Calvin, the Red Cross, the UN and one very tall fountain. Geneva is small, expensive and a lot more interesting than its banker image.
Photo: Choinowski, CC BY-SA 4.0
Geneva has a reputation for money and diplomacy, and that's the wrong way round to start. This is a city that spent the 16th century as the capital of John Calvin's Reformation, so strict that it was nicknamed the Protestant Rome, and that only joined the Swiss Confederation in 1815. The banks, the watchmakers and the international organizations all grew on top of that stubborn, serious, slightly puritan base. It was also where the Red Cross was born and where the League of Nations, and later the UN's European headquarters, settled in.
It's a small city on a very big lake, with the Jura on one side and the Salève, the mountain locals call their balcony, on the other. The Old Town takes an afternoon. What takes longer is the rest: the Carouge market, the watch museum, the UN, CERN, the vineyards of Lavaux an hour away. Five days is the right length because it lets you do the city properly without hurrying, and still leaves one full day for the lake villages and one for a mountain view. It's also an honest warning about the bill: Geneva is one of the most expensive cities in Europe to eat in, and one of the cheapest to learn things in, since several of the best museums are free or pay-what-you-wish.
Day one is the Old Town and the Reformation, day two Carouge and the museums, day three international Geneva and CERN, day four a day trip to Lausanne and Lavaux, and day five the lake, the Jet d'Eau and Mont Salève. Start on a Tuesday: on Mondays the Museum of Art and History, the Red Cross Museum, CERN's Science Gateway and the Olympic Museum are all closed. The plan also works as a base for the wider region, which is why it points to the Switzerland country page and to the French Alps guides at the end.
Every stop from the plan below, colored by day. Pick a day to see its route.
Calvin's cathedral and its tower, the oldest house in town, a long Old Town lunch and the lakefront at dusk.
A Wednesday market in a Sardinian town, the flea market, two serious museums and an entrecôte with a secret sauce.
A broken chair, the United Nations and the Red Cross, a tram ride to the particle physicists and a fondue on the hill.
The Olympic capital and its cathedral, a papet vaudois lunch and a walk through UNESCO vineyards above the lake.
A swim-and-sauna institution on the pier, the harbor by boat, the famous fountain and a French mountain with a Geneva view.
Everything today is within a ten-minute walk of St. Peter's Cathedral, up and down the hill of the Old Town. Maison Tavel and the Reformation Museum are both closed on Mondays, which is the main reason this plan starts on a Tuesday. Towers close 30 minutes before the cathedral does, so climb in the morning.
Start where Geneva has gathered since Roman times. Place du Bourg-de-Four sits on the site of the old Roman forum and the medieval market, and today it's a cobbled square with a small 18th-century marble fountain and cafés on every side. It's the best place in town for a first coffee, which is also your first lesson in Swiss prices: a cappuccino runs to around 5 CHF.
Arn, one of the oldest chocolate makers in the city, has its shop here, and the square is the easiest place to try a pavé glacé, a Geneva chocolate speciality, before the day begins. The cathedral is a couple of minutes away.
The cathedral has been the main Protestant church of Geneva since 1535, and it's where John Calvin preached. He came to the city in 1536 after William Farel urged him to, and by 1541 he was its spiritual leader. That is the story to carry through the next few hours: a small walled town that decided to be the model of a reformed Christian community, and earned the nickname Protestant Rome for it.
Entry to the cathedral is free. Underneath it, the archaeological site is billed as the largest one north of the Alps. It's open daily from 10am to 5pm and costs 8 CHF. The cathedral itself is open Monday to Saturday 10am-5:30pm and on Sunday from noon between October and May.
The north tower is 157 steps, and the cathedral stands at the highest point of the Old Town, so the reward is the best panorama in the center: the rooftops below you, the lake and, on a clear day, the Jet d'Eau and the mountains beyond. If you only have the energy for one climb in Geneva, it's this one.
The towers close at 5pm from October to May (6pm from June to September), 30 minutes before the building, so don't leave it for the end of the day.
Two minutes downhill is the oldest private house in Geneva. Maison Tavel has been the city's museum of urban history and daily life since 1986, with prints, maps, models and furniture from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. The main attraction is the Relief Magnin, the biggest historical relief model in Switzerland, which shows Geneva as it was before its fortifications were torn down in 1850.
It's open Tuesday to Sunday 11am-6pm. Entry is pay-what-you-wish, which is one of the reasons Geneva is cheaper for culture than its reputation suggests. The building has no wheelchair access.
Les Armures is a hotel and restaurant in historic rooms on the same street, between Maison Tavel and the old Arsenal, and the easiest place in the Old Town to eat Switzerland on one table: fondue moitié-moitié (Vacherin and Gruyère), raclette in the wood-clad Carnotzet, rösti, Zurich's veal in cream and perch from the lake. Its own winter card has the fondue at about 29 CHF, the veal at 46 CHF and the perch at 52 CHF, with a gratin of Geneva's cardons in season.
It's touristy, and priced for it, but the rooms are real and the food is solid. It's open every day from noon to 10:30pm, except 24, 25 and 31 December and 1 January.
The International Museum of the Reformation is next to the cathedral on the Cour de Saint-Pierre. It follows how the ideas preached in Geneva spread across Europe, and it's open Tuesday to Sunday 10am-5pm. The ticket is 13 CHF.
Then walk five minutes to the Parc des Bastions and the Reformation Wall, a long stone monument built into the old city walls. It was inaugurated in 1909 for the 400th anniversary of Calvin's birth and the 350th of the university he founded. At its center are four statues, each five meters tall: Farel, Calvin, Beza and John Knox. It's free, always open and a good photo stop.
End the day on the lakefront. The Jardin Anglais is a park created in 1855 beside the old harbor, and its Flower Clock has been the city's favorite photo since 1955. It's made of about 6,500 plants, changed with the seasons, and its second hand, at 2.5 meters, is said to be the longest in the world. It's a nod to Geneva's watchmakers.
A short walk along the quay is the Brunswick Monument, a mausoleum built in 1879 and modeled on the Scaliger Tombs in Verona. It exists because the Duke of Brunswick left the city his fortune on condition that it build him one. Walk across the Pont du Mont-Blanc for the view of the lake and the Jet d'Eau; sunset is at about 5:30pm at the end of October, 4:50pm in late December and 9:30pm in late June.
Wednesday is one of the two market days in Carouge and Plainpalais (the other is Saturday), which is why day two is here. Carouge closes up around 2pm. The Patek Philippe Museum opens at 2pm on weekdays, and the Museum of Art and History closes at 6pm, so time the afternoon tightly.
Take tram 12 south from Plainpalais (about 10 minutes) to Carouge, and go straight to the Place du Marché. On Wednesdays and Saturdays it fills with stalls until about 2pm. There's also an evening market on Thursdays from March to December, and a flea market on the first Sunday of each month.
Buy a bread and a cheese here instead of eating out, and you'll save the price of a restaurant lunch. It's also a good place to look for two Geneva products: the longeole, a pork sausage flavored with fennel, and in autumn and winter the cardon, a thistle cousin of the artichoke.
Carouge wasn't Geneva at all for most of its history. The town was built from about 1760-70 by Victor Amadeus III, King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy, right next to the Calvinist city, and it was still in the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1814. The Treaty of Turin handed it to the canton of Geneva in 1816. It got city status in 1786, and you can still feel the difference from the Old Town: a southern, planned town rather than a medieval one.
Walk from the market to the Place du Temple, wander the side streets and have a coffee away from the market crowd. It's a good option for dinner too, if you'd rather skip the Old Town.
Take tram 12 back north to the Plaine de Plainpalais, a large open esplanade on the edge of the center. On Wednesdays, Saturdays and the first Sunday of the month it holds a flea market, from early morning until about 5:30pm in winter and 6:30pm in summer. Treat it as a browse, not a plan: you may find nothing, or a watch, a record or a piece of Swiss kitchen history.
A food market also runs here on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, so on other days of the week you can still pick up lunch.
Geneva's watchmaking grew from the arrival of Protestant refugees in the 16th century, and the Patek Philippe Museum, opened in 2001 by one of the grand names in the trade, is where the story is told. The firm itself dates to 1839 in Geneva. You don't need to like watches to enjoy it: it's a museum of engineering, and of the people who made small things very precisely.
It's open Tuesday to Friday 2pm-6pm, Saturday 10am-6pm and Sunday 2pm-6pm, and tickets are 10 CHF. A public guided tour in English runs on Saturdays at 2:30pm.
The Museum of Art and History, known as the MAH, is Geneva's biggest museum, built between 1903 and 1910 with a bequest from Charles Galland. Its collection runs to more than 650,000 objects, from archaeology and watches to fine art, and only a small part is on show at any time.
It's open Tuesday to Sunday 11am-6pm (Thursdays noon-9pm), with a pay-what-you-wish ticket (5 to 20 CHF is the suggested range). Don't try to see it all in 90 minutes: pick one floor and go. The Ethnography Museum (MEG), a short tram ride away, is the other big collection, 12 CHF and closed on Mondays, if you have the time.
Café de Paris, on the Rue du Mont-Blanc, is a Geneva restaurant that serves one thing: an entrecôte steak with fries and a green salad, covered in a butter sauce whose recipe is closely guarded. The Café de Paris sauce is named after the restaurant, which popularized it in the 1930s, and the house credits its origin to a Mr. Boubier, the father-in-law of the then owner. It isn't a Swiss dish, but it's a Geneva institution.
It's open daily from 8:30am to 11pm. Check the price before sitting down. If you want something more local, go back to the Old Town for longeole or perch.
This is the day with the most booking pressure: the UN tours sell out, so book them for Thursday weeks ahead. The Red Cross Museum stays open until 8pm on Thursdays. CERN's Science Gateway is free, but last entry is at 4:30pm, so leave the Nations by 1:30pm and keep the Red Cross for the evening. If the only UN slot you can get is in the afternoon, do CERN first and the UN second.
Tram 15 from Cornavin takes six minutes to the Nations stop, and the first thing you see is a giant wooden chair with a broken leg. Broken Chair is 12 meters high and made of 5.5 tons of wood, designed by the Swiss artist Daniel Berset for the charity Handicap International. It went up on 18 August 1997, meant to stay for three months until governments signed the treaty banning landmines. Many didn't, public support was strong, and the chair stayed.
It stands across the road from the UN's main entrance, which is the point: diplomats walk past it every day. Take your photo, then cross to the Pregny Gate.
The Palace of Nations was built between 1929 and 1938 as the headquarters of the League of Nations, the failed first attempt at world peace. It has been the home of the UN Office at Geneva since 1946, even though Switzerland didn't join the UN itself until 2002. The guided tour lasts about an hour, costs 25 CHF (22 CHF for students and seniors) and explains the UN's work in Geneva. Delegates hold real meetings in the building, so you stay with the guide.
Book on the official site only. Individual dates appear on the 20th of each month for the following month and go fast. Bring a passport or a Schengen ID card, and arrive 30 minutes early for the security screening. Renovation work may change the route, and there are no tours on UN holidays such as 25 December and 1 January.
The Portail des Nations, a newer immersive visitor center at the entrance, is booked separately at portaildesnations.ch. Check that it is open, and its price and slots, there. It's the obvious plan B if the tours are full.
Between the Red Cross museum and the UN lies the Ariana Park, the green space of the international district, and the Musée Ariana, the Swiss museum of ceramics and glass, in a Neo-Classical and Neo-Baroque building finished in 1884. It holds around 20,000 objects from the last 1,200 years if you want a museum, or you can simply walk through the park.
Even half an hour is enough. It's the quietest stretch of international Geneva, and from here the Nations stop is a short walk for the tram to CERN.
Tram 18 goes straight from the Nations to the CERN stop in about 33 minutes, and it's covered by your Geneva Transport Card. CERN was founded in 1954, and it's where the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer ring under the French-Swiss border, found the Higgs boson in 2012, and where the World Wide Web was invented in 1989.
What you visit is the Science Gateway, a building by Renzo Piano opened in October 2023 next to the wooden Globe of Science and Innovation: exhibitions on particles and the quantum world, hands-on workshops, shows and a shop. Admission is free, but you must register, and it's closed on Mondays. The LHC entered a multi-year shutdown for upgrades at the end of June 2026, and guided visits of the facilities depend on what is accessible, so treat anything underground as a bonus.
Ride tram 18 back to the Nations, and the Red Cross museum is a three-minute walk from the UN gate. It opened in 1988 next to the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross. It's a serious, moving museum. Instead of the machinery of war it tells the history of humanitarian action, from Henry Dunant and the Geneva Conventions onwards, with a collection of about 30,000 items that includes the first Nobel Peace Prize medal, given in 1901 to Dunant and Frédéric Passy.
It's open Tuesday to Sunday 10am-5pm, and on Thursdays until 8pm, which is why this day is a Thursday and the museum comes last. Tickets are 15 CHF, or 10 CHF reduced.
Café du Soleil, on the Place du Petit-Saconnex up the hill from the Nations, is a Geneva fondue institution. Its slogan is une fondue, et on est bien ("a fondue, and all is well"), the fondue is made with Gruyère AOP, and it's open every day, from morning until late at night.
Order a fondue for two and a glass of white, and let the evening take its time. It's a neighborhood café more than a tourist stop, and the booking is worth making.
Friday works well: the Olympic Museum and the cathedral tower are both open. The Geneva Transport Card does not cover this trip, so buy a train ticket in the SBB app. Between November and February it gets dark early (sunset about 4:50pm in late December), so do Lavaux straight after the cathedral and skip the Olympic Museum if the afternoon is short.
Trains from Geneva to Lausanne take about 40-50 minutes and leave several times an hour. Walk up through the old town from the station, or ride the M2 metro, to the Lausanne Cathedral, consecrated in 1275 in the presence of Pope Gregory X and King Rudolph I, which sits on the hill above the old town. It's a Swiss Reformed church today.
Inside, look for the great organ, inaugurated in December 2003. Between October and March the cathedral is open from 9am to 5:30pm (entry is free), and the bell tower is open Monday to Saturday 9:30am-noon and 1:30pm-4:30pm, for about 6 CHF. Every night between 10pm and 2am the cathedral's watchman calls out the hours from the tower, a tradition that goes back more than 600 years.
A couple of minutes from the cathedral, the Café du Grütli on the Rue Mercerie is one of the places Lausanne's tourist office names for papet vaudois, the leek and potato dish of the canton of Vaud, served with a cabbage sausage. The canton's heritage list says it is eaten from mid-September to April, so it's a cold-weather plate.
Try it with a glass of local white. It's simple food and nothing to photograph, but it's what the region eats. In summer, ask for a saucisson vaudois, the other classic of Vaud charcuterie, instead.
Lausanne is the seat of the International Olympic Committee, and the Olympic Museum sits on the lake at Ouchy. It was founded in 1993 by IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch and reopened in December 2013 after a 23-month renovation. It's open Tuesday to Sunday, 9am-6pm, and tickets are 20 CHF for adults.
If museums aren't your thing, skip the ticket and walk the lakefront at Ouchy instead: the lake, the French Alps across the water and the old castle by the harbor. The M2 metro runs from here up through the center.
From Lausanne, the train to Cully takes 10 minutes. Lavaux is 830 hectares of terraced vineyards, running for about 30 kilometers along the lake. The terraces go back to the 11th century, under Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries, and since 2007 they've been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The main grape is Chasselas, a dry, fruity white that goes with cheese and fish.
Cully is a village at the foot of the slope, and the wine producers here and in the neighboring villages have cellars (caveaux) where you can taste. Opening days and hours vary a lot between producers and seasons, so look for the signs at the door, ask at the tourist office or call ahead, and don't count on a particular cellar being open.
The best part of Lavaux is the walk between the villages: about 6.6 km from Cully through Epesses and Rivaz to Saint-Saphorin, along lanes between the vines, with the lake below and the French Alps across the water. Allow two hours, or more if you stop to taste. The slope is steep in places, so wear proper shoes.
From Saint-Saphorin the train takes 18 minutes to Lausanne, and then about 40-50 minutes more to Geneva. Check the last train, and in winter the light: sunset is about 4:50pm in late December.
Today is about the water and the view, so check the weather the night before: the Jet d'Eau is switched off in strong wind and frost, and the Salève cable car stops in bad weather. Saturday is a good day for it, because last winter's cable car timetable included Saturdays, and the shops and markets are open. If the Salève is closed, swap it for an afternoon walk along the lake to the Parc La Grange.
The Bains des Pâquis are a public bathing place on a pier in the lake, and one of the most Genevan spots there is. They're open every day, with hours that depend on the weather, and they run a sauna, steam bath and Turkish bath as well as a community of year-round winter swimmers. Walk out to the end of the pier for the Pâquis lighthouse, the harbor and, on a clear day, Mont Blanc.
In summer, bring a towel and jump in. In winter, the sauna is the way to warm up. The cheap, self-service Buvette on the same pier is where you'll eat tonight.
The Mouettes Genevoises, the small shuttle boats, were formed in 1897 by the merger of three boat operators, and they cross the harbor 365 days a year. Take one from the Pâquis landing to the Eaux-Vives side, a few minutes' ride that ends near the Jet d'Eau, for the price of a bus ticket (or nothing, with your card). It's the cheapest cruise in Geneva.
It's also real transport, not a show. The Mouettes are part of the same Unireso fare network as the buses, trams and trains, so one ticket works on all of them.
The Jet d'Eau is about 140 meters high and throws 500 liters of water per second at 200 km/h. Its origin was almost an accident: in 1886 a hydraulic plant that powered the city's workshops needed a safety valve for its pressure, and the spray outside became an attraction. In 1891 a new jet was set up at the present site, and in 1951 a pumping station raised it from 90 meters to the full height.
You can walk out along a stone jetty from the left bank, and if the wind turns you will get wet. Five retired employees of the utility SIG take turns watching the fountain and shutting it off in strong wind or frost. It also stops every late autumn for maintenance (in 2025 it was off from 29 October to 21 November, then started late on weekdays until 3 December), so check before you plan around it.
The Salève is known as the Balcony of Geneva. It's in France, about 20 minutes from the city by car, rising to 1,379 meters, and a cable car has run up it since 1932. The cable car was inaugurated again in October 2023 and carries you in a few minutes to a terrace at about 1,100 meters, with the city, the lake and the Jura below.
Take bus 8 from Cornavin to the Veyrier-Douane stop (about 25 minutes), then walk 9 minutes across the border. Carry an ID. In the summer season the cable car ran 9am-6:45pm, and until 10:45pm on Thursdays to Saturdays. Last winter it ran 9am-4:45pm on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, so check the current timetable before you go. At the last check a single ticket was 13 EUR and a return 18 EUR.
The terrace at the top is where the geography of Geneva makes sense: the lake basin laid out below, the Jet d'Eau a thin white line and the lights of the city coming on. The site has a restaurant, Vertiges, a café and hiking trails if you have more time.
In the summer season, a Golden Hour ticket (15 EUR, any entry after 6:30pm, Thursdays to Saturdays) is made for this. In winter the cable car closed at 4:45pm last year, so go earlier and treat sunset as a bonus. Bring a jacket: it's colder than in town.
For the last dinner, go back to the Bains des Pâquis and the Buvette. It's a self-service canteen on the pier, open every day. In winter the fondue is served in a heated cabin and costs around 25-30 CHF, and the dish of the day is about 15 CHF, which makes it one of the cheapest proper meals in Geneva.
It's loud, crowded and unfussy: order at the counter, find a seat, and finish your trip with the dark water behind you. It's the opposite of the Old Town restaurants, and a better final night for it.
The places that didn't fit, ordered by distance from the city. Most need a train, a bus or a car, and none is covered by the Geneva Transport Card.
Annecy lies at the northern tip of its lake, 35 km south of Geneva, and its old town is built along the Thiou, a short, very clean river that makes the canals people compare to Venice. A day is enough for the old town, the castle, the Palais de l'Isle and a walk on the lakefront. It's in France, so bring an ID and euros. Our 3 days in Annecy guide covers it.
Getting there: About 35 km south in France, direct trains take around 1 hour 30 minutes
A village in the French Alps with a pedestrian center, built up as a ski resort in the 20th century and known for its restaurants. It has its own guide, 5 Days in Megève, and it's one of the easiest ski areas to reach from Geneva Airport.
Getting there: About 70 km to the southeast, 1 hour 15 minutes by road or transfer
The base for Mont Blanc and the cable car to the Aiguille du Midi, with trails and lifts in every season. It's best seen over a few days rather than as a day trip, and 5 Days in Chamonix covers it.
Getting there: About 80-90 km to the southeast, around 1 hour 15 minutes by shuttle or car, 2 hours 40 minutes by train
Chillon Castle is an island castle at the eastern end of the lake, Switzerland's most visited historical monument by its own count, and the prison of the Geneva monk François Bonivard, whose story Byron turned into The Prisoner of Chillon in 1816. It's open 9am-7pm from April to September, 9:30am-6pm in March and October and 10am-5pm from November to February, and an adult ticket is 15 CHF in 2026 (18 CHF from 2027). Take the train to Montreux, then bus 201 (about 14 minutes). Lake boats are an option in season; see the tip on CGN.
Getting there: About 95 km to the northeast, trains from Geneva take 1 hour 5 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes, then 14 minutes to Chillon
Official website
Gruyères is a medieval town on a hill in the canton of Fribourg that gave its name to Gruyère cheese. It's the place for the cheese and for the double cream with meringues, and it has a castle. It's a long day from Geneva, so go only if cheese is your thing.
Getting there: About 120 km to the northeast, 2 hours 20 minutes by train with two changes
A big Swiss ski resort that many winter visitors reach from Geneva Airport. If you're skiing, 5 Days in Verbier covers the mountain, the lifts and the bases.
Getting there: About 160 km to the southeast, 2 hours 10 minutes by train via Martigny to Le Châble
Geneva's table is French in manner and Swiss in substance, and nearly everything costs more than you expect. These are the dishes and drinks to try, with prices from real menus.
Melted Gruyère and Vacherin (the Geneva moitié-moitié) in a pot with white wine, eaten by dipping bread on long forks. It was promoted as a national dish by the Swiss cheese industry, and Geneva versions are sometimes made with tomato. Count on around 29-30 CHF per person in a restaurant.
Where to try it: Les Armures in the Old Town, Café du Soleil in Petit-Saconnex, and the Buvette des Bains for the budget version in winter.
A cheese from the Valais melted under heat and scraped onto potatoes, pickles and onions. It's a winter ritual, served by the portion (about 8 CHF at Les Armures) rather than as one big plate, so you keep going until you stop.
Where to try it: The Carnotzet at Les Armures, or any Old Town restaurant with a chalet-style room in winter.
A crisp cake of grated potato fried in butter, from the canton of Bern, originally a farmer's breakfast. In Geneva it's a side for sausages, the veal or the perch. The language line between French and German Switzerland is jokingly called the Röstigraben, the rösti ditch.
Where to try it: Les Armures, where it comes with the veal and the perch, and most brasseries as a side.
Lightly breaded and pan-fried perch fillets, served with lemon, salad and potatoes or rösti. Check that the menu says du Léman: the lake's own fish costs a lot (52 CHF at Les Armures), and a perch dish that is cheap is probably imported.
Where to try it: Les Armures lists perch from Lake Geneva; lakeside restaurants and the Old Town have it too.
A fennel-flavored pork sausage that's a specialty of Geneva and the neighboring French Genevois, protected by a geographical indication since 2009. It's simmered in barely trembling water for about three hours, then served with lentils or potatoes.
Where to try it: Traditional Geneva restaurants in autumn and winter; ask at the Carouge market for a butcher who sells it.
A stew of leeks and potatoes, served with a cabbage sausage, from the canton of Vaud next door. It is eaten from mid-September to April, and you'll find it at Café du Grütli in Lausanne on the day-trip.
Where to try it: Café du Grütli in Lausanne, on day four.
Chasselas is the main white grape of Lavaux and makes a dry, fruity white that goes with cheese and fish. Geneva's own vineyards are known for Perlan whites and Gamay reds.
Where to try it: Wine bars and restaurants in Carouge and the Old Town, and the cellars of Cully and Lavaux on day four.
Sliced veal in a cream and white wine sauce, often with mushrooms, served with rösti. It's a Zurich dish (the first known recipe is from a 1947 cookbook), and in French Switzerland it goes by émincé de veau à la zurichoise. It costs about 46 CHF at Les Armures.
Where to try it: Les Armures, or any traditional brasserie.
Switzerland essentially invented milk chocolate and conching, and Geneva's chocolatiers add their own specialities: the pavé glacé, a rich chocolate block, and the amandes princesses, chocolate-coated almonds. The classics are Auer in the Rues Basses (1939), Arn on the Bourg-de-Four and La Bonbonnière in Rive (since 1921), and Favarger is the historical name of Geneva chocolate.
Where to try it: Arn on Bourg-de-Four, Auer in the Rues Basses, La Bonbonnière in Rive.
Invented around 1900 by Swiss doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner for his patients, it's the original overnight oats: oats soaked in milk or juice with apple, nuts and fruit. You'll meet it at breakfast.
Where to try it: Hotel breakfast buffets, and bakery cafés.
A thistle related to the artichoke and one of Geneva's most local winter vegetables, usually served as a gratin beside the traditional dishes. Expect it on menus from autumn into winter, and don't expect it in summer.
Where to try it: Les Armures lists a gratin of Geneva cardons on its winter card.
The Swiss spirits: Williamine is a brand of pear brandy made from Williams pears in Martigny, in the Valais, and kirsch is a clear, dry cherry brandy made from fermented cherries including the stones. Both turn up as a digestif after a heavy meal.
Where to try it: Ask for the digestif list in any traditional restaurant, and try one after a fondue.
Geneva hotels are expensive, and prices can jump when a big conference is in town, so book early. Whichever area you pick, ask the hotel for the Geneva Transport Card: it covers every neighborhood on this list.
Best for: Lake views, the Bains, the station and the widest choice of hotels
The Pâquis is the quarter between the station and the lake. It has the Bains, the Mouettes landing and the best transport links, with the airport train 7 minutes from Cornavin. The catch is that the streets around the station are busy at all hours.
Best for: Walking everywhere and sleeping in the middle of the history
Everything on day one is on your doorstep, and the cathedral hill is yours in the early morning. The catch is price: it's the most expensive part of town to sleep in, and the streets are steep.
Best for: A calmer base with restaurants and a market, and a tram to the center
Carouge works well if you prefer a small town to a city. Tram 12 connects it to Plainpalais in about 10 minutes, and there's a market twice a week. The catch is that it's away from the lake and the center, so you'll be on the tram every day.
Best for: Business-style hotels near the UN and a direct tram to CERN
It's near the UN, the Red Cross and the Ariana Park, and tram 18 runs straight from the Nations stop to CERN. The catch is that the district is built around offices rather than street life, so you'll go elsewhere for the evening.
In Map Drop the countries of Europe fall one at a time and you drop each into its place - Switzerland is one of the pieces.
The practical stuff that makes the first day in Geneva easier.
If you stay in registered accommodation, you're entitled to a free digital Geneva Transport Card. It covers buses, trams, SBB trains and the Mouettes boats in zone 10 (the canton of Geneva apart from Céligny) for the length of your stay, including the trip from the airport. Your hotel emails a form up to three days before arrival. It doesn't cover Lausanne, the Salève cable car or anything in France, and it's personal and non-transferable. If your host isn't registered, ask them to contact Geneva Tourism.
Switzerland uses the Swiss franc (CHF), and cards work almost everywhere. Expect a cappuccino around 5 CHF, a restaurant main course around 28 CHF at lunch, a beer in a pub around 8 CHF and a fondue 29-30 CHF. Culture is the bargain: the cathedral, CERN, the Jet d'Eau and the Bains' pier are free, and Maison Tavel and the Museum of Art and History are pay-what-you-wish. Service is normally included in menu prices, and most people round up the bill.
The UN tours release their dates on the 20th of each month for the next month, and they sell out. The Science Gateway at CERN is free but needs registration. The Salève cable car has an online ticket shop. Everything else on this plan works without a reservation, though a table for fondue on a weekend evening is worth booking.
On Mondays the Museum of Art and History, Maison Tavel, the Red Cross Museum, CERN, the Olympic Museum and the Patek Philippe Museum are closed, and most shops close on Sundays. The clocks go back on the last Sunday of October and forward on the last Sunday of March, which moves sunset from about 5:30pm in late October to 9:30pm in June. The Jet d'Eau stops for maintenance for several weeks every late autumn, and the Salève cable car runs on a reduced winter timetable.
CGN, the lake's boat company, runs seasonal timetables: a summer one, a shoulder season in spring and early autumn, and a winter one from mid-October to late April, when pleasure boats mostly sail on weekends. Geneva Tourism lists a one-hour Geneva Tour cruise from the Mont-Blanc pier (20 CHF) on winter Sundays and public holidays. For that, or for Lausanne, Montreux or Chillon by boat, check cgn.ch for your exact day.
The Salève and Annecy are in France. Both are in the Schengen area, but carry a passport or ID card anyway. Prices on the French side are in euros, and Switzerland isn't in the EU roaming zone, so check what your phone plan does on each side.
Switzerland is in the Schengen area, so citizens of the EU, the US, the UK, Canada and Australia can stay up to 90 days in any 180 without a visa. Non-EU visitors are registered in the Entry/Exit System at the border, and the ETIAS travel authorization is not in force yet. The EU says it will announce the start date months ahead, so check travel-europe.europa.eu before you go.
French is the language of the city, and English works almost everywhere in the center. A few words help: bonjour when you enter a shop, merci and s'il vous plaît. Download the TPG+ app for tram and bus times. Check your roaming plan or buy a local eSIM.
Yes, and it's plenty. Two days cover the Old Town, the lake and the main museums; five gives you Carouge, the UN and CERN, a day trip to Lausanne and Lavaux and the Salève. If you only have three days, do days one, three and five.
Yes, for food and hotels. A cappuccino is about 5 CHF, a lunch main course around 28 CHF and a fondue about 29-30 CHF. Culture is the opposite: the cathedral, CERN and the Jet d'Eau are free, and two big museums are pay-what-you-wish. Budget around 130-200 CHF a day on top of your room.
Lausanne and the vineyards of Lavaux, which is day four of this plan: 40-50 minutes by train, a Gothic cathedral, the Olympic Museum and a walk through the UNESCO terraces. Montreux and Chillon Castle is the next best, and Annecy if you want to be in France.
St. Peter's Cathedral and its tower, the Old Town and the Reformation Wall, the Jet d'Eau, the Flower Clock, the Palais des Nations, the Red Cross Museum, CERN's Science Gateway, Carouge and the Salève. This plan covers them all, plus Lausanne and Lavaux.
Yes. The UN's guided tours cost 25 CHF, need a passport or ID card and sell out, with dates released on the 20th of each month. CERN's Science Gateway is free, with registration, and closed on Mondays. What you can see inside the accelerator complex depends on CERN's operating schedule.
No. It stops in strong wind and frost, at night, and for several weeks every late autumn for maintenance (in 2025, from 29 October to 21 November). Check before you plan around it.
Yes for most visitors. Use the usual big-city care with bags in crowded places and around the station, and keep valuables out of sight on trams.
No. Trams, buses, trains and boats reach everything on this plan, and your hotel's Geneva Transport Card covers most of it. A car only helps for the Alps.
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Switzerland