Coco Bay

The many mountains surrounding Montreux have a tendency to shield the place from winds and weather. Therefore Montreux enjoys a micro-climate which is warmer than in Geneva. The palm trees are just a tad closer to each other and there are just more different flowers along the shores of the lake here. Despite this we do find it a bit on the optimistic side to call a residence here for Coco Bay - but we are all in favour of the port-hole equipped mailbox belonging to said property.

Birthday Trip

On the day when it was actually Lisbeth's birthday we started out by eating omelette and opening presents. Afterwards we took the train to the other end of Lake Geneva to spend the day in and around the city Montreux.


The landscape around Montreux is a fair bit more impressive than around Geneva. Not least due to the way the mountains come much closer to the lake on either side. We walked along the lake from Montreux to Chillon, where we spent hours looking at the castle. The castle is picturesquely situated at lakeside and offers gloomy dungeons, windy paths, awesome halls and vineyards. We declined on the offer to bring home their wine, assuming that we'd be paying more for the name than the quality of the wine.

Fall visit

By the end of September we had a visitor from Denmark. It was Lisbeth's mother, Tove, who had decided to spend a long and very sunny (but of course!) weekend with us on the occasion of Lisbeth's birthday. The day before the actual birthday we spent walking around Geneva and we finally got around to ascending the tower of the cathedral. From here we could enjoy nice views of the city - and we could work up some appetite going up and down the narrow stairwells (Tove counted at least 180 steps on the way down).

Mail painting

The Swiss mailboxes that we have wanted to present here have been few and far between. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that we can now show you these Zürich mailboxes, on which the decoration is part of a larger artwork.

Trams in Zürich

Like in Geneva, there's an extensive network of tram lines in Zürich. In the coaches we found these lovely pictograms: (1) Do not sit in other peoples' smoke to scrounge their hard earned nicotine (2) Do not be poor NB: Goes for all of Switzerland! (3) Do not be Jack Johnson (4) Do not cut the seat under yourself (5) Sit upright, it is not good for your back to lounge.

Zürich

Although it was nice to be back home, we were on the (rail)road again less than 2 weeks later - this time by train to Zürich for a long weekend. Zürich is similar to Geneva in these ways: It's located at the end of an oblong lake (a little smaller than Lake Geneva), there is a water jet in the lake (much smaller than here in Geneva), and the central part of town is located on a narrow strip of land between two rivers (though Limmat and Sihl instead of Arve and Rhône) which have a confluence in the middle of the city (possibly less spectacularly so than in Geneva). Zürich is different from Geneva primarily by the fact that everything is in (some sort of) German, and that the weather in mid-September was notably colder than in Geneva. Of more positive aspects to Zürich we can mention the train station Stadelhofen, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava - whom we like very much. Moreover we got the chance to meet up with Diego whom Tue knows from his years in Santa Barbara.

Yamato!

Shortly after returning to Geneva, we received a lovely greeting from the international community here when Lisbeth's incredibly creative contribution - containing the picture below as well as a tribute to the Large Hadron Collider - in the Yamato competition won us tickets for the concert with the drumming Japanese. Definetely worth experiencing if you get a chance!

Three Mailboxes

Our readers on this blog may not be familiar with the standard mailbox of the Danish mail service (on the left in the image above), shown for comparison next to the Italian (middle) and Swiss (right) counterparts. While one might recognize the yellow colour of the Swiss mail service, the Italian and Danish boxes have strikingly similar shades of red. In Denmark it's known as "mailbox red", but I have no idea if this holds for Italy. The finer print on the Danish mailbox reminds the customers that letters must not contain cash. In Italy the customer is asked to stop and think: Is the letter for someone in this city - or is it going out in the world beyond?

Home again

When we came home from our summer vacation in Denmark, we heard that the weather hadn't been particularly nice in Geneva while we were away. Nevertheless, we had to face the fact that even if it had a rained quite a bit, it hadn't been enough to keep the herbs in the box on our balcony alive while we were away:


Besides, the weather was quite nice when we came back, something we exploited by biking a trip to the botanical gardens first chance we got.

Danish Mailboxes

As a special feature for our non-Danish readers (who may well never have been to Denmark) we present typical Danish mailboxes (click on the picture for enlarged view - the one on the far right is particularly widespread). As you can see variation and uniqueness are not priorities. The picture was taken in a residential area in Varde, Denmark - but it really could have been taken literally anywhere in Denmark.