Cranes and Tramlines

Someone once told me that Geneva is a nice city, and will be even nicer when it's finished.

It is beautiful city, with lots of photo-worthy sites: the lake, the Jet D'Eau, the mountains, the Cathedral, and plenty of old buildings and narrow streets. However, it is hard to capture what you see with the naked eye on camera, due to areas of construction with scaffolding and cranes, let alone the 50s style buildings.

Notre-Dame, Geneva. I still have no idea what it actually looks like.

 I have found myself positioning the camera at odd angles, trying to get a crane- or road works-free picture. For example, this view looking down from Route de Ferney / Avenue de France is stunning, but I've found myself angling away (as much as possible) from the road signs and the cranes:

But I have changed my thought on this of late. Instead of thinking of them as obstacles to my picture taking, I think these things are what makes Geneva. It is a city growing quickly, with a very low housing vacancy rate. That means there are loads of apartment buildings are being constructed. The train station is being renovated. The tram and bus lines run efficiently enough to allow for commuters to get to their destinations, without needing to drive.

Carouge

Geneva is very attractive, for several reasons, to international companies, and the expat community is very large. And yet, it is a small enough city that newcomers quickly feel like they have their bearings.

Tramlines looking north to the Jura mountains

The cranes have become part of the landscape, moving around or increasing/decreasing in number from time to time.

The cranes seem to have multiplied in recent months

Admittedly, the road construction does not seem to move along as quickly as it could, and you can find either the lane you're used to being closed, making for interesting (or hair-raising) driving, or that a lane is closed for months, with no apparent work being done. All these things allow us to see the changes occurring within the city, which really makes us feel more involved with our new home.