Beautiful Night

Its a beautiful night here in Geneva! Double rainbow!

Fête de la Musique

This weekend Geneva is having the popular Fête de Genève, otherwise known was the Music Festival. Don't really know what to expect but you can check out the history on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fête_de_la_Musique

Should be an interesting day!

Also see if you can spot the differences in the keyboards. Quite annoying actually.

Location:Via de Coisson,Vernier,Switzerland

Rolex

Geneva, the world capital of watch making. Its no surprise that the world headquarters of Rolex is located in Geneva right across the street from my pool. I don't know why it took me so long to post/realize this but its a really cool building with even cooler landscaping.

Perfectly manicured grass flows to the edge of brilliant blue pools around the bottom of the building which is brilliant emerald green. There's an amazing deck on top of the building with huge umbrellas and tables and chairs. Cool building.

Sion: Château de Tourbillon and Basilique de Valère

Today I decided to take a trip into the mountains and explore the capital of Valais Canton (Canton are the "states" of Switzerland), Sion. It is a small city with a population of just under 30,000 people. Because it isn't a preferred tourist site it is a town that really is the "real" Switzerland. Sion itself is situated in the middle of a valley with huge mountains on either side in the south of Switzerland. It is decently close to Italy and almost all signs are in three languages, French, Italian, German and most times English.  Some of the furthest ones are actually still snow capped which is a really cool sight to see in person and pictures REALLY don't do it justice. These mountains tower over you.

The two main tourist attractions are the Château (castle) de Tourbillon and Basilique de Valère. They were both built on large rock outcroppings in the middle of the valley and it was a hike to get up to.  The Basilique of Valere was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and Is a wonderfully ornate church. It was given the rank of basilica when Pope John Paul II visited the church in 1984. The churches organ was believed to have been built in the 13th century and that makes it one of the oldest organs still working today. One of the highlights of this fortified basilica was a little church that was located on the twisting path to the top of the rock. The signs for this little church were only in French and German so I really couldn't tell what it was for or why it was there.

After I explored the Church and descended the mini mountain, it was time for the trek to the significantly taller Tourbillon perch. This was quite the hike, a solid 20-25 min up the winding, path. The path was composed of mostly lose gravel and jagged bedrock that composed the mountain and the surrounding peaks. Climbing up to this castle would have been downright dangerous (as if it wasn't already) in flip flops. There were no real barriers or safety precautions anywhere and quite honestly one slip or dumb move would send you 300+ feet to your death. At times it was really very, very scary. From what I read online (this time there were no signs at the castle at all) it was home to the Bishops of Sion for many centuries. One advantage of this location that is was damn near impossible to scale. And would be downright hard to get up to the fortification with any sort of weapons in an attempt to take the castle. The downside of this is that it was a building that could easily be sieged. While it would be difficult to
actually attack the castle, with its one realistic entrance it would be quite easy to block all supplies going to the top. Currently the castle is in a state of ruin permanently destroyed by a fire in 1788. Since then only the Chapel has been restored and placed as a protected site within Switzerland. The castle had a tumultuous history and was attacked multiple times as the Bishops were the ruling men of the Middle Ages and power was constantly changing hands. In 1417 it was burned to the ground during the Wars of Raron and rebuilt sometime later by Bishop William Raron. Needless to say, the castle provided excellent views of the surrounding area.

Tonight, my host Marco is having a BBQ with a few friends. Pictures to
follow soon on Picasa! (Of Sion, not the bbq)

Trains

Still no idea what SBB CFF or FFS stands for. And I'm not sure anyone does.

Tomorrow: Into The Mountains

Tomorrow I'm looking for a day trip into the mountains to check out the small town of Sion, Switzerland. It only has a few attractions but you can check them out here:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Château_de_Tourbillon
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilique_de_Valère

And finally the town of Sion:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sion,_Switzerland

Goodnight from Switzerland!

The Duomo

The Duomo in Milan was easily the 2nd biggest cathedral I've ever been to and the 3rd biggest in the world. The church was started in the 12th century but the facade was finally completed at the urging of Napoleon in the mid 19th century. The 500 year build puts never ending highway projects into perspective. Better post coming tomorrow after work. Off to bed, exhausted.