Circus minimus

Nyon may be a small town but we get a little of everything one needs to survive life in Europe. There is a castle to protect us from any pirates that might cross the lake, there is a cinema, restaurants, supermarkets, an American food shop where you can also buy any ingredient from Latin American you might ever need, a train station, Roman ruins, a handful of museums, a port where you can catch a ferry to France, live theater performances, two beaches and an outdoor pool, a yacht club where we learn to sail, tennis club where we learn tennis, music conservatory, and the usual bunch of butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. It ain't Paris but it's not bad.

In the summer, when you can't go skiing anymore, there are also a number of things to make the time pass while you wait for the first flakes to fall again. There are film festivals like the one that just finished, there are wine festivals and antique markets, there are music festivals, and of course, there's the circus! We missed the big Knee circus last year so there was no way we we going to let the Nock circus get away! There it was, just outside our window.

We watched the tent go up on the Place de Perdtemps and waited for Saturday to arrive. There were clowns and trapeze artists flying through the air, there were animal tamers and jugglers and acrobats and magicians that cut ladies in half. There was popcorn (sold by the artists during the intermission - circus life must be tough) and that animal smell that tells you it's the real thing. Raphaël even enjoyed his first pony ride. It wasn't exactly Ringling Brothers but, like Nyon, it had everything we needed.

You had to be there but there's a few snaps here: bread and circus

How lucky is papa? Papa's little schoolgirl