by Diccon Bewes
The lakefront Pont du Mont-Blanc was only a few months old
when Miss Jemima visited Geneva
With the help of the museum guide, Madame Hexel (who seemingly knows everything about Geneva), we locate one particular building in the model: the Hotel de la Couronne, where Miss Jemima stayed, a fairly imposing affair on the lakefront. I can’t resist walking back that way to our own hotel so we can see what now stands on that site, rather aptly across the road from the Jardin Anglais, which itself dates from 1854 (although the famous floral clock didn’t start ticking until 101 years later). The building is still there and still looks the part, with iron balconies and chunky pediments, but glittering trinkets now fill the windows and the door is opened for us as we enter. Miss Jemima’s hotel succumbed to the same fate as many posh buildings in Geneva – it became an exclusive watch shop, the kind that has countless Swiss timepieces with the four-figure price tags discreetly hidden. While the hotel came and went just like its guests, plenty more were built. Geneva has over 10,000 hotel beds, including the hundreds in Switzerland’s biggest hotel, the Starling, with its 496 rooms.
Hotel de la Couronne, Geneva: Miss Jemima’s bed for the night and “Mr Cook’s principal house in Switzerland”
Given that we can’t sleep in a watch shop, we’ve been staying in a hotel that from the name alone is the epitome of Swissness: the Edelweiss. From the outside it could be any other modern building, but stepping inside is like going through the looking glass. As the hotel’s website puts it: “Discover the Alps in the heart of Geneva. Come to the Hotel Edelweiss and delight in the warmth of an authentic Swiss chalet.” It’s touristy but tasteful, with acres of bare wood in every room, stencilled flowers on the bedheads, log fires, and red-and-white checks in the fondue restaurant. The only thing missing is some yodelling, but apparently that makes a live appearance every evening – it is Disney Switzerland. Tourism today isn’t always about authenticity, but it is always about making money. I blame Thomas Cook. It’s his fault I’ve been sleeping in a fake chalet, avoiding the restaurant for fear of being yodelled at and wondering how long the smell of cooked cheese lingers in the air. It’s time to go.
Leaving Geneva is not as easy as it looks – if you’re heading south to the Alps, that is. It’s all a matter of finding the right train station. The obvious place to start is the main one, Gare Cornavin (sadly no longer the original building, which burnt down in 1909), which has both Swiss and French platforms. Since Switzerland signed up to the Schengen agreement in 2004 for border-free travel, there is little difference except for destinations. There is no passport control, as we realised on arrival from Paris, and no customs. However, having French platforms does not mean that all French trains from Geneva start here; that would be too Swiss in its logical simplicity. It’s perfect if you want to go to Lyon, Paris or even Barcelona, but we soon discover that Chamonix is not included. Actually nowhere in Savoy is on the departure board, possibly in revenge for the Escalade. For those destinations you must take the tram to Gare Eaux-Vives on the other side of town, and on the other side of the tracks in terms of appearance.
Whereas Cornavin is an impressive stone edifice that seems to be in a state of constant improvement, Eaux-Vives looks like it was last used in about 1947. Its half-timbered façade is covered in graffiti and peeling paint, windows boarded up and ticket office closed. More Eaux-Mortes than Eaux-Vives, and rather like the set for a film noir featuring an abandoned railway station and two unsuspecting tourists. To make matters even weirder, the only other people on the platform are seven Swiss border police, all looking down the tracks for the train. It must be full of football hooligans or drug dealers to warrant such an official welcome.
The two-carriage train duly arrives, on time, prompting the police to edge forward, but there are no rampaging hordes, no dodgy characters, in fact no excitement at all. Only six people get off and none of them is stopped, so the officers wander away, leaving us none the wiser. Perhaps it was an office outing. They do at least smile and nod as they pass us. Friendly but superfluous, which is probably many visitors’ view of Swiss police in general.
We have the train to ourselves as we trundle through the suburban sprawl of Geneva, a continuous procession of housing estates, allotments and factories. It’s a bit like being on a giant tram, albeit one with curtains at the windows: close enough to buildings to be able to see fleetingly into people’s flats, but abnormally high off the ground. Car parks host a mix of Swiss and French number plates, so it’s never clear where and when we cross the border, but it can’t be that far from the station. Geneva is one of the smallest Swiss cantons – Voltaire, a local resident, memorably said, “When I shake my wig, I powder the whole republic” – and is almost entirely surrounded by France; its sole internal Swiss border, with Canton Vaud, is only 4.5km long. A change of trains in Annemasse, most definitely in France, and we set off to the Alps, following the Arve upstream towards Mont Blanc.
It’s only later I discover that Eaux-Vives station closed down not long after we visited, although there’s no connection between the two events. We were there in the twilight of its life, our clattering train a part of its death rattle. It is due to be revived in 2016 in a redevelopment scheme that includes a new train line connecting Annemasse directly with Gare Cornavin. Well, it’s not exactly new, as the line was first proposed in 1881, approved in a referendum of 1884 and ratified in 1912. That’s slow even for Swiss bureaucracy, but more than 100 years later it looks like it will finally happen. In the meantime, the train journey to Chamonix has become substantially more convoluted and time consuming. Most people prefer to go by road, which is exactly what the Junior United Alpine Club had to do.
This is a route that has barely changed in centuries. Nature did all the hard work, with the Arve cutting a valley from the foot of Mont Blanc down to the shores of Lake Geneva. Today’s motorway and railway merely follow in the footsteps and carriage ruts of travellers past. The Cook group, reduced to 30 people in three separate parties, covered the 52 miles by diligence, a horse-drawn stage-coach that held up to 18 people and was the forerunner of the public bus system. Cook’s Tourist’s Handbook described it as a “strange machine. Imagine a covered cart, a carriage, an omnibus, a hansom cab, an open fly, a coach, and a dickey, all jammed up together and drawn by six stout horses, with jingling bells.” It was the only option other than walking or riding, but it was not particularly comfortable. Forget sea-sickness, this was carriage-sickness from all that swaying around, bumping over mountain roads and enduring the smells emerging from your fellow passengers and their food.
A diligence: a convenient mode of transport, if not too comfortable, especially for those sitting outside
The carriages couldn’t always cope with the hills, as Miss Jemima writes: “soon we come to steep ascents, where we alight to walk and have additional mules yoked to the carriages”. However, there was no shortage of diligences or mules on this route – in The Excursionist, Thomas Cook reports that “by a little pre-arrangement, from sixty to one hundred passengers may be provided for in a day by diligence and post conveyances, and of mules any number may be had up to 200”. The logistics of transporting 100 customers in a fleet of carriages seem mind-boggling. Travel in our time has become much more individual: we might be in a train or plane with countless others, but we’re not actually travelling with them.
The route along the river may not have changed, but the time it takes certainly has. Our train trip, with a second change in St Gervais, feels slow at 2½ hours considering the short distance involved, but that’s super-speedy compared to 11 hours by coach, with one change in St Martin. Murray gives us a clear idea of the speed – “from St Martin to Chamouni [sic] 5 hrs. Pedestrians will find it as pleasant to walk, and will traverse that distance as fast as the chars, ie in about 4 to 5 hours” – and comfort – “the roads to Chamouni are practicable only for light and narrow chars; in some places they are very steep, rough and stony”. Eleven hours of bone-
shaking torture are possibly why Napoleon III ordered a new road to be built to Chamonix. Its completion in 1866 reduced journey times by a third and doubtlessly increased comfort levels by far more. Train travellers had to wait much longer; the railway didn’t reach Chamonix until 1901.
Whatever the mode of transport, it’s a pleasant enough journey, not the most spectacular but offering a taste of things to come. At first the valley is broad and shallow, its river banks dotted with light industry and modern houses: a cheese factory here, a vast campsite there, inflatable pools adorning many gardens and the first chalets shyly appearing. Going round the bend at Cluses everything changes, with both the valley sides and the house roofs becoming ever steeper. Main road, motorway, river and railway must all squeeze through the same narrow band, criss-crossing over and under each other like an unruly four-stranded French plait. The Autoroute Blanche balances on massive concrete stilts, only to be down at ground level a bit further on, while the train steadily climbs until it runs high above the milky river. It has to if it is to reach Chamonix, 660m higher than Geneva.
“Every roll of the carriage wheel brought us in sight of a new view, or an old one in a new aspect”, noted Miss Jemima. The same is true from a train carriage, except that it’s not exactly the best weather for scenic trips. Clouds shroud every cliff and mountain top, so low that in places they seem to reach down and stroke the roof of our train. Sadly, that means we miss “one of the noblest views in the Alps”, that of Mont Blanc from a bridge over the Arve.
The view of the Alps from St Martin was celebrated by British visitors
For us, there’s no vast white peak crowning a horizon of jagged mountains. All we see is endless grey, and reading the weather reports from 1863 only makes our day seem even duller:
“Such heat! A still, white glistening heat that strikes with reflected strength upon you from those stuccoed white-washed houses, a heat that produces silence and must send the inhabitants to sleep, for where are they?”
At least Miss Jemima and Miss Sarah stayed upright. Cook writes of “a burning sun, beneath the rays of which one or two ladies fainted”. I blame the tight corsets and heavy skirts, not a winning combination for hot weather.
Heat means thirst and whereas we have bottles of water with us, Miss Jemima had to go in search of liquid satisfaction:
“Wishing to see an interior, we enter a chalet under the pretext of thirst, but that desire vanishes when a little dirty child points to an old broken cask of turbid Arve water, in which apparently rests the only drinking vessel in the chalet, viz. the remains of an old cankered pan; of furniture there was none to bear the name, only a keg or two, a stool and a propped-up table, all denoting the extreme poverty of the peasantry.”
Undeterred by local conditions, she asks at the next chalet, where “a smart little woman smilingly hands us with a professional air a round waiter bearing two glass tumblers of sparkling water”.
By the time we deboard (I’m beginning to warm to this word) in Chamonix, the grey is thickening into black. Having missed us in Geneva, Miss Jemima’s storm is threatening to wreak its revenge on us now. That’s bad timing, as Chamonix, like many Alpine resorts, is not a great place for dismal days. Its life is anchored to outdoor activities of varying degrees of sanity, so that when you can’t even see the peaks let alone go up them, you’re reduced to sitting in cafés or walking in the rain. Hence the pedestrianised town centre is full this afternoon, with pavement diners and window shoppers out in force, at least until the rain begins falling in earnest.
The storm advances, so rather than get completely drenched we retreat to our hotel. It’s a lovely old stone building, dating from 1903, and the receptionist cheerily tells us there’s a perfect view of Mont Blanc from the balcony – never mind that it’s too grey and grim to see over the road. Still, after three days on the go it’s actually pleasant to have an enforced moment of rest. Keeping up with the Junior United Alpine Club is hard work and I’m beginning to think the Victorians were superhuman.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is just as bad, so we’ll be lucky to see anything other than cloud and rain. As for the Mer de Glace, the famous glacier that was the main draw for Victorian visitors, I fear it will not be a sea of ice but a sea of fog. Miss Jemima is little help on these matters, as their weather was good enough for the hike up the mountain, although I get the feeling she would have gone up in a blizzard. Murray is a little more forthcoming:
When cloudy weather forbids your thinking of excursions in which a distant view is the chief object, a visit to the Cascade du Dard may be made. It will well repay a visit on an “off” day.
Said Cascade is marked on our town map, seemingly not too far from the centre. So Plan A for the next day is essentially splashes of culture, dashes of window shopping, a waterfall and getting wet one way or another. Plan B is to hope for divine intervention.
Lying in bed that night, listening to the rain, I start thinking about toilets. It’s a subject that has been troubling me since we left England. What did Miss Jemima & Co. do when they needed the loo? We have the comparative luxury of being able to go while on the go, be that on a train or in a city. For Victorian travellers such conveniences were a relatively new idea, even in Britain. In 1851 George Jennings built the first public flushing toilets for the Great Exhibition inside the Crystal Palace, charging customers a penny to use them. Even today, some people still use “spend a penny” as a polite euphemism for doing the necessary. The first municipal toilets followed in 1855 in London, which along with loos in private houses and new sewers helped improve the crappy conditions in the ever-growing cities. Given what Miss Jemima thought of Dieppe’s streets, I fear the Continent was not so advanced in the matter of public toilets.
The same was indeed true of loos in hotels, which rarely had private bathrooms, with most having shared facilities on each floor. If they were very lucky, guests might have had the chance to use a new American invention, toilet paper, which first appeared in 1857. Here’s Murray on the subject of Swiss hotels:
In many instances, even in first-class inns, the houses are deficient in proper drainage and ventilation, and the passages and staircases are unwholesome and offensive from bad smells. Care should be taken to impress on the landlords how disgusting and intolerable to English ideas such a nuisance is.
He even goes so far as to report on individual inns along the touring routes. For example in Arth, near Lake Zug, he lists the “Schwarzer Adler (Black Eagle), good but bad smells”. Not exactly a glowing recommendation.
The aptly named book The Smell of the Continent takes an entertaining look at British travel in Europe after the fall of Napoleon and devotes a whole section to matters lavatorial. It reveals that many hotels had a Room 00 or 000, which was the one communal, and therefore rather disgusting, toilet. Other hoteliers started installing water closets (or WC, a term that is still used all across Europe, particularly in Switzerland where it overcomes the language barriers) after being “impelled by the continual … complaining of their English visitors”, although they don’t sound too nice, as a travel pamphlet from 1863 made clear: “In a hotel with, say, sixty rooms it was not unusual to have only four WCs and in some cases these simply did not work or were just filthy.” Plus it gave this handy tip for couples travelling together:
Men should always inspect the toilets before allowing ladies to enter, to check for graffiti and to make sure that “moustachioed” foreigners were not using the neighbouring closets without closing the doors.
Chamber pots were still very much in use, but weren’t that portable for travelling, so quite what Miss Jemima did while on the move I have no idea. In those days train carriages were simply boxed seats on wheels, with no room for a loo; even if there had been one, you couldn’t move between carriages to reach it. So it must have been a case of cross your legs until the next stop, which luckily were frequent and long, so that water and coal could be taken on board, giving passengers time to do the opposite. And if
there were no facilities, then presumably you found the nearest bush – which was the only option when hiking in the mountains all day. For a society preoccupied with respectability and decorum, it’s a very odd state of affairs, not to mention the practicalities of it all when encased in layers of petticoats. Of course, Miss Jemima makes no mention of such things in her journal; that would have been most unseemly.
Train toilets finally arrived in the 1880s, when carriages got bigger and trains longer, though even then they were separated by class. Third-class pee was not allowed to sully a first-class loo.
Not wanting to dwell on a subject that isn’t conducive to a restful night, I contemplate instead how much Geneva has changed since Miss Jemima’s time. For one thing, time itself has changed. In the heart of the city, on a small island in the Rhone, there’s a chunky stone clock tower – the Tour de l’Ile (shown in the picture on page 45) – that used to have three clocks side by side on the front. The largest one showed Geneva time, the others Paris and Bern time, none of them the same. Geneva was five minutes behind Bern but 15 minutes ahead of Paris, which in turn was 9½ minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. By 1894 Switzerland had adopted a single time zone, Central European Time. Today the clock tower has been reduced to only one clock face and has been integrated into the private bank next door. Time and money are sometimes the same thing in Geneva.
As for the city itself, back then it was relatively small (though still the largest in Switzerland), but with a reputation far larger than one of similar size in Britain. It had recently burst out from its city walls and was growing in both size and stature. Today, Geneva remains a small city, with a population about the same as Portsmouth. Having grown up a few miles from the latter, I can say without hesitation which I prefer. Portsmouth might have the sea and HMS Victory, but it also had the Second World War and the 1950s, neither of which brought aesthetic improvements. On the other hand, I have yet to find good fish and chips in Geneva, although the heavenly macaroons are almost compensation enough.