Epic border nerd egg hunt this morning along the Franco-Swiss border near Chancy (aka bribing the kids to go on another of mama’s mad border expeditions!). This is ‘borne’ number 1.5 which, confusingly, comes before 1, with wiggly line to mean ‘then the border follows the river’.
Borne 1.4 seemed to change its mind about the direction of the border in 1946 and a new line was carved. Another chocolate egg was found by our brave adventurers.
1.3, 1.2 and 1.1 were close together. Eggs were hastily hidden, then eaten.
In a confusing mathematical twist, we then reached Number 1, a monumental one usually thought of as the first. Hahaha, but we know better now (and so we ran out of eggs faster than planned...).
2, 3 then... 5! What happened to number 4? Another mathematical border mystery. How could we have missed it?
Are you getting bored of this thread yet? Would you like an egg? Shall I also start bribing my readers? There are a few more to go...
You can stay amused by playing at guessing if the S is ‘Savoie’ or ‘Suisse’. Plot twist: it can be either, depending on the age of the stone. But if you see a G on the other side, then it’s definitely Savoie. Number 8 was modified & given a new date.
Number 10 was an old one, so the S was for Savoie. Quite when climbing up onto them became a thing is unclear. But it makes for cool photos.
Another plot twist: topography made it hard to get to all of them sequentially. Smaller child sorely felt that he was being done out of the promised eggs. We found a mysterious pole. The West Pole, perhaps? It’s pretty much as far west as you can go within Switzerland 🇨🇭.
15 & 16 were shiny & new. So shiny. So glamorous. So delightfully pointless. But great as a plinth, apparently.
17 was trying to make a point about age before beauty, and was back to having S for Savoie. More chocolate egg was found & eaten. At this point, the family’s enthusiasm was flagging a little... (No? Really? Surely not? Just one more?)
Our walk ended at 17a, on a road leading into France, newly confined across the country since today. An epic🥚 hunt! As we live further than 10km from that point in Switzerland, we are not allowed to go there right now. Even for 🍫. Until border rules change. Again. 🇨🇭 🇫🇷
On the way home, we stopped off to check out the bridge in Chancy, pictured here as it was one year ago, and how it is now, open again but with blocks on standby.
If you enjoyed this border thread, and speak some French, you might enjoy this talk I gave last week for the Maison de l’Architecture on borders, security and haunted blocks. facebook.com/ma.geneve/vide…
And followed by a lunch of delicious homemade wild garlic pesto, picked freshly in the Chancy woods. A taste of Springtime.
More the following day, this time near Dardagny. Still with chocolates, obviously. On one border post, an animal had deposited its scat, marking its own territory too. #geographer #border
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