Day 2 - Geneva

The weather is hot, it is a humid 30ºc, its a beautiful day and we are well rested. John has researched this trip very well and has a plan for each day. Today, we are to visit CERN, which is a working lab with big boy science. Then we are going to the Patek Phillipe museum and the MAMCO - the museum of contemporary art and a stroll through the Old Town.

Start off with a Breakfast at the hotel and then we navigate the transport system to get to Cern for the 11am English Tour. Remember our Sims are not working so we can't look anything up. John has the City Mapper App downloaded, so this should work. We have to get a bus from outside the hotel to the Gare Cornavin (Central Station), then get a Tram straight to Cern - it couldn't be easier. The bus trip is easy and short, now we need to search for the 18 - not that easy. There are so many Trams, Trains, Buses that leave from the Central Station - anyway a couple of Laps of the Station and we find the 18, but now we are not going to make it for the 11am tour. As it turns out the Tours cannot be booked online and are limited to 40 people, the line opens up 2 hours prior. When we got there the 11am was sold out and so was the 12pm. So we didnt do the tour, which I think was a happy accident because the museum was fab.

You walk through this tunnel and get the start of the Universe - see photos below.

I mean it seems unreal - the scale of these events. Then you go through sections of what they do. At CERN, they probe the fundamental structure of the particles that make up everything around us. They do so using the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments. For example here is a video of the microscope technology that they use.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It first started up on 10 September 2008, and remains the latest addition to CERN’s accelerator complex. The LHC consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way. Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. The beams travel in opposite directions in separate beam pipes – two tubes kept at ultrahigh vacuum. They are guided around the accelerator ring by a strong magnetic field maintained by superconducting electromagnets. The electromagnets are built from coils of special electric cable that operates in a superconducting state, efficiently conducting electricity without resistance or loss of energy. This requires chilling the magnets to -271.3°C – a temperature colder than outer space. For this reason, much of the accelerator is connected to a distribution system of liquid helium, which cools the magnets, as well as to other supply services.

There is more and I promise it is worth it...

Thousands of magnets of different varieties and sizes are used to direct the beams around the accelerator. These include 1232 dipole magnets 15 metres in length which bend the beams, and 392 quadrupole magnets, each 5–7 metres long, which focus the beams. Just prior to collision, another type of magnet is used to "squeeze" the particles closer together to increase the chances of collisions. The particles are so tiny that the task of making them collide is akin to firing two needles 10 kilometres apart with such precision that they meet halfway.

You need to know this before I give the simplified version, they get particles to travel around a beam 11,000 times per second - the beam is 27km long. They get the particles to collide and register various atoms by attracting them and the missing ones are the ones they are working on. Just mind blowing...

Okay that is the brainiac stuff done, now for the sight seeing. So back to central station for a wander around the old town. Oh dear... We need to sort out Sims, so we buy 2 x sims (data only) at a ridiculous price of CHF30 each for the 2 week stay. That is about GBP28 and our sims that should be working cost GBP15 for the month and are already paid for. Grrrr. Anyway the lovely man sorts us out, everyone we have met speaks beautiful english - so language has not been a barrier at all - YET...

Now we need to find the tram to the Old Town, well I think we walked around the station about 2 times before finding the stop that we needed - seriously John and I are excellent navigators and we were walking past the stop but missing it as we were 10 m to the right of it. the hassle was worth it as the Old Town was charming, some photos below.

I had seen this photo of an umbrella street that looked fab, it is in Carouge which was about a 15 min walk from the old town. Carouge is called the Greenwich of Geneva, so worth a spy. Off we walk, I have to say it was superb (said with french accent and a few spits at the end - soupperrrr!). This is what we were looking for...

And this is what we found...

It once was there, but now there are flags. We missed the restaurants by a minute or so - so had Crepes in the park - cooked by a charming gentleman. Everyone loves the Aussies! Hee hee.

Patek Phillipe Museum opens at 2pm and the MAMOC (Museum of Contemporary Art opens at 5pm) - so we make our way there. This is pretty uneventful as we are now experts at the "Jeneff" tram system. I have to be honest - John is an expert - I think I would have gone in the opposite direction a few times. The museum is apparently a must see - John absolutely loved it, oh my goodness he spent ages looking at the fine art on snuff boxes and the like. They were beautiful and it is quite extraordinary to read about the evolution of the watch and challenges they faced as the fashions changed and they went from pocket watches and pendants to wrist watches and automatic movements. Sometimes we go about our lives taking things for granted. But hundreds of years ago two guys partnered up and revolutionised watches. You are not allowed to take photos, so I have stolen some for you to see.

Imagine 3 floors of lush Axminster carpet, classical music, crystal clear cabinets with each piece of jewellery lit with its own mirror and display setting. Then seeing and reading about these timepieces below.

Now off to MAMOC, which is just across the road! Except, we couldn't get that right either and thought that the entrance was the entrance where they deliver the art - so walked around the entire block - yet again! MAMOC was a bit of a disappointment to us both - we thought after the exhibition that the Swiss should stick to watchmaking. Some of the highlights are below.

Back to the hotel for a shower and change and back out to the Old Town for a couple of sups! Geneva is beautiful at night and the weather has been amazing. A few photos of our stroll back and night out.

The end.