Four Days In France and Switzerland
Last Tuesday evening, Tom and I set off for a few days of fun in Switzerland. Not only a trip to spend time with my parents, we were also going to be attending the Hans Zimmer concert in Geneva. Let's get this out of the way immediatly: It was one of the most incredible concerts I've ever seen in my life. A lifelong fan of Hans Zimmer's music, I was looking forward to the evening for weeks. He didn't disappoint. If you're a fan of movie soundtracks and have an opportunity to attend one of the concerts, I urge you to go!
Anyway, enough of that rambling, let me get to the point of this post. Since Tom didn't grow up in Switzerland like I did, every time I go back with him I have an urge to "be a tourist." So for the few days we were there, that's exactly what we did!
Our first day was filled with errands, driving around with my mum, and then in the evening the concert. When we woke up to rain on Thursday morning, I knew it was the perfect day for a museum. I'd heard so much about The Olympic Museum in Lausanne, but hadn't yet been there myself (crazy - I know) so we got in the car and headed down. With The Rio Olympics happening this summer, it was particularly exciting! The Olympic museum is really interactive, colourful and interesting! I'm quite picky when it comes to museums as I get easily bored, but we spent a good 2h30 in T.O.M and didn't even realise the time passing us by. Needless to say, there's so much to read and see we could have spent hours longer learning about the history of the Olympics. The best bits? The museum when you get to test your athletic skills and play some games! I 100% recommend going if you've got a morning to kill! Lausanne is only a short 40 minute drive from Geneva.
As we left the museum, we took a stroll through Ouchy, enjoying the views of the mountains submerged by clouds.
On Friday Tom and I got into the car and drove for a few hours until we reached Chevagny-Sur-Guye, a little town in the rural part of France known as "Bourgogne." This might seem random, but the reason for us going there is simple: it is where my beautiful, retired horse is. I rode Kwintus between the ages of 14 and 18, and he was my best friend. When I left for University, he decided that his job was done and allowed the arthritis in his neck to take over! As a result, despite being very healthy, he was put into retirement as he was no longer able to carry anyone without pain. A life of boredom retired in a stable is no life for a horse, so we made the difficult decision to drive him 2h30 away from where my parents live to what I like to call "horsey paradise." Kwintus now spends all of his days running around in miles and miles fields with other horses.
Whenever I can, I make the journey up to see him.
After having spent a really lovely day in Bourgogne, we woke up the next morning and headed to our next location: Annecy. Located only 30 minutes away from Geneva, this was a city I had never set foot in. Ridiculous, seeing as it is so close to where I grew up, but I decided to right that wrong.
I don't think we could have chosen a more beautiful day. We arrived to chaos as it seemed that everyone in the surrounding region has also decided to head to Annecy for the day, so parking was a bit stressful (especially as I was driving my mum's enormous Volvo!) but once we eventually found parking and realised just how warm and beautiful everything was, all was well again. We met my parents, and headed off to find a restaurant. We ate by the banks of the canal within the old town, and I couldn't get over how hot it was (28°C to be precise - my favourite!).
After eating, we walked around the old town, and then to the banks of the lake, where I proceeded to take about 100000 photos (on my iPhone though, because I'm an idiot and forgot my camera at home before leaving!).
Annecy is so pictureque, if you're ever near by I highly recommend taking a few hours out of your day and just head over to see it!
The best part about our time away? Probably the fact that for a couple of days I was able to almost 100% switch off. Bar the odd post to Instagram for Atlas and my own account, I sort of forgot about the online world. I enjoyed time with my family, and the surroundings I was in. It's something I don't get to do enough (and let me tell you the over 100 emails that greeted me today filled me with a bit of dread) but today, as I write this, I feel so much more recharged and ready to take on the next couple of weeks.
