Christmas 2014: Geneva

Putting the extraordinary number of travel issues behind us, it was so good to arrive in our lovely Geneva hotel for three, cosy,  relaxing nights, despite it being bitterly cold and snowy outside! After Iceland, Norway and Sweden, Switzerland didn't seem as pricey as I'd imagined, especially when we discovered the welcoming Manor department store (You can guess what we nicknamed that, as per our travel tradition), which had a fantastic, reasonably priced restaurant on the top floor. It was packed when we went for morning coffee, lovely lunch and a delicious early dinner; it's clearly popular with the locals and tourists.

In Stockholm, we were in the city that is the home of the Noble Peace Prize and here in Geneva, we had to have a quick look at the United Nations building. Also quick was a bus ride that took us back to France from where we had just come! It's so surreal that you can walk into another country, through passport control and no doubt, do your week's shopping a lot more cheaply! The French influence on Geneva is huge but much more understandable to me than it was in Brussels, seeing as you can walk over. 

The highlight of the Geneva leg of the Christmas trip was the day in Montreux. Quite an extravagant train trip we thought at the time but worth every penny to see Tim both happy and emotional by the Freddie statue. I love the Queen studio experience too; what's remaining of the recording studios that have made so much music, built bizarrely, in a casino. It's still in a casino who have let this Queen exhibition happen here and we're just lucky to catch it during its last couple of days.

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