CHAPLIN’S WORLD TUESDAY 4TH JUNE - INTERLAKEN TO GENEVA

Chaplin’s World is a museum dedicated entirely to the life of Charlie Chaplin, constructed in the grounds of his former residence and including the house in which he once lived which has rooms spectacularly reconstructed so personally that it felt as if we were intruding at times.  It’s an unmissable treat, and it turned out to be a perfect setting to farewell the other four until fate, birthdays or simple wanderlust reunite us.

Geneva Airport on the other hand could easily be missed.

We have visited dozens of airports in an equal number of countries and neither of us can think of a time when we had any difficulty in navigating the vagaries of check-in, immigration, customs and so forth,  but we had this nagging feeling about tomorrow and decided to do a preview tour.

We have not yet discovered what the big sign which says “Terminal 1 - EasyJet” actually means, but it was pretty clear when entering what looked something like an abandoned office building, that our flight was not going to be leaving from there.

So we progressed to Terminal 2, a progression which may have been smoother had there been any actual signage giving the merest hint of where that might be.  

After finally discovering an array of departure counters, disconcertingly none of which were marked “EasyJet”, we enquired at the “Geneva Airport Assistance” office, where a nice man declared “Oh you need to go to the French Side” with a wave of his hand and a nod towards the East.    This was all well and good, but our documents warned in no uncertain terms that we must drop our baggage before going through security, and the man on duty directed us to the EasyJet counter at the opposite (very far) end of the terminal.

Miss Easy jet was friendly in a budget airline kind of way, and told us that no, we really did have to go to the “French Side”.   Puzzled, we stopped by a SwissAir counter who told us we’d have to drop our bags in the “French Side” then check in upstairs.   While returning from upstairs on the “FrenchSide” which turned out to be an array of public conveniences, a sweet young security guard seeing our plight, directed us downstairs to the “FrenchSide” where she assured us a bag drop off would appear by magic about three hours before the flight.

To make sure, we popped down to where we thought all this might happen, and chancing upon another pair of security people, once again shared our life stories.   “Oh, said the senior of the two.  The system has changed today - just come in to the “FrenchSide” in the morning and if they have told everybody all will be like a Swiss Clock.

They really should charge admission!