We only had a half day today. We had to be at the airport by 14:30...I think. Something like that.
This morning we tried our first Escape Game. We played the Secret Chamber and won!
If you are not familiar with Escape Games, they started as computer games (here are a bunch) and then people decided to make them physical rooms. You are locked in a room and have an hour to figure out all the puzzles in order to escape. It is not scary and if you don't figure it out, they let you leave after an hour. You aren't stuck there.
This was our first one. We decided to try it after a few of our friends suggested them to us. We had a blast and happened to learn a bit about Geneva's history at the same time. At some point I had to get Dan to focus on continuing with the puzzles we had left to figure out because he had stopped to contemplate how the mechanisms for one of the puzzles worked. It involved magnets and was pretty cool actually. So yeah, if you like puzzles, try an Escape Game - computer or real life.
After we bested the Secret Chamber we headed to the Art History Museum.
L'avenir by James Vibert.
Vibert, like the Renaissance masters, also has not seen breasts in real life.
I really liked this window.
Self portrait by Maurice Quentin de La Tour.
Also known as one of the earliest representations of "I'm with Stupid".
Mont Blanc by Pierre-Louis De la Rive.
In this painting Pierre-Louis gave a big FU to traditional pastoral landscape artists by making the mountain the focal point of the painting. He has still used the handful of cattle and farmers in the foreground, but you don't even realize they're there because the mountain is so domineering in the painting. You go Pierre-Louis. You show the world your love for this mountain by eschewing traditional painting trends.
Alexander the Great by Giulio Pippi de' Jannuzzi.
I have subtitled this one "Who farted?"
Believe it or not these are both by Monet. The Snow of Argenteuil above and The Cabin at Saint Adresse below. I was mostly shocked that there are paintings of Monet's that aren't water lilies or haystacks. I kid. But only a little.
Young girl at the fountain by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.
I am glad to see that the "bored teenage girl" facial expression hasn't changed in centuries.
Lac de Roy by Alexandre Perrier.
I liked this one, but I also wonder if this is the source of Perrier water.
Spring Landscape with Flowering Trees by Ferdinand Hodler.
Hodler is one of the most well-known Swiss painters of the 19th century.
I had never heard of him, but now you have.
We left the museum to wander off to find a geocache and then to acquire a bus to the airport.
Here are random photos along the way.
Not quite graffiti. I'm not really sure what all was going on here.
Dan on his surprisingly comfortable astro-turf lounger.
Geneva!
There is a music conservatory, a theater, and some other artsy buildings in this square....er round about area.
Bye Geneva!
There's the Jet d'Eau.
Some of those clouds are snow topped mountains in disguise.
Dang Switzerland, you pretty.
This concludes our adventure to Switzerland.
