switzerland, part i | one in geneva.

about the days this winter we spent backpacking across switzerland:

we landed in geneva on the bright morning of our first baby's first birthday, and lived that ever holy day meandering the cobbled streets of the old town, feasting on the first of uncountable pots of vacherin fondue, and blowing out a single candle together atop our hotel bed, our little prince pawing fluffy pillows and frosted cake, the lake beyond the window the very shape of a crescent moon. 

we adored geneva. we swooned over every last french gothic block. this feels especially important to say, and with gusto, because spontaneously spotting roundtrip tickets between new york and geneva for three hundred dollars (!) shifted train trip across the swiss alps from a tenderly held dream to days we climbed inside. so while we spent weeks considering and mapping the spirit of this journey, the bones were settled without question or debate. 

and what luck! for geneva is everything we love about the cities of europe (grand and sweeping avenues, corner boulangeries, thick café crèmes, tidy public transport, time's passage marked by singsong church bells), and geneva is so very much herself (crêperies, chocolatiers, sardinian architecture, flower shops, antiquity shops, watchmakers at work, one sweet cottage café, a too-expensive oil painting of chillon castle from 1905, swans gliding across the lake like ballerinas atop a music box).  

it was a pair of days lived in utter whimsy, and with pockets rounded with chocolates, we boarded a red train in search of snow.