Trip Entries
We landed in Geneva after a grueling 13 hours flight time and an 11 hours layover. We landed on a public holiday in Switzerland. Public holiday meant reduced staff at the airport and an insane queue at the passport control office.
First Train Ride
The train to grab for our hotel was available right from the airport. Our first stay in Switzerland Geneva was at VisionApartments Geneva. It’s a super cheap apartment hotel located just off the Gare Cornavin which is Geneva’s main train station. We strategically choose to stay at places which are close to train stations since we were using the Swiss Travel Pass during our whole stay in Switzerland which allowed for 8 days of unlimited travel by trains, trams, buses and ferries.
After getting off at Gare Cornavin, we accidentally went to the wrong VisionApartment (there’s two just near each other). VisionApartment provided me with a passcode to use to enter the lobby and our rooms. After trying unsuccessfully to enter the premises, we clocked that we were at the wrong place.
Eventually, we set off in the right direction and reach the proper VisionApartments we were meant to stay in 😅. Once we got there, we just slumped on our beds super tired. While we planned to explore the surroundings, we decided to all take a shower and rest for a few hours before we hit the road again.
A Walk Down the Streets of Geneva
Once we were rested, my parents, Dana and I decided to walk around the streets to get used a bit to our new surroundings. Our primary focus: find some place to have dinner.
We were pretty much aware that pricing of food and basically everything else in Switzerland was going to be incredibly expensive compared to Mauritius.
We went ahead and checked in on a McDonald’s first thing as we wanted something quick and familiar. To our surprise, a McChicken meal was 3x more expensive there than in Mauritius.
We backed out of there and decided to find something cheaper to eat. We eventually settled on a small shawarma place here we each grabbed a shawarma wrap, a soft drink and some salad to eat. It’s was decent but nothing too mind blowing.
Finding Coop & Migros
While we were planning our trip to Switzerland, one of the advice we saw all over the internet was to buy food from grocery stores, especially Coop and Migros, where it’s more sustainable to eat on our budget.
To our pleasant surprise, when walking back from our dinner, we found out there was a Coop supermarket just 2 clicks aways from our hotel and a Migros (with a much larger variety of food) in Gare Cornavin.
This was going to be our go-to place for eating for the next two nights in Geneva. We headed back to our hotel rooms, ready to tackle day 2.