The plan was to pick up the rental car, drive to the Museum of the History of Science, and then walk along the Geneva waterfront before heading on to our hotel in Lausanne. We figured on several hours of enjoyment and cultural enrichment. The best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang agley.

While the cars aren’t too dissimilar, driving in Europe is a bit different than driving in the US. Road signage is different — street names have pretty low priority in Europe so the signs are tiny blue things affixed to a side of a building in the vicinity of an intersection. Points of interest (like hotels), as well as autobahns, other towns, and the city center are prominently marked with large arrow signs indicating their direction. They also have a lot of roundabouts, which I found took a little getting used to. Where they do have stoplight controlled intersections, the lights are small and off to the near side of the intersection. I often had trouble telling them apart from the pedestrian lights, which were also small but on the far side of the intersection. The lane markings were confusing – white separates lanes going in opposite directions, yellow separates lanes going in the same direction. Thus my first drive was pretty exciting, not even mentioning the generally cramped feel — narrow lanes, bus lanes, bike lanes — and the pedestrians crossing virtually at will. It almost like they made driving so hard you’d want to take public transportation.

Through pluck, determination, and exquisite dead reckoning skills, we found roughly where we wanted to start our exploration of Geneva. Finding a parking space, however, was much harder, and about exhausted my pluck. I did finally find a spot a bit of a distance from the museum, but at least it was a straight shot there and I was perfectly positioned to get on the autobahn later. We got out of the car in shifts because I had to park right up against a hedge, and then we started the fun part of the vacation.

First we found the botanical garden. It seems to me that in Europe the first park in town they planted a flower no local had yet heard of they named a botanical garden. So after eyeing the crowded restaurant on the property with longing, it was off to less green pastures.

We quickly found the lake front, so we walked along it, admiring the view and perspiring heavily.

LAC LEMAN (LAKE GENEVA)

We did make it to the museum, which was several rooms in a big old mansion along the lakefront without air conditioning. Let me digress a bit and mention that it was unseasonably warm in Geneva — in the mid 90’s F — so it was hot, even for this midwesterner. All over Switzerland are fountains that provide free drinking water, the only thing free we found there. Sadly, we had no cup or bottle to catch and hold the water, so we had to make do with cupped hands. Let me just say they are a poor substitute for a plastic bottle for drinking large quantities of water. So we purchased a bottle of water at the museum after a lengthy discussion in French and English as to whether or not the water in the bottle was cold. It was.

ATTRACTIVE MODEL DEMONSTRATES WATER FOUNTAIN, SWISS STYLE

Thus refreshed, upon leaving we discovered a black storm cloud and thunder, though it wasn’t actually raining on us. Some say it was the jet lag, some say the heat, others claim it was the prospect of an immanent deluge, Jimmy Carter would have blamed a general malaise, but whatever the reason, we opted to break off our exploration of Geneva hours early and barely started and instead go to the hotel in Lausanne without further sightseeing. So we went back past the public beach and a couple of topless sunbathers to the car. Then it was on to the autobahn, clearly marked by a green picnic table sign, and out of Geneva and on towards Lausanne.