Visit Geneva

The Grand Théâtre de Genève is both a building and an institution. The building? Towering over Place de Neuve since 1879, this imposing construction contains an auditorium of 1500 seats, refurbished after its destruction by fire in 1951. The institution? A vast stage, the largest dramatic production structure in French-speaking Switzerland, dedicated to procuring every year a season of opera and recitals of international standard.

Address: 40, avenue de France - 1202 Genève
Tel: +41 22 322 50 50
Email: billetterie@geneveopera.ch
Website  

Constructed between 1891 and 1894 as a tribute to the queen of England, the Victoria Hall is renowned throughout the whole world for the acoustic qualities of its concert auditorium. Owned by the City of Geneva, it was renovated in 2006 in order to increase the comfort of the spectators and musicians.

Find out more on the website!

The largest museum in Geneva, The Art and History Museum is veritable catalogue of western culture with over one million pieces in its collection organized in three different wings. The Archeology wing contains relics from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. The Fine Arts wing houses paintings from the Renaissance onward including works by Van Gogh and Renoir. Finally, the Applied Arts wing features furniture, weapons and other articles of daily life from the Middle Ages.

Address: Rue Charles-Galland 2, 1206 Genève
Tel: +41 (0)22 418 26 00
Email: mah(at)ville-ge.ch
Opening hours: 10am – 6pm. Closed Mondays.
Website 

Over 1,000 objects, remarkable messengers from cultures all over the world, have been selected from the 80,000 items in the MEG’s collections to feature in the permanent display. Its museographic and scientific design spotlights objects of exemplary historic or anthropological value, works likely to be admired for their aesthetic qualities, but also for their affective and emotional dimensions. Alongside this exhibition, a rich and daring multidisciplinary program of concerts, workshops, shows, lectures and visits will make this new outward-looking museum an attractive cultural venue.

Address: Boulevard Carl-Vogt 65-67, 1205 Genève, Switzerland
Opening times: Tuesday to Sunday, from 11 am to 6 pm. Closed on Mondays, 25 December and 1 January.
Tel: +41 22 418 45 50
More info here. 

When people in Geneva say they go to Museum, they mean The Natural History Museum. This museum presents an educational look at the world of nature with special emphasis on the ecological history of Switzerland. Included is a life size model menagerie of bears, foxes, alligators, aardvarks and other animals from around the globe, as well as a complete collection of every mineral and plant indigenous to Switzerland. There is a special children’s area for kids and a working lab for visiting scientists.

Address: Route de Malagnou 1
Opening hours: 9:30am – 5pm. Closed Mondays.
Tel: +41 22 418 63 00
More info here. 

Philippe Stern’s passion for timepieces resulted in the opening in 2001 of a “Temple to watchmaking” : The Patek Philippe Museum. Located in an entirely restored Art Deco building in the area of Plainpalais in Geneva, the museum houses over five centuries of watchmaking history into two important collections: the extraordinary antique collectionstarting from the 16th century, which includes the earliest watch ever made and the Patek Philippe collection from 1839 onwards. The latter bears testament to more than 170 years of manufacturing the world's finest watches and includes the most complicated timepiece ever made, the Caliber 89. The Patek Philippe Museum is a logical and faithful conclusion to a true legacy of genius.

Address: Rue des Vieux-Grenadiers 7 - 1205 Geneva
Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 2pm – 6pm / Saturday 10am – 6pm
Tel. +41 22 807 09 10
Website 

The permanent exhibition retraces the history of civilization with a chronological presentation that covers some five thousand years since the discovery of writing, in contrast to the fossils displayed at the museum’s entrance that are some 170 million years old.

Through selected examples of papyri, manuscripts, incunabula, original editions and autographic documents, visitors can truly take the measure of these creations of the mind, which shaped humanity and so fascinated Martin Bodmer.

Address: 19-21 Route Martin Bodmer 1223 Cologny
Opening hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 2 pm to 6 pm
Email: info@fondationbodmer.ch
Tel: +41 (22) 707 44 36
Website 

At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. They use the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments to study the basic constituents of matter – the fundamental particles. The particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives the physicists clues about how the particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature.

Address: Bâtiment 5, Route de Meyrin 385, 1217 Meyrin
Tel: +41 (0)22 767 4052 or +41 (0)22 767 2757
Email: visits.service@cern.ch
Website