Geog a Blog

Hi Geog-a-Bloggies, Today was sadly the final day of our little geography adventure, but we were still full of energy and excitement for the day ahead. The primary focus of today was on global governance, and more specifically on the United Nations. Geneva holds huge importance in the sphere of global governance, with it being the European headquarters of the United Nations in the Palais des Nations, as well as hosting many inter-governmental organisations. There are many reasons for this agglomeration of international organisations, including the political stability of Switzerland, its neutrality in international affairs, the excellent infrastructure and the low taxes. We had the opportunity to visit the UN base in Geneva, as well as receive a guided tour of the base; the visit was eye-opening and truly showed the passion behind the international institution. We got to look into a UNHCR meeting; seeing actual diplomats in their working environments was both inspiring and mot...

Hi Geog-a-Bloggies, Today was a much more relaxed day in comparison to the previous two. We started the day off with a fun journey up to see the Bosson glacier, by taking the chairlift up. This allowed us to appreciate the picturesque scenery from a different vantage point, and was an overall exciting experience. The Bosson glacier was fascinating, and very dissimilar to the Mer de Glace, with its lack of debris due to the valley not being steep sided and it being at a lower altitude. The glacier had visibly retreated greatly, revealing the huge glacial trough. The Bosson glacier has the largest altitudinal drop of all alpine glaciers in Europe and was quite impressive to see. We then had some down time and lunch in the hostel before setting off for Geneva. Upon arrival, we dropped our bags off at the hotel and began walking around the beautiful city. It was a lovely sunny day, so we sat by Lac Genève and discussed Geneva’s importance in relat...

Hi Geog-a-Bloggies, Day two was definitely a physically strenuous day, but immensely satisfying. Today we climbed to the top of the Aiguilles Rouge, in order to survey the Mont Blanc Massif. In total, we walked over 18km today up a rocky and steep incline, often with no clear path and up snowy areas, causing the occasional slip. The strong sun at the high altitude made the climb particularly difficult, but we eventually made it to the top where the Lac Blanc was situated, and celebrated with a hard-earned lunch of sandwiches we made from ingredients we had bought earlier at a local shop. Buying these ingredients proved to be much more difficult than we had originally thought, as our total amount to pay was far beyond our budget, and required us to awkwardly request for some items to be put back. After lunch and a quick break, we climbed slightly further up the snowy slope, where we sat and observed the relict glacial environment. The Aiguilles Rouge is named after the red...

Hi Geog-a-Bloggies, This is day one of the Geog a Blog trip to Chamonix and Geneva! Today we spent the day in Chanonix valley and made our way up to the Aiguilles Rouge. We went by cable car and walked down 370 steps to see the ice caves of the Mer de Glace glacier; having to walk down so many steps was shocking, considering it took just three steps in 1988. This was a really impactful visual representation of the effects of global warming. The Mer de Glace glacier is 5.5km long and 200m deep, and can be regarded as the longest and largest glacier in France, as well as the second longest in the Alps. The glacier moves at a rate of approximately 120m/annum in its upper part, and one of the most distinctive features of the Mer de Glace is its Forbes bands. Despite the glacier’s complex topography making it difficult to study glacial retreat, it is very accessible and has a long history of monitoring, making it useful in showing the sensitivity of glaciers to climatic vari...