Lake Geneva: France + Switzerland

I tend to be a pendulum that swings between planning far in advance and planning about 2-4 weeks before a trip. It usually depends on what I can convince my partner to do, if we’re being honest. This trip was something we halfway planned months in advance (flights booked in December for an end of May trip). For probably 90% of our trips, we have let SkyScanner decide where we go. Because of our military-decided long weekends, we know for an entire fiscal year when we are going to have “free weekends” to travel. As we drove to Puglia for Christmas 2023, I got on SkyScanner and planned out our holidays for spring 2024. I found wildly affordable flights on EasyJet to Geneva for Memorial Day Weekend and booked them. Then came the fun part of planning what we would use the city of Geneva as our jumping off point for.

Friday

We flew into Geneva early Friday morning and picked up our rental car. I knew this from everything I had read and from friends who had traveled there, but this area was more expensive in terms of “cost of living” expenses - car rental, groceries, gas, restaurants, etc. compared to other countries or cities we had visited. Just something to be aware of when planning trips here.

We weren’t staying at all in Geneva but rather driving to the southern shores of the lake to stay on the French side in a town called Evian-les-bains, which as you may guess, is the the town where the famous Evian water comes from. On our drive to Evian we made a stop in Yvoire, which truly felt like a town out of a fairytale like Beauty and the Beast. I am so glad that we visited in the spring because everything around us was in bloom and the flowers everywhere seemed to be absolutely exploding. It was beautiful.

Parking in Yvoire can be a bit tricky because it’s a popular spot and the town itself is pedestrian only, but there are two large lots outside of the town. We found a spot and noticed that even when the lots filled up, people were just parking along the roads outside the lot and not having issues. You can also take a ferry from the major cities on the lake, like Geneva. In Yvoire, we walked around, popped into the cute shops (a mix of kitschy souvenirs and local artisans), stopped in the local church, and sat on the lake shore. The highlight for my son was definitely the Jardin des Cinq Sens botanical garden. Each section of the garden focuses on each of the senses and is interactive — in the “feel” section, there are plants for you to actually touch (great for a 3 year old). There is also a poison garden section, which was interesting. The entire atmosphere was beautiful and relaxing. It was a great way to break up the drive from Geneva to Evian.

Once we arrived in Evian, we checked into the hotel (which has an attached parking garage) and immediately headed to the pool. At the end of May it was still a little cold to swim outside, but the indoor spa pool offers family hours so we were able to spend plenty of time there. The hotel is right on the lake shore and has fantastic views, a bar and restaurant, a rooftop executive lounge, and a full service spa.

Saturday

After breakfast, we went to explore the town of Evian. It is not a huge town, so we were able to see a lot just by walking around. We found the fountain that is the historic source of Evian bottled water (the Source Cachat), rode the Funiculaire all the way to the top of the mountain for great views of the lake, and of course found gelato and a Christmas ornament in the shops of the old town.

After our morning in town, we did make sure to get back to the hotel for the family hours at the pool. Something I still have to remind myself when we travel is that it’s very likely that the most exciting thing about a holiday, to my three year old, is very likely the hotel pool, so I need to leave time for him to enjoy it.

In the evening, we strolled around the lake for dinner at one of the cafes and found a rock beach to hang out at for sunset. Rock beaches = toddler heaven and hours of rock throwing entertainment.

Something we didn’t do but that Evian is known for is their thermal spas and health spa resorts. I read that several were child-friendly or had options for child-care, but we didn’t prioritize this since our hotel had a pool and spa option.

Sunday

We headed over to Montreux, Switzerland (a very easy drive) to spend the day. The drive itself was beautiful and literally on the one road the goes around the lake. We took as passports with us, since we would be crossing the border, but there was no stop or check.

We parked in the upper section of the city, near the old town and Les Planches. This was lovely for the views and to walk around the smaller, more charming streets of the old town, but it made for quite the steep walk back to our car after we walked all the way down to the lake shore.

Because the weather was so beautiful, our plan for the day was just to walk around, eat, and drink. We knew we wanted to find playgrounds and see two things: the Château de Chillon and Freddie Mercury’s recording studio.

A highlight for both my partner and I (and maybe even my son, who loved playing with the mixing board) was definitely visiting Mountain Studio, the recording studio where Queen recorded their last album. It now an experience/exhibit at a casino but you can still access it with kids since the exhibit is before the actual casino entrance. A lot of other artists recorded here too like David Bowie. Freddie Mercury bought the studio in 1979 and they recorded Innuendo (album) and the song Made in Heaven in 1995 - their last before he died. They opened the exhibit in 2013 and any donations go to support his memorial foundation for AIDS research and to support the exhibit. You can see the original studio door and a replica of what the recording room looked like.

After leaving the studio, we grabbed some lunch along the lake and hopped on the walking path to head towards the Château de Chillon. This is the building that Prince Eric’s castle in The Little Mermaid is based off of! It was definitely a longer walk than we thought it would be (somehow the château never seemed to get closer). We ended up not walking all the way down to actually go into the château, but found the beach and rocks close by with beautiful views of the château to stop and sit for a while, which was more the speed my son was after anyways. He just wanted to run around on the beach and play versus taking a tour of a building.

Springtime on Lake Geneva (Lác Leman in French) was absolutely stunning and I’m so glad we got to experience both French and Swiss towns while here.

Monday

For our final day before heading home, we drove down to Annecy, the Venice of the Alps, which you can read about here.