In early May I attended the Geospatial World Forum conference in Geneva, Switzerland. this same conference was in Rotterdam last year, and was one of the first events I had attended for MDA in Europe. I was speaking at the event again, and expected it to be a busy show.
The view out of the window of my hotel room was surprisingly nice. I had a good view of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, across the street.
We flew into Geneva on Monday afternoon, having left Vancouver Sunday night and connecting through London. It was actually a pretty nice day when we arrived, and my co-worker Gordana and I were able to get settled into our hotel, and then had a bit of time to go out and explore the city with some of the remaining daylight.
Our hotel was situated in a pretty nice area of the city, and was easy walking distance into the old town, and down to the lake. We wandered down towards the old city, across one of the many bridges that cross the river that flows through the center of the city.
It was still early enough that we were not in a huge rush for dinner, so we had a chance to explore the narrow alleys of the old part of the city. It was pretty nice actually, and very quiet as it seemed that most of the stores and restaurants were all pretty much closed up. I guess mid week is pretty quiet in Geneva.
Crossing one of the many bridges, you can see Geneva's iconic water spout in the distance.
There were many interesting buildings in the old part of town.
We walked for a while and explored, before settling on a spot to have some dinner. The meal was good, and once the sun went down it got a bit cool. We walked back to the hotel and called it a night.
This massive old vine was pretty cool, and was completely enveloping the building it was growing over.
A small pano of the old town, from the base of the city's main church.
The next day was spent at the conference center, setting up the booth and getting ready. That took much of the day, and I've been so busy with work that I didn't really have time to do much else.
Wednesday I had a couple of meetings set-up, as well as the full day of conference events, so it was quite productive. Much like the previous event, the booth was pretty quiet while the sessions were on, then very busy on the breaks. Pretty standard stuff.
The next few days were the usual fare - conference stuff, giving my session, talking with people and it all went by in a blur. before too long it was Friday, and we were wrapping up and heading back to the airport. I was stopping in the UK on the way home to visit with Mark and Rachel in Tunbridge Wells, southeast of the city, so my first leg of the trip was pretty easy.
