Geneva's closed in summer!!

Don't worry, it's not so bad. We have temperature's over 30 degrees (Celcius!) almost every day, we have the Geneva Lake to refresh, we have wading pools for children in some of our parks, we have still possibilities to shop (as Coop, Migros, Manor, Globus don't close!! YEAH!). We can even go for a lunch or dinner outside of our home!!

It's just, you know... you have to know that some of your favorite shops (Thai food take-away, vegetable store, tearoom or hairdresser) might be closed for some weeks. Typically from end of July to end of August. Sometimes their announcements are quite creative, as you see...

So, yes, as today is already Aug 20th, we approaching the end of this "we're on vacation" season.

Swiss (brunch) Day in paradise!

Switzerland's National Day is 1st August. There's a lovely tradition: to brunch at one of the many farms that offer a special National Day's Brunch! It's easy to locate them as there's a special National Day's Brunch website! This particular brunch was celebrated for the 17th time in 2009. 430 farmer families welcomed around 200.000 guests!

We decided to brunch at Ferme de Merlinge, a farm that has regular brunchs on Saturday mornings throughout the year. This farm was able to accomodate 800 people on 1st August and it was fully booked!

They have a spacious beautiful garden with lots of trees. So we found a lovely place in the shadow and enjoyed various homemade bread, homemade jam, fruit from their fields like strawberries and apricots, ham and all sorts of cheese, tomatoes, salad, homemade apple juice and certainly, one of my favourite Swiss dishes: Bircher!

The weather couldn't have been better - we had over 30 degrees.

We already look forward to the next Swiss National Day's Brunch - a great idea!!