Stephanie’s Sweet Escape to Geneva
I was lucky to be invited to Geneva by the team at Switzerland Tourism. It was a fantastic trip and really changed my thoughts on Geneva as a city break. I always thought Geneva looked beautiful and we all know about Swiss chocolate… but I didn’t know the city would have such a relaxed vibe and such friendly people!
I arrived from Edinburgh and headed straight for the hotel to drop off bags and have lunch with the rest of the group. It couldn’t be easier getting into central Geneva, the train is 7mins and it’s 1 stop – we had the Geneva City pass so this was included in the card benefits. Once in central Geneva it was about a 10min walk to The MGallery Rotary (4*+). I really liked this hotel and the rooms were huge (they do seem to be larger all over Geneva in comparison to other cities), lovely sitting area in the reception and the breakfast was also great, lots of continental options and cooked options made to order too. The pancakes are especially good!
Lunch was out on the terrace at L’Artisan and we could have happily stayed there all afternoon! It was a pretty terrace in the shade with delicious food and tasty cocktails. Alas, we had a Wine and Heritage tour to get to so we dragged ourselves away to meet our guide.
Our guide Emmanuelle was very enthusiastic about the wine and the history. We worked our way around the city learning about everything from Quagga mussels that have invaded Lake Geneva and fundamentally changed the ecosystem, to the creation of the red cross and the Protestant Reformation. Our guide shared plenty stories about Geneva’s wine with many generous tastings! Geneva only exports 1-2% of it’s wine production, so most of these I won’t get to try again, but if you do get the chance they’re all very good.
On night 1, dinner was at Les Armures, the restaurant serves Swiss haute cuisine in an 11th century property, if you’re using google to find it, you will probably end up at the hotel of the same name, just keep wandering a few more steps, it’s on the other side of the building. We all agreed we had to have Fondue, we had both standard and 1 with mushrooms and both were delicious, I have had fondue before in Austria, but this was a lot richer and all you needed was bread for dunking, you can add meat and veggies but I thing that would take away from the cheese.
Day 2 started with a look around the Marriott – this is actually an ‘airport hotel’ and they offer a free shuttle if you stay here. You are a little out of the city. However, it’s just 12mins on the tram to get back into central Geneva. The hotel is known as one of the most sustainable hotels in Switzerland and it’s a good option if you’re looking for a better value stay. I loved the rooftop terrace where you can sit with a drink and watch the world go by with flights taking off and landing.
After this, the fun started and we were whisked away by Tuk-Tuk, past stunning views to some vineyards near the city. Here we had some cheese and wine pairings in a tranquil garden, with the vineyard owner proudly explaining his family’s history with wine production. Next was lunch at Café de Peney, another amazing restaurant with great atmosphere and even better food! It’s about 20mins from Geneva and if you don’t have a handy Tuk-Tuk to drop you off it can be easily reached by bus.
After lunch, we had some free time to make use of our Geneva city pass, so a group of us headed to the Ferry terminal (Mont-Blanc) to enjoy a steam ferry trip around the lake, this took about 50mins, and as we had the weather on our side we sat on the top deck in deck chairs enjoying the sun and some drinks as we passed by even more beautiful scenery.
The Geneva city pass is a great idea if you’re planning a trip here. It gives you free or highly discounted access to a huge range of things from museums to rafting, the lake cruises like I did, and even guided tours. It also covers all the transport you can think of, bus, tram, train, boat…! You can pick it up for 24/48 or 72 hours.
If you don’t fancy an hour on the water but still want a boat trip to add to your stay, you can always hop on one of the yellow and red Mouettes, these are Geneva’s public transport boats that operate between 4 harbours across the city, short trips of 10-20mins and CHF3.50 per adult per trip (or free with the city pass).
After this it was time for dinner and this was a good one! We took the Saleve cable car up to the top of the mountain, 1100m, this is technically in France but is known as the balcony of Geneva. If you have a clear day the views from the top are even better than you think, we could see for miles and you can even see Mont-Blanc! The restaurant is called Vertiges and we had a table at the window so we could watch the sunset while we ate, seeing the lights and stars twinkle on our way back down.
On the final day, we started off strong with a watchmaking workshop. We were taken to Initium, we had coffee and a talk with the watchmaker about the history of timepieces and then we disassembled and reassembled part of a watch, very fiddly and took a steady hand but it was really interesting. They do offer a full/half day course where you create your own watch to take home, but they do start around the £2k mark! So maybe instead try their Swiss army knife making course, you get to choose all the elements and colours etc, customise it yourself and then assemble it and take it home, this is around the 200CHF mark and a really cool souvenir.
After this, we did a few more hotel visits, and a wander around the old town to get a feel for it, great atmosphere, everyone seems so chill in Geneva. It’s not what I expected at all, I thought it would be a lot more business and serious feeling, but definitely at the weekend at least it’s families and friends shopping and having picnics by the lake with lots of music everywhere too.
After lunch (an amazing Lebanese restaurant called Balila, highly recommend if you love sharing plates style dining), we had some free time again so used the Choco pass we’d been given, this was really cool, you can visit up to 5 different chocolatiers and they’ll give you samples with info about how they make the chocolates, what is traditional and ones they’ve put their own spin on. As we were short on time we picked 5 stores near us and whipped round them. I think if you had more time, you could really make a good day out of visiting different chocolatiers around the city – some more modern options and some that have been there since 1826! If you don’t have a group pass like we did you also get 10CHF on the pass to spend in addition to the samples.
After our chocolate expedition was our Chocolate workshop at La Bonbonniere. I had done a similar sounding workshop in Brussels a few years ago but this was next level. We created our own chocolate watches! Cutting out the shapes and using more chocolate as “glue” it was great fun, and very tasty as well. After a lot of laughter over who’s watch came out best (definitely not mine), we headed off for our final dinner as a group. This was at Restaurant de la Plage, built on stilts at the end of the public beach, it was in a great spot for us to wander over to in the evening sunshine, again just soaking up the atmosphere of all the locals having fun in the beach. Quite a chilled restaurant it was still very tasty and I would go back just for the kiwi pavlova alone.
A final wander back to the hotel to digest and say our goodbyes we stopped off at Jet d’Eau, one of Geneva’s most famous landmarks it shoots water up 460feet above lake Geneva at 124mph, it looks pretty cool during the day but when they light it up in the evening it looks almost other worldly.
To find out more about Steph’s visit to Geneva, or if you’re interested in a similar trip,
give the team a call on 0131 243 8098 or send us an email.
