Back to Paris

I arrived at the Gare de Lyon.

I had a day in Paris before flying back so I took myself to see some sights. I had not been up the Eiffel Tower back in 1982 so I did it this time. Obviously up close there is no way to include the whole tower in the picture.

The observation level.

View from the tower towards Pont de Bir-Hakeim on the Seine.

Towards the Trocadéro.

Towards Champ de Mars.

Down at street level.

Street café.

Wide boulevard.

Moulin Rouge.

Probably the interior of the Centre Pompidou.

The "piping" on the outside.

The centre features street entertainment.

More entertainers.

Street life.

Saint-Eustache in the background of this play area. This is the last shot of Paris for the trip. I probably boarded the RER to CdG airport from Les Halles.

Bern, Lucern and Zürich

From Geneva B and I travelled east to Zürich making a stop in Bern.

Another city scene.

Folk etymology says that the city is named after a bear. In any case the city has a bear pit attraction.

This might be in Lucerne, our next stopover.

The famous Kapellbrücke.

A bit of Lake of Lucerne scenery.

Zürich train station.

Zürich tram. We had dinner with Swiss friends of mine, then they accompanied me to the station where I would catch a night train to Paris. B would return to Germany.

Geneva 2

There was a conference dinner in the evening which was held on a boat cruising Lake Geneva. All the other pictures taken on the boat feature people so are personal.

The following pictures were probably taken on the final day of the conference. A former colleague of mine living in Germany, B, joined me for that last day. He came just to meet me and didn't attend the conference.

We did a walking tour of the lakeside.

There's a promenade running along the water edge.

Probably near where the path bends around the tip of the lake.

The famous water jet, emblematic of Geneva, in the distance.

The jet in the afternoon light.

CERN

The conference was hosted by CERN, a multinational European research organisation. A bus took conference attendees from the hotel to the venue. The buildings are in Switzerland but the collider ring is partly in France.

Outdoors at lunchtime. I bumped into some former colleagues.

One of the interesting structures on the grounds.

The welcome session. It's part of Internet history now.

Geneva 1

Annecy has a large lake but I don't think this picture, taken from the train, is of it since the train doesn't pass that lake. More likely this is Lac du Bourget.

Or perhaps some other small lake.

I completed customs formalities at Geneva station and hopped onto a local train to the hotel. After a rest I went to explore the city. This might be Rue de la Servette with the tram tracks.

A busker with musical glasses.

More of downtown Geneva.

Cafe culture.

Marseille

The steps down from the train station at Marseille. I put my backpack into a locker and went to explore the city. I had been here before in 1982. Marseille feels a little seedy due to being a port.

The Canebière that runs to the port.

The port itself. I always think of Alexandre Dumas and The Count of Monte Cristo whenever Marseille is mentioned.

A bit after dusk.

I settled for a couscous dinner. An Algerian friend later looked at my photo and said that doesn't look anywhere near as good as the real thing. Oh well.

The train left rather late, around midnight if I recall correctly. I have a memory of helping a person use the lockers, explaining that one had to deposit 15FF.

Paris

This was a work trip, to attend the first WWW conference, held in CERN, Geneva. However I got to see a bit of France and Switzerland. It wasn't a major trip so just enjoy the pictures. I have to apologise for the state of some of the pictures due to poor storage of the negatives.

This was a busker on the RER train coming from CdG airport.

The original plan was to take the TGV to Marseilles, transfer to a local to Aix en Provence, overnight there, then take a train to Geneva. (The Aix en Provence TGV station didn't open until 2001.)

Unfortunately when I went to the booking counter, I found that all morning services were full. C'est complet! It was unwise of me not to book ahead. Foiled again in my attempt to overnight in Aix en Provence.

So I had to change my plans. I would take the afternoon TGV to Marseille, have dinner there, then catch the night train to Geneva, passing through Annecy. In the meantime I had a few hours to kill so I went to the marché aux puces de Saint-Ouen (flea market) at the Porte de Clignancourt. It's a familiar name on metro signs as directions are named after the terminus station and Clignancourt is the northern terminus of line 4.

It's a large market, full of goods and colour.

I was obviously attracted by these large carpets.

This would be the Périphérique, the ring road of Paris, which is near the metro station.