And we thought this year was bad …

I’ve posted a couple of times about the iced-up lakefront at Versoix, Switzerland (here and here).

For the first 2 weeks of February this year, a vicious North wind that locals call the bise roared across Lac Léman (Lake Geneva), throwing spray over cars, and boats, and trees, and benches, and anything else along the shore that was not moved out of the way. The result was a promenade of bizarre ice-sculptures, trapped cars and, in the harbour, sunken boats.

But January/February 1905 was worse. Of course, in those days there were no parked cars to get encased in ice. But the effects are jaw-dropping, nonetheless. I’ve found these old postcards which show what it was like …

I got well and truly chilled taking my photographs.

Whoever took these – with the bulky and cumbersome equipment available in those days – must have been frozen solid.

Brave photographer!