A PIECE OF SWITZERLAND AT GENEVA AIRPORT

My favorite things about the Geneva Airport was without a doubt the toy store and the alps outside the metal net covered windows. And no, "Sound of Music" does not take place in the Swiss Alps, but around the town of Salzburg in Austria.

In the toystore, they had toys I had never seen before, even at FAO Schwartz (or FAO Farts as my daughter calls it) in NYC! They did not have much, but what they had was really swell.

Actually so great it is not only called "Kids Paradise", it was a kids paradise. Here you could buy a combined Lincon log styled wood components called Xyloba that one can build into a large castle.

The amazing thing was that one could create a song by letting a little metal ball roll through the grooves of the wooden pieces, and for each time it went from one piece to the other it would hit a tone on a xylophone looking key. By creating the right connections and adding the note keys, one could play a song. Now this is what I want my kids to spend their time doing instead of becoming vegetables in front of the TV!

Then of course there was all the stores with things that the Swiss are know for, such as Watches, Chocolate, Triangles, Caviar, luxury items and such.

The artwork displayed here and there is pretty cheesy, but at least the above works really well if you are on the rolling walkway passing by the above images, as if they were flickers, out of the old movie it is taken from.

There are live plants sporadically spread out here and there, and if you squint your eyes just right, you can see out of the windows and overlook Mont Blanc as the scenic backdrop to the airplanes taking off and landing.

There is a symbolic Smoking Cabin, where smokers meet and discuss how silly it is that they shall smoke in a place, that not in any way has any purpose in protecting non smokers from the smoke. Right next to it, there is a couple of internet connections, but they are not free.

It is strange to think that people choose to go into the above Smoking Cabins that can be found in Kastrup, in Copenhagen's airport. Not only are the smoking booths in Geneva's airport great from a smokers perspecive, the stop one makes with Swiss Airlines on your way to or from for example New York, is more pleasant than most trans-antlantic stops. And Swiss Airlines feels so pleasantly safe. Kind of like buying a Volvo from Sweden....and Sweden is also a neutral country. As if.
For more attractions around the Geneva Airport