What's on in Nyon - shops open on a Sunday revelation

The weather on Sunday was a complete disaster! The day was a wash out, in the morning, just to get out the house I wrapped the big one and the little one up in as many layers of water proofing I could find and dragged them out the house to the boulangerie. The rain was heaving it down, bouncing off the floor, coming in sideways, and the big one just carried on telling me a story about bears chasing crocodiles. In pouring rain we wondered what we could do that would make it easy to escape the rain and entertain ourselves. Answer came there, acquarium!  A brilliant idea we thought, let's find one.

We took down our Know-it-all passport, a directory that lists businesses and activities in Geneva, Vaud and bordering France. At over 700 pages it is a weighty directory, catalogued into sections that cover everything from finding a home or a school to eating out, kids entertainment and festivals in December!  Searching through under aquariums I found an entry to the Musee du Leman in Nyon, which is described as having "Live fish in the largest aquariums in Suisse Romandie, boats, art and everything about the lac Leman."  We thought we'd give it a go, sadly the aquariums didn't live up to our expectations. They were on the small side, but the boats were fun and interesting, and kept the girls entertained for a good half hour.
I think, when we bought our ticket to enter, the chap told us that it was also valid for the Chateau de Nyon, which would probably make it pretty good value for money.  Unfortunately the weather was pretty awful and it was a little late in the afternoon for the small people, so we decided against visiting the chateau that day, we'll save it for another time. Also in Nyon is the Chateau de Prangins, the Romandie part of the Swiss national museum, a definite must see whilst we are this close. So, as a recce, I think our short trip to Nyon, a mere 25 minute shoot up the motorway from door to door was wet, but productive.
The girls got some fresh air, we all got to see fish, I got to look at different boat engines as used on the lake in its history, the big one got to play on a couple of boat simulators that are dotted around the museum, all in all, it was a successful, and low price trip that was rounded off with an afternoon snack beside the lake as the sun started to come out.
After the museum we thought we'd get a bit of a look at the town, frankly, down on the water front it's tiny.  But it is very, very pretty, and I can imagine the people that live there, all 20,000 or so of them are enormously proud of their water front. Curiously also, there were shops open on a Sunday! This was a complete revelation, here we were, 9 months into living in Switzerland, never having been to Nyon, and when we get there we find out that there are normal stores open on a Sunday as though it was a normal thing to do. Flabbergasted, totally flabbergasted. In the context of this blog, quite a story, but the real point I wanted to make is this: I reckon, with a little bit of searching and some patience, you could probably find out that Nyon is worth more of your time than you really think. Its proximity to Geneva is its saving grace, but it seems to be pretty, has some interesting things going on, and frankly, if you can't have big city, and small city is a disappointment, then maybe small town, as offered by Nyon, might just be for you.