Geog a Blog On Tour – Day 3


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 relation to international organisations (including many agencies of the United Nations and Red Cross), as well as its image as the ‘Peace Capital’. We also briefly talked about the physical geography of the Lac Genève, and the past tsunami that occurred there in 563AD.

After this, we enjoyed some free time to explore Geneva, and purchased some very fancy looking macaroons and a tiramisu from the local McDonald’s. Once we had returned to the hotel, we had a very interesting debate on ‘Is Geography a Coherent Discipline’ which was led by Geog-a-Bloggers Maddie and Izzy. We talked about the difficulties with defining geography, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the interdisciplinary subject. We concluded that we needed to redefine the boundaries between physical and human geography, as they are separate concepts, but with overlap, which allows the discipline to be fully integrated.

Later we enjoyed dinner at a nearby restaurant, before going back to the hotel for another debate, but this time on geoengineering the climate. This debate was led by our own Geog-a-Bloggers Chloe and Katie, and we discussed the pros and cons of utilising geoengineering with combatting climate change.

We enjoyed lots of intellectual discussion today, as well as observing a new city.

Love,
The Geog a Blog Team
 
























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