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#borderwalk

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JulietJFall

This stretch of our long ongoing border walk saw us traipsing along paths, mostly on the Swiss side, and sometimes crossing muddy fields, digging in brambles looking for border stones and wandering in unexpected stretches of mossy woods as we traced our way along the 🇨🇭🇫🇷border. This was an old section of the border of what was the Mandement de Jussy, belonging to the city of Geneva before the canton was made into one contiguous unit in 1815. #BorderWalk #geography #borders #frontières #mosstodon

Borderstone 159, showing the sinuous line that indicates that the border follows the path of the stream, creating a finger of Switzerland jutting into France
Borderstone 154 seen in close up from above, with sinuous border line and the author’s hand resting on it.
Low sun on the horizon illuminating moss growing on trees
The borderline follows the brook, with sunny moss growing on fallen logs
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JulietJFall

My, my, guess what we’ve been doing today for a blissfully sunny & warm Boxing Day? Unseasonably warm, but just perfect for hopping across and along the 🇨🇭🇫🇷 border, this time near Jussy. Four hours to walk from border stones 120 to 155, and back to the starting point, with two extra bonus old ones incongruously moved from elsewhere & reused rather oddly to mark the entrance to a property. #BorderWalk #borders #geography

Border stone number 120 by a road, with the Voirons mountains in the background. Large G for Geneva on one side, with the borderline marked on the top of the stone.
Border stone 132 in a field
Border stone 137, sawn down to ground level to allow the road to be widened. Field next to it, Jura mountains on the horizon, capped in snow. Sunshine.
Border stone 147 by a brook the marks the border, low undergrowth. Sunshine. Moss covering the stone that is lit up by the sun.
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JulietJFall

Term-time is ended, the archives are closed, and we are back outside celebrating the beginning of the holidays by walking! Walking the wiggly borderlines along the Foron river, where the border is unusually not in the middle of the stream but along the right (Swiss) bank. France has full rights over the water. Interestingly, 🇨🇭and 🇫🇷 haven’t formally agreed on the exact location of the border here and discussions are ongoing. #Borderwalk #geography #borders #frontières #visualMethods

Map screenshot showing Villette and the border along the Foron.
Birderstone 99 on one side of a bridge, with a wiggly line on top indicating that the river follows the stream.
Information sign about the practical effects of the border on local farmers
French sign saying “Service Fiscal attention passage interdit” and assorted barriers stopping vehicular passage, but open to pedestrians
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JulietJFall

We wandered on along a charming path in the evening sun, enjoying the usual mix of contrasting landscapes on either side of the line: small villas on the Swiss side & rather charmless apartment blocks in France. I love spotting the immediately-recognizable former border posts, often now converted, built in the 1920s & mostly designed by Marc Camoletti: the architect who built the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire. #localHistory #architecture #borders #frontières #borderWalk #douane #visualEthnography

The author smiling next to borderstone 100 on another pedestrian bridge
A big G for Geneva on borderstone 100, on the Foron
Former border post architecture, now converted to a private house.
Borderstone 101 in a thick mess of brambles and trees, close to the river
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JulietJFall

It’s surprising to me how many border stones are carved erroneously. It’s almost embarrassing — but perfectly delightful too! — how much time and money must have been invested to lay this one with an S (for 🇫🇷 Savoie) carved backwards (🇨🇭was G for Geneva on that one). Or maybe it was done on purpose as a subtle insult?
(One advantage of my mini-border-crossing adventures is that I get to visit French boulangeries. For research purposes, obviously.)
#BorderWalk #borders #visualMethods #geography

Border stone number 61 with a large S on the side carved in mirror image. A background of brambles.
The other side of the same border stone, with a large G carved in it.
A field, blue sky and the silhouette of the Salève mountain, with a flock of pigeons in the sky. They must have been picking over the freshly-harvested wheat field. The back of the field is actually the border.
The author’s bike on a messy street dug up by roadworks, but the photo is taken sitting on a pleasant wooden table in front of a boulangerie in France, with two baguettes steaming hot peeking out of a shopping bag.
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JulietJFall

Back to border-hopping after a long summer of heat and travel further afield. Yay for restarting mini-adventures close by, hopping back and forth in time with many archival photos stored on my phone! We haven’t walked all the way round the Canton of Geneva yet: endless little treasures to find, and new places to explore. #borderWalk #walkingMethodologies #geneve #swissBorder #FrenchBorder #geography #history

A border stone in a harvested field, overlooking the Signal de Bernex in Switzerland. The stone is marked with a big F on one side, and the year 1996 on another. The earth is dry after a terrific drought and heat.
A sign banning dogs from a square, across the border in France.
A sepia photo of the Swiss border post house, with old-style cars in front.
The same building as the previous photo, today. The building has been extended on both ends. An ugly covered portico covers the road, providing cover for the Swiss border guards. The photo is taken from the French side.
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