"The world is divided into five parts," declared Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna in 1815: "Europe, Asia, America, Africa .. . and Geneva". And Geneva, that lovely Swiss city, is now as much as ever a centre of human endeavour, with the European Office of the United Nations and a score, at least, of major international bodies of the kind. Its beauty is enhanced by that most famous of fountains, the Jet d'Eau, which for much of the year sends up a powerful 140-metre column of water which, according to wind or lack of it, falls thinly and widespread like a screen of beauty or in a dignified, sparkling column. Ideal holiday place, for all around the lake (Lac Leman) are delightful villages with restaurants at the very water's edge. Even in October it was possible to have your lunch and feed the ducks, coots and swans with titbits from the table. More of a novelty was to tour the vineyards of the northern slopes of the lake in the canton of Vaud, some with grapes already harvested, others still waiting. And of all the images that remain with you, are those of fortified houses of a long-ago age which are still inhabited. The tower end still has windows or apertures set about two feet deep into the stone, with its iron bars against intruders. Now it has glass behind them. The aperture is not more than two feet high and maybe one foot wide. The rest is an ordinary lived-in house, but of the period. At ;the other end is a similar tower.
A notice outside a restaurant bears in large black letters a surely non-local name: Malakoff. It is not the name of the restaurant itself. And you sit on the terrace in the bland sunshine to learn that the word comes from the time when Swiss soldiers fought widely in Europe. In this case some local men from the canton were serving in the French Army during the Crimean war. The troops of General Pelissier were stopped in front of Sebastopol, which was defended by the heavy artillery of Fort Malakoff. When the local men of Vaud came home, they used to meet regularly and with their drinks would eat a cheese fritter - not a sausage-shaped object, in this case, but a fine, rounded delicacy, the size of a breadroll of today, crisp on the outside and runny with hot cheese inside. And the old soldiers, in honour of their former chief, called them Malakoff. The restaurant is at Vinzel on the Route du Vignoble and is called "Au Coeur de la Cote". One makes a starter. Some people take three as a main course. Then back to Geneva.