Geneva Sights & Activities

1. Jet d’Eau

The Jet d’Eau is Geneva’s most immediately recognisable symbol, visible all over the city and even from the air when you fly 10 kilometres above it. Though strikingly beautiful, its origins are far more practical than you might imagine. In the late 19th century, new hydraulic turbines were installed on the lake to power the workshops of the city’s craftsmen. When these were switched off in the evening, excessive water built up in them. In order to relieve this the jet was created in 1886 as a safety valve, which could eject water to a height of about 30 metres. The creation of a reservoir system not long after rendered the jet obsolete, but by then it had become a tourist attraction. So, in 1891 it was moved to its present location to celebrate the Federal Gymnastics Festival and the 600th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation, on which occasion it was also illuminated for the first time. The present Jet d'Eau was installed in 1951. Today the height of the jet is an incredible 140 metres, with 500 litres of water forced out of the nozzle every second. Since 2003 the fountain has operated during the day all year round, except in case of frost and particularly strong winds. It also operates in the evening between spring and autumn.

2. Cathédrale St-Pierre

Geneva’s mighty Cathédrale St-Pierre was built between 1160 and 1232. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the way the city has changed hands so many times – not to mention the seismic effects of the Reformation – it displays a somewhat bewildering mixture of styles. Though fundamentally a Romanesque structure, it features Gothic accents and has a mid-18th century Neoclassical portico on the main west front. The opposite end is completely asymmetrical, thanks to two, dissimilar towers – another late addition.
The interior has long since been gutted of its Catholic decoration. Immediately after the Reformation, all the altars in the cathedral, as well as every statue and icon, were destroyed, while the organs were smashed and the painted decorations on the interior walls were whitewashed. However there are a few, more exotic features which somehow survived amid the clean lines of dour, severely austere stonework. At the top of the nave’s clustered pillars there are huddled, grotesque monsters and a bare-breasted, double-tailed mermaid. The stained glass windows also remained intact.

While the cathedral itself is impressive enough, the real attraction, for many visitors, lies beneath. Here you’ll find one of Europe's largest subterranean archaeological sites – testimony to the fact that the hill on which the cathedral stands was the sight of almost continuous building and rebuilding since long before the birth of Christ. Beginning in the mid-1970s, excavation has uncovered a 4th-century baptistry and superb 5th-century mosaics among many other treasures. Today these remains are strikingly presented with subterranean catwalks weaving around and over them. So far, incredibly, more than 200 levels of building work have been discovered over eleven zones, allowing the visitor to picture the church in its evolution over the centuries.

3. Red Cross Museum

Using highly effective video displays, slide-shows and interactive technology, the Red Cross Museum has been acclaimed as one of the best in Europe. In the courtyard, before you enter, there is a group of stone figures by sculptor Carl Boucher, entitled “The Petrified.” Bound and blindfolded, they represent the continued worldwide violation of human rights. The museum experience proper begins with a display, divided into 11 sections, chronicling the history of kindness and tolerance. Not nearly as bucolic as it might sound, it moves from the Good Samaritan, to Saladin, to the slaughter of 40000 soldiers in a battle near Solferino in Italy. Part of the Italian Wars of Unification, this battle’s aftermath was witnessed by Genevois businessman Henri Durant and inspired him to set up the Red Cross in 1863.

Throughout the rest of the museum the displays are strikingly affecting, telling their stories through clear single images rather than swamping you with facts and figures. Amongst the most memorable exhibitions, the “Wall of Time” represents each individual war and natural disaster that has killed more than 100000 people since the Red Cross’s foundation. Unsurprisingly, the second half of the 20th century is the most appallingly crowded. There’s also a reconstructed cell, 3 metres by 2 metres, which housed 17 World War I prisoners, and an astonishing 17 million prisoners’ record cards from the same conflict.

4. Maison Tavel

Constructed by the Tavel family in 1303 and partially rebuilt after a fire in 1334, this is the city's oldest house and one of its newest museums. The building passed between various owners and underwent several transformations over the centuries, before opening as a museum in 1986. Featuring a distinctive grey-blue sandstone façade, etched with trompe l’oeil mortar lines and white joints, the front wall is typically 17th century. Inside there is a courtyard with a staircase, a 13th-century cellar, and a back garden. The museum exhibits historical collections from Geneva dating from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century. Objects of daily use are displayed in the old living quarters. The highlight of the museum is in the attic: a giant copper-and-zinc model of Geneva, showing the city complete with its fortifications, before features such as the Pont du Mont-Blanc or the Cornavin railway station had been built. The display is accompanied by a sound and light commentary.

5. C.E.R.N.

In the suburbs north west of Geneva, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics – better known as CERN – is one of the world’s most famous laboratories. It’s a huge place, though you may not realise this when you first approach its cluster of low buildings. This is because its crown jewel – the world’s largest particle accelerator, a 27 kilometre circular tunnel around which electrons are fired at just under the speed of light to see what happens when they hit their antimatter counterparts – is buried 100 metres below the French-Swiss border. It’s a truly international venture, with scientists from 80 countries conducting mammoth experiments. It also offers well-organised and remarkably accessible tours for visitors. What’s more, if you visit between October and March you'll even get to stand inside the accelerator tunnel (it's switched off in winter.) Do bear in mind, however, that no matter what time of year you visit, you’ll always have to book ahead.

6. Palais des Nations

The Palais des Nations was originally built in the early 1930s as the home of the League of Nations (inaugurated in1920.) The Palais stands in the 25-hectare Ariana Park among majestic trees, many of which are over 100 years old. The park was originally owned by the Revilliod de Rive family, whose last descendant bequeathed it to the City of Geneva. One of the bequest's conditions was that peacocks should roam freely on its grounds, so it is still not unusual to see the birds disporting themselves in full splendour in the Palais grounds. The city has, in turn, made the park available to the UN for its offices for as long as the organisation exists.

Beneath the foundation stone of the Palais des Nations – laid on 7 September 1929 – lies a casket containing a document listing the names of the League of Nations Member States, a copy of the Covenant of the League and specimen coins of all the countries represented at its Tenth Assembly. After the dissolution of the League in 1946 and the transfer of its assets to the United Nations Organization, the European Office of the United Nations was established in the same building, becoming the United Nations Office at Geneva in 1966.
Tours of the Palais are offered in any of the United Nation’s 15 languages. The public entrance is up Avenue de la Paix, opposite the Red Cross Museum. To enter, you’ll have to hand in your passport and go through airport-style security procedures (you’re effectively leaving Switzerland and entering international territory.) Once the tour begins you’re regaled with a potted history of the UN and its philosophy. The highlight of the tour is the Council Chamber, which is decorated with gold-and-speia murals by the Catalan artist José Maria Sert, depicting the progress of humankind through health, technology, freedom and peace. The style is very heroic, even triumphal – indeed the of the main wing is, rather ironically, a prime example of 1930s Fascist architecture, complete with cold marble floors, gigantic bronze doors and the hard lines of Neoclassicist Art Deco.

7. Musée d’Art et d’Histoire

Geneva’s largest and most important museum and Switzerland’s unofficial national collection, the Museum of Art and History is gigantic place that covers. in encyclopaedic fashion, the whole sweep of Western culture from antiquity to the present. It’s divided into three main sections. One the ground floor and mezzanine level there is the applied arts collection, which features a wealth of objects from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, such as furniture, textiles, pewterware, arms and armour. It’s fine if you like that sort of thing, but it needn’t detain you for long. For the undoubted highlight of the museum, head up the grand staircase towards the marvellous Fine Art collection. At the top you’ll be confronted by Canova’s beautifully entwined and eloquently romantic marble sculpture of Venus and Adonis, standing alone and lit by a skylight. Also at the head of the stairs are two Rodins, one iconic (The Thinker), the other less so, but still arresting (The Tragic Muse.)

The Fine Art collection continues to unfold as you enter the Main Hall and its subsidiary rooms. Here you’ll find Konrad Witz’s famous altarpiece – "The Miraculous Draught of Fish" – made for the St-Pierre Cathedral in 1444, which shows Christ and the fisherman transposed to Lake Geneva. There are also prominent works by Monet, Sisley, Cézanne, Rembrandt, Pissarro, Renoir and Modigliani, as well as Swiss artists like Ferdinand Hodler.

The lower floor, meanwhile, is given over to a massive archaeological collection. The breathtaking Egyptian rooms include sections from the Book of the Dead, a complete 9th century BC mummy, and a beautiful granite statue of the goddess Sekhmet – who posses the body of a woman and the head of a lionness – from the 14th century BC. There’s also an excellent display on hieroglyphics. The halls devoted to Ancient Greece and Rome are no less impressive, filled with statuary, glassware and good historical notes.

8. Carouge

Trams #12 or #13 in the city centre can drop you in the heart of Carouge, 2 kilometres south. Somewhat optimistically labelled the “Greenwich Village of Geneva,” the suburb may not live up such comparisons, but it does offer an arty, atmospheric alternative. It began life in 1754 as a hamlet of a few hundred people beyond the city limits. Under the stewardship of Victor Amideus, King of Sardinia, it became a refuge not only for Catholics, but also for Jews and even Protestants disillusioned by the extent of Geneva’s Puritanism. Since Victor Amideus ruled from Turin, the city’s architects developed a chessboard design of criss-crossing streets planted with trees, and low houses with wooden, Mediterranean-style galleries looking into internal gardens (most of which are open for you to explore.)

Carouge thrived during the later decades of the 18th century, growing into a bustling town of four thousand. Although eventually swallowed up by Geneva, its quiet, attractive streets are still packed with artists’ workshops, old-style cafés and some of the city’s best small-scale nightlife. Rue St-Joseph, in particular, is shoulder-to-shoulder artisans, from carpenters to milliners. A stroll around can be a very pleasant way to pass an afternoon.

Monday - Friday	:9am - 6:30pm
Saturday	:9am - 5:30pm
Sunday and Public Holidays	:Closed

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