After Hadra Trance Festival, the nearest city woth visiting was Bourges, and it was nice:

Happened to find a random cosplay, manga and video game expo:

Then there was time to visit the rest of the city:

old very narrow streets

nice little snack break

Bourges Cathedral is of course nice:

Stopped at a small natural science museum:

The next morning, before heading out, went to visit the cool and unusal path through canals, place des Frênes

So long, Bourges:

From there, it was finally time to finish the drive to Hadra Trance Festival for the next 3 days

Day 2 was the last day before going to Hadra Trance Festival, so it was meant to be a bit shorter, but in the end it was a full day because Lyon honestly has 2 days' worth of things to see. Anyway, I gave it a reasonable shot :)

subway to mid-city

firsr church

funiculaire to the 2nd much better church

Lyon has a good public transit system

Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière looks unusual from outside

and it is absolutely amazing inside

did I say how beautiful it was inside?

This area from Lyon is high up, good view of town from up there:

roman theatre just next door

nice mural

I then went back to low town and picked a movie prop museum which was excellent:

B5, I miss you!

fast and furious original NOS seat!

fifth element!

Old Lyon is known for old small narrow streets, but many can't be visited anymore:

Cute stores though:

yum

Then found Lyon Museum of Fine arts which was quite decent:

Then we back to mid town to switch to a tram to the cool looking building of Musée des Confluences:

good views from that museum

Then, it was time to leave Lyon, even if it was a bit early. Obligatory selfie:

I was supposed to go to directly to Hadra Trance Festival from there, but ended up doing a stop at Abbaye de Cluny first.

It had been 12 years since I got to visit non-Paris France. Thanks to a festival in the middle of the country, it was an excuse to see a few more bits. Due to limited time, I had to make hard choices on what to go see during only a few days when there actually so many worthwhile things to see.
In the end, I decided to make a push from Geneva to Orange, before spending the night in Lyon. It was a bit difficult because there are multiple days of cool things to see close to Orange, but due to Hadra Trance Festival dates, there wasn't enough time for that.

The trip from Geneva started a bit later than planned due to my being an idiot and dropping one of my 2 phones in the uber to the airpot to pick up the rental car. Thankfully the uber driver was a champ and was able to meet me in town, which sadly wasted over 1h, but it didn't impact the rest of the day too much.

The first stop was la cité du chocolat Valrhona which had a cool museum:

the store did not suck either

Next was the Musée Européen de l'Aviation de Chasse (clickme) by Montélimar:

but sadly I missed the Palace of Sweets and Nougat that was a few minutes away and we went to Orange, next:

Best preserved Romain Theatre in France, still used for shows

Started with a small museum across the street:

Then came time for the theatre, which thankfully closed late (19:30):

And a really nice triumph arch on the way out of town. Is it maybe the oldest one in France?

After that, a 2H drive back north to Lyon for the night.

Geneva is likely worth 2.5 days, but I had 1.5 ;) and the first one was a monday with some of the museums closed, but still got to see the highlights. To be fair, non of the museums were totally essential outside of CERN which is worth the trip to Geneva alone.

nice mountains

After dropping off luggage at hotel, went to the small geneva science history museum which was open on mondays:

cool table showing how the metric system replaced a long list of feet of different sizes

There was a nice park and botanical garden in the same area, but time was a bit short, so took an uber to the UN:

sadly you can't freely visit for security reasons

and the nice arianna museum was closed on mondays

Then took an uber back to town:

not super loving this big water jet, but whatever ;)

overpriced pens :)

and chocolate

I climbed the church tower for view:

the crypt was interesting too

another church:

The next day, the highlight was visiting CERN. I did some research on how to get one of the guided tours but the info I got was out of date, so I missed the fact that the first slot was now given at 08:30 and not 09:00. Thankfully I was able to get a later slot, so things worked out:

Then the guided tour started:

LHC was built on earlier smaller rings that got bigger over time

I still remember learning in school how this larger ring was being built, the biggest in the world, and one day would be turned on

this culminated in Dr Higgs having his boson found and confirmed to exist, what a great achievement

and the best part of the tour was to be able to observe the control room that was indeed being used for real science that day (sometimes LHC is shut down for upgrades or maintenance):

Then they had some small science show/activites that were no essential, but since I was all the way there, I figured I'd check out anyway:

Once CERN was done, there was a bit of time left to do a museum in Geneva:

Finished the trip with some Swiss Cheese Fondue:

And that was it for Geneva. I wouldn't rank it as must visit city, but it was pleasant as long as you don't make the mistake of having a car. Uber kind of worked, but took a while to get one at times. Public transport was ok for the most part.

Gouda is about 1h away from Den Haag by direct train:

The gouda museum was well made and entertaining:

the tour included a cheese tasting

Marketplace was pretty:

I didn't know that Gouda also made its own kinds of Stroopwafels (not the ones I'm used to, different taste):

store with factory tour in the back

the factory line seemed to have a fair amount of errors and wasted wafers :)

The rest of Gouda is a cute little Dutch town, like many:

After a quick visit to a museum

Train back to Den Haag:

Glad to be back, lots to see in and around Den Haag:

My favorite is probably still Escher Museum (click me):

I missed Maruitshuis and its famous paintings last time, so that got fixed:

Next, went to the fun/interesting museum, Panoram Mesdag:

And finished the day at Maduroda, the Miniature Park (clickme for more):