavier red wines).

Vineyards of Domaine Des Molards

Entrance to the House

The vineyards have been in their house for… 15 generations or so.

The day was the best combination of rejuvenating and relaxing. I miss having my bike around, and I probably won’t rent those bikes again while I’m here, but it was definitely a good decision. The wine tasting was quite different from what I had expected, but definitely in a positive way.

Random factoid reinforced this weekend? Europe doesn’t understand vegetarianism.

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