16 - Parapente or vol-au-vent? - Salève

 Sunday, March 09

After a decompressing morning, I took a little picnic lunch on a bench near the Carouge Theater.  It was very quiet and peaceful there, nothing but a few elderly habitants on upper floors periodically looking out from their open windows.  

For lunch: dried horse meat, olives, and some very stale bread.  All opposed, say "neigh".

I suppose this is a water park that could get a decent turnout in the summer season.  Strangely, I recall the ads about Carouge's projector art featuring these things but didn't see any project screen around.

The afternoon plan was to take a hike around the top of Saleve, the mountain to Geneva's southwest.  This area is particularly popular with (apparently masochistic) cyclists given steep slopes and numerous switchbacks.  In a different sense, the number of turns and winding roads on the plateau make it a paradise for bikers (les motars).  The hike here followed the northern ridge of Sàleve and there was still plenty of slope for us to contend with; but the weather was pleasant and the views were sublime. 

Getting out of the car, it was weird to see what was obviously supposed to be a ski/sled slope completely dry; but I suppose we're reaching the tail end of the season now.  Our hike started us up through the main town square of La Croissette, where a man at a booth was selling chouchou; per my friend, chouchou is a mixture of peanuts cooked in caramel and can frequently be found being hawked on the beaches of France along with beignets.   

Regardes, les Alpes!  It was pretty neat to have the trail feature the Alps on one side and a panoramic view of Geneva to the other.  We were lucky, we could make out the peak of Mont Blanc before it was swallowed up by clouds again.

Et voila, la cité de Genève.  I can see my house from here!  I don't know which one it is, but I can surely see it.

Coming up to this ledge, a couple people were waiting for the remains of a wood fire to finish smouldering; it's weird, I don't think I've ever seen such a thing in the US.  Anywho, I'm glad we drove up most of Salève, cause that would've been a looooong, steep climb.  My friend was telling me as we drove up that the first time she came here, she had to park the car halfway up cause she didn't think the underpowered vehicle could go any further 😂 If I'd been driving a manual transmission car, I too probably would have been concerned about noises coming from my 1st gear after 15 minutes of driving up.   

Here's the observatory, I can usually make out this antenna from Carrouge.  I'm not sure what it's observing; maybe France is watching for when Switzerland stops being neutral?  Oh, despite being referred to as the mountain of Geneva, Sàleve is firmly in France's Haute Savoie canton.  

When the weather is good, apparently people will go parachuting from here.  In French, the sport is called parapente but I kept getting it confused with vol-au-vent (a food dish) even though I was trying to recall the word for kite, a cerf-volant.

"La pente" is the French term for the slope, so I suppose with parapente it makes sense that you have to run like a crazy person down the slope and hurl yourself into the abyss.  It was a good day for improving my vocab.  For example, the parachuting is a one-way ticket; if you want to get several jumps in one day, you'll want to repack your parachute at the bottom at try your hand at "faire du stop" (hitch hiking). 

Last one to the bottom is a rotten egg, but the first one down's probably scrambled!

There's a telecabine that can bring one up to the top of Salève.  Per the plaques, the place was remodeled in 2021-2023: the original station ran out of funding and never finished the restaurant on the upper level.  The refurbished station features nice platforms and a panoramic restaurant over Geneva (though the floor doesn't rotate like the platform of the Space Needle's restaurant).  

One last look out over the lake and Geneva.  If you squint, you can just make out the Jet d'Eau.

We spotted several birds of prey just hanging out as we made our way back.  Sadly, their eyesight was too good for us to sneak up close on them 👀 Also, alas, the chouchou kiosk was closed when we passed back through town.

We chose a good time to turn around for the hike, given the Jura mountains to the west, darkness falls quickly in the area; and there were way too many hairpin turns to have fun driving in fading light.  For dinner, I'm finishing off my raclette (via microwave) and a light salad with ingredients from the market yesterday.