She blinded me with science

Today we popped over to Geneva to check out CERN and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC to the scientists). We could only get into the museum as they weren't doing any tours of the LHC, but that was OK.  We got to see what it does and how it works.  Basically you squirt Hydrogen into the machine, it swirls it about a bit to take away the electrons and then it spits the protons out and they whizz around the 27 km track at the speed of light, bang into each other and then you have a look at what comes out the end. Pretty mind blowing really.  I got a t shirt as a souvenir.  The 27 k is in a big circle underground.  It is 50-175 m down and the protons are propelled by magnets that are supercooled.  We were told that it is basically a giant freezer.

Ths shows the 27 km loop of the LHC as it goes under Switzerland and France

After that, we popped in to France for lunch.  As you do.  I had a Mac Papa as illustrated below.  It was nice.

And here is the border to France.

The drive to Geneva is about two hours along the motorway and our chauffeur was barrelling along at 130k.  Not sure what the speed limit actually is but we got there and back safely.  The first half of the journey is mainly tunnels which I found a bit strange but if there is a big mountain in your way I guess that is the only way through.  We had some snow this morning so there was a lot of snow about too.  It was very pretty hanging off the trees and on the pathways.

On the way back we drove around lake Geneva.  It is very pretty and some pretty nice real estate on the edge of the lake, not that we could see much of it through the high fences and hedges.

Tonight we are going to be treated to fondue and a traditional Swiss dessert.  Not sure what it is but I'm sure it will be lovely.