Parc Bertrand
Bioparc
Escalade
Museum d’Histoire Naturelle
Fontenette Piscine
End of School year festival in Parc Bastions
Ice skating in Parc Bastions
Spring festival
The Lac (paddle boating/kayaking, swimming next to the Jet d’Eau and Boat cruises)
The Madeline Carousel
Old Town
Carouge
Caves Ouverte
Terroir Festival and Pere Jacob Brewery
Vitam Parc
Christmas Markets
Thanks to M’s expert trip planning and driving skills we have had the chance to explore quite a bit during our posting. Traveling with three kids is sometimes complicated but we quickly figured things out and hopefully the Tiny Humans will have fond memories of some pretty incredible Family Road Trips.
Our last road trip of the year was to Lyon, 90 minutes or so from Geneva and a city we had on our must visit list for awhile.
The St. Lucian Lad came with us for the trip, which I find lowers my stress level on day trips because I am not worried about him home alone desperate to go out for a walk. As long as the weather cooperates and we can find underground parking, he is very content to nap in the car while we visit museums etc.
First stop was the Lyon zoo (surprisingly mostly dog friendly) located within a huge park in the middle of the city.
While Lyon is known for its fine dining we know the limits of our Tiny Humans and conscious of time given it was just a day trip, we found a little burger chain King Marcel. While not fine dining, the burgers were adequately fancy and we were back out exploring the old part of the city. Shopping for Tiny Humans 1&2, pigeon chasing for Tiny Human 3 and a cathedral for the adults.
Next up the Museum of Confluence, Lyon’s Natural History Museum. Tiny Human 3 was not a fan of wandering through the museum on his own steam but did enjoy the birds and the girls are in their element wandering through museums like this.
After a quick pit stop for me check out a kitchen store I had been eyeing we headed out of town. Lesson learned from previous trips, we stopped for dinner at a brewpub for a brewery we like rather than trying to stop somewhere on the way home.
We arrived in before 23h but a lot of driving for M and we barely scratched the surface of the city so we will have to find time for a return visit soon.
Fun fact up until this past weekend I don’t think Tiny Human #3 had ever seen a cow in real life. We crossed that off his bucket list on Saturday when we took a short hike around the top of Mont Salève a mountain in the French pre alps conveniently located about a 30 minute drive from our house. The Salève is one of the dominating views from our street when I am out walking the dog. In fact, according to wiki the mountain is known as the “balcony of Geneva.”
We parked in the parking lot next to a cell phone tower and restaurant (apres-hike beverages are critical to happy ladies). There are a variety of options for hiking around the top of the mountain. M plotted out about an hour long (including cow watching time) loop right around the top of the mountain but if we’d had more time we could have explored a bit of the side of the mountain. Our route took us through fields with delightful French bovine happily eating grass on their side of the wire fence, their bells ringing in the cool mountain breeze. It was a Tiny Human #1 put it, a living cheese commercial. While we probably should have chosen better footwear, it was a good practice hike for longer hikes we are hoping to do this summer.
The ear popping as we drove up to the top should have been a good signal that we were quite high up but the cool breeze still took the Tiny Humans by surprise (note to self, pack wind shells in the Mommy Bag) none the less they scampered over the rocky trail in search of cows with the promise of a jus d’orange et un sirop grenadine at the end of the trail.
Inside the Mommy Bag 