This afternoon, we packed up the Opel and headed south for Geneva. The boys' teammate and his girlfriend invited the American crew down to their apartment for L'Escalade, an annual festival held in December celebrating Geneva's defeat of a surprise attack by the Duke of Savoy in 1602.
Genevois legend has it that sometime during the middle-of-the-night attack, a local woman grabbed a large cauldron of vegetable soup and hurled it at group of attackers trying to scale the town walls and enter the city. The heavy cauldron of boiling liquid landed on the head of one attacker and killed him. This commotion roused the sleeping townsfolk who awoke to help defend their city (in their jammies) and ultimately bring victory to Geneva.
In true Genevois style, we smashed chocolate cauldrons filled with marzipan vegetables and snacked on candies wrapped in Geneva's colors - red and yellow.
One of our many chocolate cauldrons.
Kai loved breaking his cauldron...
...and so did Harry. Thanks to Uncle Evan for helping.
Our gracious hosts, Bastien and Elodie.
Once sugared and bundled up, we hopped on the metro and headed to the center for the annual parade. Unfortunately, we arrived in town just as the sun was going down but I absolutely loved seeing the city all dressed up for Christmas. As we waited for the parade begin, we enjoyed mulled wine, hot panini and roasted chestnuts - it was perfection!
The Patchells
The Stewarts
The Heins
What a way to spend our Sunday. Thanks again to B and E for hosting this gathering and giving us a little lesson in history.
on to the next one...
The photo of the girl in the parade with the baton is Elodie's sister!!!
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