18 Things to Do in Geneva: Museums, History and Travel Guide

Geneva fits into two days on foot: the lakefront, the Jet d’Eau and the flower clock on the first, Old Town, the cathedral towers and one or two museums on the second. Add a third day if the museums are why you came, because the ones run by the City of Geneva let you into their permanent collections free, which takes some of the sting out of Swiss prices.

Geneva sits at the western tip of Switzerland, wrapped by France on three sides, at the point where the Rhone leaves Lake Geneva. The commune held 210,601 residents at the end of 2025 and the canton 537,191, according to the cantonal statistics office. This is the European seat of the United Nations, the birthplace of the Red Cross and the city John Calvin turned into the working headquarters of the Reformation, so much of what you visit here is a museum about an idea rather than a palace.

The 18 things to do in Geneva are listed below.

1. Lake Geneva, for the boats and the shoreline walk.
2. Jet d’Eau, for the 140-metre water plume.
3. St. Pierre Cathedral, for Calvin’s church and the tower climb.
4. Jardin Anglais, for the lakeside promenade.
5. Old Town Geneva, for the medieval lanes above the lake.
6. Conservatory and Botanical Garden, for the free glasshouses.
7. Palais des Nations, for the guided tour of UN Geneva.
8. International Museum of the Reformation, for the Calvin story told properly.
9. International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, for humanitarian history.
10. Art and History Museum, for the free permanent collections.
11. Reformation Wall, for the four reformers in stone.
12. Patek Philippe Museum, for five centuries of watchmaking.
13. Bains des Pâquis, for swimming in the lake in the middle of the city.
14. Tavel House, for the oldest house in Geneva.
15. Flower Clock, for the photograph everyone takes.
16. Parc des Bastions, for the giant chess boards.
17. Museum of Natural History, for Alpine wildlife and a two-headed tortoise.
18. Musée Ariana, for ceramics and glass in a neoclassical villa.

1. Lake Geneva (Lac Leman)

Lake Geneva is the crescent-shaped lake the city sits on, shared with France and fed and drained by the Rhone. It runs about 73 km (45.4 mi) from Villeneuve in the east to Geneva in the west and widens to roughly 14 km (8.7 mi) between Rolle and Thonon-les-Bains.

CGN runs scheduled boats along the lake as public transport rather than as sightseeing cruises, which is the cheap way to see the vineyard terraces above Lausanne and Montreux and to reach Chillon Castle at the far end. Walking the Geneva shoreline costs nothing, and the Bains des Pâquis pier is the standard spot for the view back at the city. Bring a passport or national ID card if you plan to cross to Evian-les-Bains or Thonon-les-Bains, because the lake is an international border and those boats land in France.

2. Jet d’Eau

The Jet d’Eau is Geneva’s landmark fountain, and it stands 140 metres (459 ft) above the lake at the end of the Eaux-Vives pier. SIG, the utility that owns and runs it, puts 500 litres of water a second into the air at 200 km/h, which is why people on the pier get soaked when the wind turns.

The fountain runs all year now, on shorter hours in winter and until 23:15 with floodlights in high summer. SIG switches it off when the temperature drops near freezing or the wind gets too strong, and takes it out of service for maintenance for about a month from early November. Older guides still describe it as a summer-only fountain that runs from March to October, which has not been true for years.

Viewing it is free from the pier and from the Pont du Mont-Blanc. Take a bus to the Vollandes or Rue du Lac stop, or walk 10 minutes from Cornavin station.

3. St. Pierre Cathedral (Cathédrale de Saint-Pierre)

St. Pierre Cathedral is the church at the top of Old Town where John Calvin preached from 1536, and entry to the nave is free. The Gothic building went up from the 12th century on a site that had held churches since the 4th, and the whitewashed, stripped-back interior is the Reformation’s doing rather than an accident of taste. Calvin’s wooden chair is still inside.

The two towers are the reason to pay. Geneva Tourism lists the climb at CHF 7 (about €7, $9, £6) for adults, CHF 5 for seniors and CHF 4 for young visitors, with tower access closing 30 minutes before the building does. The archaeological site beneath the cathedral is a separate ticket and shows the layers of building underneath, back to pre-Roman occupation.

Combined tickets covering the towers, the archaeological site and the Reformation museum next door are sold at the cathedral, and they are worth asking about if you intend to do more than one.

4. Jardin Anglais

Jardin Anglais is the lakeside park on the left bank where the promenade starts, laid out in 1855 on ground reclaimed from the lake. The English landscape style it was named for is the reason for the curving paths, and it holds the National Monument of 1869, the Four Seasons fountain and, on its western edge, the flower clock.

The park gives the clean view of the Jet d’Eau with the lake in front of it, which is why it fills with cameras at sunset. There is a bandstand used for free concerts in summer and a carousel that keeps small children busy while adults sit. Buses and trams stop at Métropole and Monument National on the edge of the park, Cornavin station is a 12-minute walk, and entry costs nothing.

5. Old Town Geneva (Vieille Ville)

Old Town Geneva is the hill of cobbled lanes above the left bank, and it holds most of the city’s history in about 15 minutes of walking. Julius Caesar came through in 58 BC, the Savoyards tried to take the place in 1602, and the city ran itself as an independent Protestant republic until it joined the Swiss Confederation in 1815.

Place du Bourg-de-Four is the square to aim for, with cafés on the terraces and the Palais de Justice on one side. From there you are a few minutes from Maison Tavel, the Old Arsenal with its painted ceiling and cannon, and the cathedral, with antique shops and small galleries filling the ground floors in between. Buses and trams stop at Molard and Place Neuve at either end, and walking the streets is free even though the museums and the tower climb are not.

6. Conservatory and Botanical Garden Geneva

The Conservatory and Botanical Garden is Geneva’s free botanic garden, at Chemin de l’Impératrice 1 in Chambésy, north of the city on the lake road. The garden holds more than 11,000 plant species according to its own count, alongside a herbarium and a seed bank that make it a research institution as much as a park.

The glasshouses date from the early 1900s and cover tropical, temperate and Mediterranean collections, and the outdoor sections take in an arboretum, a rock garden for alpines and beds of medicinal plants. There is a play area for children, lawns you can picnic on and a view across to the Alps on a clear day.

Bus 1 or 25 gets you there from the city, and entry to the gardens and the glasshouses is free. Dogs and bicycles are not allowed inside.

7. Palais des Nations

The Palais des Nations is the European headquarters of the United Nations, and you can only see it on a guided tour booked online in advance. Tickets are not sold at the gate. UN Geneva releases each month’s dates on the 20th of the previous month, and they sell out quickly.

Adults pay CHF 25 (about €27, $31, £23), students, seniors and disabled visitors CHF 22, 14 to 17 year olds CHF 14 and 6 to 13 year olds CHF 13. You need a passport from a UN member or observer state; Schengen national identity cards are also accepted. Entry is through the Pregny Gate visitor centre.

The building is under renovation, so the tour route changes without notice and some rooms are unavailable when meetings are sitting. The Assembly Hall, the Council Chamber and the Human Rights Room with Miquel Barceló’s dripping ceiling are the usual highlights when they are open.

8. International Museum of the Reformation

The International Museum of the Reformation tells the story of Protestantism from the 16th century to now, and it is the only museum in the world built around that subject alone. It occupies Maison Mallet, an 18th-century house in the courtyard beside St. Pierre Cathedral, and opened in 2005.

Rooms run chronologically through Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and Knox by way of books, engravings, medals, paintings and letters, with Geneva’s own experience of the Reformation given its own space. Panels and the audio guide cover a wide spread of languages, and two temporary exhibitions a year fill in themes like music, philosophy and human rights.

Admission is CHF 13 (about €14, $16, £12), CHF 8 reduced and CHF 6 for children aged 7 to 16, with under-7s free. It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00 and closes on Mondays.

9. International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum sits at Avenue de la Paix 17 in the international district, across from the UN, and it is the only museum devoted to humanitarian action. The permanent exhibition, The Humanitarian Adventure, is split into three spaces by three architects: Gringo Cardia on defending human dignity, Diébédo Francis Kéré on restoring family links and Shigeru Ban on reducing natural risk.

The displays lean on testimony rather than artefacts, with video, consultation booths and a wall of index cards from the prisoner-of-war archive. It is a heavy visit, and it earns the weight.

Tickets are CHF 15 (about €16, $19, £14) for adults and CHF 10 reduced, which covers visitors aged 12 to 22, over-65s, disabled visitors and jobseekers, and children under 12 go free. The museum opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00 and closes on Mondays. Buses 8 and 28 stop at Appia outside.

10. Art and History Museum (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire)

The Art and History Museum is Geneva’s largest museum and its permanent collections are free, because it belongs to the City of Geneva. It stands at Rue Charles-Galland 2, a 10-minute walk uphill from Old Town, in a building opened in 1910.

Four fields sit under one roof: archaeology, running from Egypt and the Near East through Greece and Rome; fine art, with Konrad Witz’s altarpiece showing Lake Geneva behind Christ and a strong Ferdinand Hodler holding; applied arts, from Art Nouveau furniture to arms and armour; and horology, which is Geneva’s home subject.

Temporary exhibitions are ticketed separately. If you have a spare hour and no plan, this is the one to walk into, since it costs nothing to change your mind.

11. Reformation Wall – Paul Landowski (Mur des Réformateurs)

The Reformation Wall is a 100-metre monument built into the old rampart along Parc des Bastions, and it is free to walk past at any hour. Four 5-metre statues stand at its centre: Guillaume Farel, John Calvin, Théodore de Bèze and John Knox, carved by Paul Landowski and Henri Bouchard.

Work started in 1909 to mark the 400th anniversary of Calvin’s birth and the 350th of the founding of the University of Geneva, whose original building stands a few steps away. Bas-reliefs and smaller figures along the wall carry the rest of the story, from the Edict of Nantes to the Mayflower Compact, with dates and names cut into the stone. Come in the late afternoon, when the sun crosses the park and the lettering reads properly.

12. Patek Philippe Museum

The Patek Philippe Museum holds one of the deepest watch collections anywhere, and it is at Rue des Vieux-Grenadiers 7 in Plainpalais, in a building the company once used to make watch cases. It opened in 2001.

The collection splits in two. The Antiques Collection covers European watchmaking, automata and enamel miniatures from the 16th to the 19th century, and the Patek Philippe Collection follows the firm’s own output from 1839 onwards, through pocket watches to complicated wristwatches. Enamel painting is the surprise for most visitors, and it is worth slowing down for.

Adults pay CHF 10 (about €11, $12, £9), reduced entry is CHF 7 and under-18s go free. It opens Tuesday to Friday from 14:00 to 18:00, Saturday from 10:00 to 18:00 and Sunday from 14:00 to 18:00, and closes on Mondays. Guided tours run on Saturdays, in French at 15:30 and in English at 16:00, with sign-up on site from 14:30 and places limited.

13. Bains des Pâquis

Bains des Pâquis is the public bathing pier at Quai du Mont-Blanc 30, and it is where Geneva swims, eats and argues. The first wooden baths opened here in 1872, the current Bauhaus-style structure went up in 1932, and a citizens’ campaign stopped it being knocked down for a hotel in the 1980s.

Summer means the lake, the diving board, the sunbathing docks and a queue for the canteen. Winter means the sauna and the hammam, and fondue in the wooden cabin at the end of the pier, which is one of the few cheap sit-down meals in central Geneva. Concerts, readings and the dawn “aubes musicales” run through the year. The association that runs the baths publishes current hours and rates, and the hours move with the weather; buses 1 and 25 stop at Navigation right outside.

14. Tavel House

Tavel House is the oldest surviving private house in Geneva, at Rue du Puits-Saint-Pierre 6 in Old Town, and its permanent collection is free. The Tavel family rebuilt it as a fortified urban mansion after the city fire of 1334, which is where the turrets and the stone facade come from, and the City of Geneva bought it in 1963.

Inside, the museum covers daily life in Geneva from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, floor by floor: furniture, silver, painted signs, door knockers and a cellar with traces of earlier building. The attic holds the draw, a relief model of Geneva as it stood in 1850, before the ramparts came down and the city spread. It is a short visit, 45 minutes is enough, and it pairs with the cathedral two minutes away.

15. Flower Clock (L’horloge Fleurie)

The Flower Clock is the planted clock face on the edge of Jardin Anglais at Quai du Général-Guisan, built in 1955 as the parks department’s nod to Geneva watchmaking. Around 6,500 plants make up the face and they are replanted several times a year, so crocuses in spring and chrysanthemums in autumn give it a different look each season.

The mechanism keeps time by satellite signal, and the second hand, at 2.5 metres, is claimed as the longest in the world. It takes two minutes to see and costs nothing, and you should stand on the Quai side rather than the park side if you want the Jet d’Eau in the frame behind it.

16. Parc des Bastions

Parc des Bastions is the park below Old Town where the Reformation Wall runs along one edge, and it is free and open daily. It began in 1720 as a walled promenade for a city that had shut its gates against plague, and it held Geneva’s first botanical garden before that moved out to Chambésy in 1904.

The giant chess boards near the Place Neuve entrance are the reason locals come, and games run most afternoons in decent weather with a crowd watching. The University of Geneva’s original building stands inside the park, Palais Eynard borders it, and the café in the old bandstand is a reasonable stop between Old Town and Plainpalais. Trams and buses stop at Place Neuve, and part of the park is given over to an ice rink in winter.

17. Museum of Natural History (Muséum d’histoire naturelle)

The Museum of Natural History holds Switzerland’s largest natural history collection, and it is closed for building work from 3 June 2026 until 11 April 2027. Check the museum’s own site before you plan a visit, because the reopening date has moved before.

Its permanent exhibitions are free when it is open, and they run to Alpine mammals and birds, African megafauna, minerals, insects and an earthquake simulator that children queue for. Janus, the two-headed Greek tortoise that hatched here in 1997 and is reckoned the oldest of his kind, has been living at Bioparc Genève during the closure.

The Museum of the History of Science, run by the same institution in a villa at Parc de la Perle du Lac, stays open through the works and is also free.

18. Musée Ariana (Swiss Museum of Ceramics and Glass)

Musée Ariana is Switzerland’s museum of ceramics and glass, at Avenue de la Paix 10 next to the UN, and its permanent collection is free. Gustave Revilliod built the neoclassical villa between 1877 and 1884 to hold his own collection, named it after his mother Ariane de la Rive, and left the lot to the City of Geneva when he died in 1890.

The holdings run across twelve centuries and take in Swiss and European faience and porcelain, Islamic lustreware, Chinese and Japanese export ware, and stained and blown glass. The central hall with its columns and double staircase is worth the walk on its own.

Temporary shows, usually contemporary ceramics, are downstairs and sometimes ticketed. Buses 8, 22 and 28 stop at Appia, the same stop as the Red Cross museum, so the two make an easy afternoon together.

Where is Geneva?

Geneva is in the far west of Switzerland, at the southern tip of Lake Geneva where the Rhone flows out towards Lyon. France surrounds the city on three sides, and the border runs within a few kilometres of the centre in most directions, which is why so many people who work in Switzerland live in France.

The commune covers about 16 km² (6.2 sq mi), so the sightseeing centre is genuinely small. The Jura ridge rises behind the city to the north-west and the Salève, which is in France, sits directly to the south.

What is the history of Geneva?

Geneva’s recorded history starts with Julius Caesar, who found a Celtic Allobroges settlement here in 58 BC and had the Rhone bridge cut. It became a bishop’s seat in the 4th century, then spent centuries pulled between Burgundy, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dukes of Savoy.

The turning point was 1536, when the city adopted the Reformation and John Calvin arrived. Geneva became a Protestant republic and a refuge for exiles, which is where the watchmaking came from: French Huguenot craftsmen brought the trade. The city joined the Swiss Confederation in 1815, hosted the founding of the Red Cross in 1863 and took the League of Nations in 1920, which is the direct ancestor of its role today.

Geneva basics: language, money, plugs and time

Geneva runs on French, Swiss francs, Type J plugs and Central European Time, and none of the four match what most visitors arrive expecting. The practical facts about Geneva and Switzerland are set out below.

How many days do you need in Geneva?

Two days covers Geneva’s sights and three is comfortable. Day one takes the lakefront, the Jet d’Eau, Jardin Anglais and the flower clock; day two takes Old Town, the cathedral towers, Maison Tavel and one museum; a third day gets you the international district, with the Red Cross museum and a booked UN tour.

Add a fourth day if you want a trip out. Lausanne is 40 minutes by train, Montreux and Chillon Castle about an hour, Gruyères about two hours, and the Salève cable car on the French side takes under an hour door to door.

Is Geneva expensive to visit?

Yes, Geneva is expensive, and it is expensive even by Swiss standards. Hotel rooms, restaurant meals and drinks are the three lines that hurt, and the prices in Geneva (Switzerland) sit above Zurich for accommodation in weeks when a trade fair or a summit is in town.

Three things bring the cost down. The free permanent collections at the city museums cover most of a day. The Geneva Transport Card, handed over free at check-in by hotels and hostels, covers buses, trams and the yellow Mouettes boats across the harbour for the length of your stay. And the canteen at Bains des Pâquis, the market stalls at Plainpalais and the supermarket counters at Cornavin are where people eat when they are not on expenses.

What to eat in Geneva

Geneva eats Swiss French food with a few dishes of its own, and the city’s specialities are longeole and cardoons rather than fondue. The dishes worth trying are listed below, and the wider list of local food to try in Switzerland covers the rest of the country.

1. Longeole. A coarse pork sausage flavoured with fennel seed, protected as a Geneva speciality and usually served with braised cabbage and potatoes.
2. Cardons épineux genevois. Cardoons, a thistle relative that looks like pale celery, baked in cream and cheese; the Christmas side dish in Geneva households.
3. Fondue. Melted Gruyère and Vacherin with white wine, ordered by the pot for the table and eaten from October to March rather than in July.
4. Malakoffs. Deep-fried cheese fritters from the Vaud villages up the lake, served as a starter with mustard and pickles.
5. Filets de perche. Perch fillets from the lake, floured and fried in butter with lemon; check whether they are local, because a lot of restaurant perch is imported.
6. Rösti. Grated potato fried into a cake, eaten as a side or topped with egg, bacon or cheese as a meal.
7. Chocolate. Geneva chocolatiers sell by weight from small shops in Old Town and Rive; the marmite filled with marzipan vegetables appears every December.

Where are the best places to eat in Geneva?

Start with Les Armures in Old Town, which cooks fondue, raclette and Swiss classics in a 17th-century house next to the cathedral and is the standard answer for a first night. It is busy, it is not cheap, and it does what it does properly.

For a meal with a view, Il Lago at the Four Seasons Hôtel des Bergues holds a Michelin star for Italian cooking, and Izumi on the same hotel’s roof serves Nikkei food, the Japanese-Peruvian crossover, with the city laid out below. Chez Philippe in the banking district is the address for steak and seafood off a charcoal grill.

Cheaper and more local: the canteen at Bains des Pâquis, the food stalls at the Plainpalais market on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and the Carouge cafés a short tram ride south.

Where to stay in Geneva

Stay in Old Town, Pâquis or Eaux-Vives, because all three put the sights within walking distance and each one solves a different problem. Old Town is the atmospheric choice and the quietest at night. Pâquis, behind the station on the right bank, is the cheapest central district and the most mixed, with the lake and the Bains at the end of the street. Eaux-Vives, on the left bank past the Jet d’Eau, is residential, green and a short walk from the flower clock. Plainpalais and Carouge cost less again and are five to ten minutes out by tram.

Old Town: Hôtel Les Armures. A 17th-century building in the Old Town, directly beside St. Pierre Cathedral, with air-conditioned rooms, marble bathrooms and the fondue restaurant on the ground floor. The shopping streets, the lakefront promenade and the main museums are all inside a 10-minute walk. Check dates for Hôtel Les Armures.

Near the station: 9Hotel Paquis. A three-star hotel about 400 metres from Gare de Cornavin, with family rooms, air conditioning, a 24-hour front desk and a pool, jacuzzi and sauna on the lower floor. Useful if you are arriving by train or heading out on day trips. Check dates for 9Hotel Paquis.

On the water: Fairmont Grand Hotel Geneva. The five-star lakefront hotel that traded as the Kempinski for years, with the Jet d’Eau and Mont Blanc from the front rooms, three restaurants, a spa and the largest indoor pool in the city. Cornavin station and Old Town are both about 10 minutes on foot. Check dates for the Fairmont Grand Hotel Geneva.

Rates swing hard with the conference calendar, so a room that costs one figure in July can cost double during a motor show or a summit week. Run your dates through Booking.com and filter on the map rather than by district name, and remember that whatever you book includes the free transport card.

Tours and day trips from Geneva

Book a guided tour in Geneva for the two sights you cannot simply walk into: the UN, which is tour-only, and the lake, where the boat does the work. Old Town walking tours, chocolate and cheese tastings and half-day runs to Annecy, Chamonix and Gruyères are the other regulars, and they leave from the Bel-Air or Mont-Blanc area.

Trains do the rest. Geneva to Bern takes under two hours with departures every half hour, Geneva to Zurich Airport takes about three hours direct, and Geneva Airport has its own station under the terminal with a free ticket machine in the baggage hall for the ride into town. Driving to Zurich covers roughly 280 km (174 mi) on the A1 and needs a motorway vignette on the windscreen.

Geneva events worth planning around

Three Geneva events are worth building a trip around, and all three fall between December and February. They are listed below.

1. Fête de l’Escalade, mid-December. Geneva’s own festival, marking the night of 11 to 12 December 1602 when Savoyard troops tried to scale the city walls and failed. The Compagnie de 1602 parades through Old Town in period dress with horses and cannon, there is mulled wine and vegetable soup in the streets, and families smash a chocolate cauldron filled with marzipan vegetables. The 2026 edition runs from 11 to 13 December.
2. Course de l’Escalade, early December. The running race that fills the Old Town lanes the weekend before the festival, with categories from children upwards and a costume race at night.
3. Geneva Lux, January into February. A free light festival run by the City of Geneva, with installations around the harbour and Old Town; the 2026 edition ran from 16 January to 1 February and included a projection show inside St. Pierre Cathedral.

Geneva FAQ

Is Geneva safe to visit? Yes. Violent crime is rare and the city is comfortable to walk at night. Watch your bag around Cornavin station and on crowded trams, which is where pickpocketing happens.

Is Geneva easy to visit with kids? Yes. The free city museums, the lakeside parks, the Bains des Pâquis and the boats across the harbour all work for children, and the transport card covers the family. Note that the Museum of Natural History, normally the strongest card here, is shut for works until April 2027.

What is Geneva famous for? Diplomacy, banking, watchmaking and the Reformation. The UN’s European office, the Red Cross, the Geneva Conventions, Patek Philippe and Rolex, and John Calvin all belong to this city of roughly 210,000 people.

Who are the most famous people from Geneva? Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born here in 1712 to a watchmaker’s family, and Ferdinand de Saussure, born here in 1857 and the founder of modern linguistics, are the two Genevans on any list of influential Swiss people. John Calvin and Jean Piaget are both claimed by the city but born elsewhere, Calvin in Noyon in France and Piaget in Neuchâtel.

Do I need cash in Geneva? Not really. Cards work almost everywhere, including on buses and in museums. Keep a few francs for the Bains des Pâquis canteen and market stalls.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from reading Geneva’s venues, prices and closures off their own sites in September 2026, and each one changes what a day in the city costs or contains.

1. Book the Palais des Nations on the 20th of the month before you go. UN Geneva releases each month’s tour dates on the 20th of the previous month and they sell out quickly, tickets are not sold at the gate, and there is no way to walk the grounds without a tour. Bring a passport from a UN member or observer state; Schengen identity cards are also accepted at the Pregny Gate.
2. Take the free transport card at check-in and use it on the water. Hotels and hostels hand guests a Geneva Transport Card covering buses, trams and the yellow Mouettes boats across the harbour for the length of the stay, so crossing the lake costs nothing once you have it.
3. Skip the Natural History Museum until April 2027. It closed for building work on 3 June 2026 and is due to reopen on 11 April 2027, and the reopening date has moved before. Janus, the two-headed tortoise that hatched there in 1997, is living at Bioparc Genève in the meantime, and the Museum of the History of Science at Parc de la Perle du Lac stays open throughout.
4. Start the cathedral climb well before closing time. Tower access shuts 30 minutes before the building itself, at CHF 7 (about €7, $9, £6) for adults, CHF 5 for seniors and CHF 4 for young visitors. The archaeological site underneath is a separate ticket, so ask about a combined one at the desk rather than buying twice.
5. Expect the Jet d’Eau to be off in early November. It runs year-round now rather than March to October as older guides say, but SIG switches it off near freezing temperatures and in strong wind, and takes it out of service for about a month from early November for maintenance.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team covers Geneva and the rest of Switzerland for independent travellers, including the museums, the guided tours of the Palais des Nations, the hotels in Old Town and Pâquis and the lake boats worth booking. We update this page when prices, opening hours and closures change.