Geneva travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

The city of Geneva has a dual life. On the one hand you have all these international organizations, its peaceful atmosphere, its friendly and civilized people, and its swans and ducks on the lake. On the other hand, you have its kinky night-life. Geneva is world famous for its red light district and its cabarets. If you like nature, you will love this botanical garden. This is an arboretum with extremely varied wildlife and thousands of roses, tulips, dahlias, irises…The Geneva Botanical Gardens are world famous. They provide an oasis of fresh and calm greenery, where you can discover or rediscover this exceptional and educational place for relaxing and strolling. It is nearby the “Palais des Nations”, and it is an easy walk from the square. If you are in the city center, take tram number 13 direction “Palettes”, and get off at its final stop. “Botanicum” (a family space) is near the lake. Since 1904, these 28 hectares located on the edge of Geneva, Switzerland, offer an ideal setting for either a simple stroll or for learning.

The Botanical Gardens consist of a collection of 16,000 plant species from all over the world. This truly living museum is divided into several sections: an arboretum, the rock garden and banks of protected plants, medicinal and useful plants, greenhouses, horticultural plants, an animal park devoted to conservation. Its greenhouses hold species from the six continents. And outside, in the park’s twenty-eight hectares (70 acres), you will find samples of forests from all corners of the world. In the park there is also the Botanical Conservatory, with a library that holds more than 200,000 botanical books. Its Conservatory owns a rich collection of 220,000 volumes and a herbarium containing over 5,5 million samples; visits are open to scientists by appointmen. There are 79 acres of beautiful horticultural display, including a 14-acre Japanese strolling garden, rose garden and a Climatron conservatory that made me feel like.
Created in 1817 by world-renowned botanist Augustin-Pyram de Candolle, the gardens also include greenhouses packed with plants from six continents, a scent-and-touch garden for the blind, a deer park, an aviary and one of the world’s largest botanical centers (open by prior request). Walking around the Botanical Gardens on a hot sticky day made for a perfect excuse to take a ride on the St. Louis stretch of Old Route 66. The Palmhouse highlights the back third of the gardens, but does not dominate the view. It actually enhances the aura of space by reflecting the power of the sunlight and the plants within—literally and figuratively. Inside the main vault you find Royal and Queen palms, and I just love that hothouse humidity and odor. It has that dual life-death quality inherent to the constancy of nature’s cycle.
The project is aimed at establishing the necessary structures and having the necessary staff in the two Southern botanical gardens in order to provide for the transfer of knowledge in the area of tropical biodiversity and sustainable development. This goal will be achieved through a North-South transfer and a South-South transfer of knowledge, both in terms of technical training and university education. The program will further the role already predominantly played by Southern women as custodians of traditional knowledge on biodiversity and as a pivotal force in any development policy.Opening hours:
October to March: 9.30 to 17.00.

Its predecessor dated from 1886, when the new hydraulic turbines on the Rhone built up excessive water pressure after the city’s craftsmen had closed the valves in their workshops and gone home. An engineer created a temporary outlet which spurted a 30m fountain to release the pressure while a reservoir system was developed, but by the time the fountain became unnecessary a few wily Genevois had caught on to its power as a tourist attraction. Then purely decorative, it was moved from the river to an exposed lakeside location, and furnished with more and more powerful pumps. It’s a big fountain that shoots straight out of the lake… it was built for a world fair there. You can see it from all around the lake, and they shine lights on it at night. The lake is beautiful to watch a sunset on, and the Swiss Alps surround it. Also, there is a statue of a “naked man and a horse”. Eight 9,000-watt projectors light the fountain’s majestic column in the evening as it soars skywards.
In 1930, the city of Geneva installed the Jet d’eau (Water Fountain) where it is today, on the Rade, together with electric lighting. Originally a simple security valve at the Coulouvreniere hydraulic factory, the massive Jet d’Eau fountain has, over the years, grown to become a symbol of Geneva. Geneva’s Jet d’Eau has been breaking the calm of this peaceful city for over a hundred years.To project half a cubic meter of water per second up to 140 meters high requires two powerful groups of motor pumps representing a global weight of over 16 tons and a total power of close to 1000 kilowatts, fed by an electric tension of 2400 volts. The water is drawn in a circular water-sump and is directed towards an exit pipe where the speed reaches 200 km/h (130 miles per hour). Still, the generically named Jet d’eau (”water jet”) isn’t your common garden-variety sprinkler. Electric pumps totalling some 1,300 hp keep an estimated seven tons of water in the air, and the jet is nearly three times the height of the Statue of Liberty.

It is only when approaching the Jet d’Eau on the Rade that you really experience the mixture of indescribable power and invigorating spray, and can appreciate the surrounding sites, the harmony of the quays, the old town on the hills and St Peter’s Cathedral. But don’t take the mild spray for granted – as soon as the wind changes direction, sprays turn into showers and more than one visitor has come back from the Rade completely soaked…