37 Best Sights in Geneva, Switzerland

Built between 1929 and 1936 for the League of Nations, this monumental compound became the European office of the United Nations in 1946 and quickly evolved into the largest center for multilateral diplomacy in the world. Today it hosts some 9,000 conferences and 25,000 delegates each year; it is also the largest nexus for United Nations operational activities after New York.

Security is tight: be prepared to show your passport and arrive at least 45 minutes before your scheduled tour. Points of particular interest include the Assembly Hall, the largest of 34 conference rooms, where the UN General Assembly and scores of world leaders have met, and the ornate Council Chamber, home to the Conference on Disarmament, which glows with allegorical murals. Tours last about one hour and are conducted in 15 languages, including English.

This former hotel leaped to international prominence on April 28, 1919, when the peace negotiators in Paris chose Geneva to host the newborn League of Nations. International civil servants began work here in November 1920, and the building was renamed in honor of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1924. By 1936 the faltering League had run out of space and moved to the custom-built Palais des Nations. Ten years later it was dismantled. The Palais Wilson was gutted by fire in 1987, meticulously restored in 1998, and now houses the headquarters of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. It is not open to the public.

This sloping park, once the private grounds of an 18th-century villa overlooking the lake, is filled with remarkable plant life, including a collection of cedar trees more than 200 years old, Geneva's biggest rose garden, orangeries, an alpine garden, and a collection of brightly flowering rhododendrons. The Orangerie and the Théâtre de Verdure stage performances and open-air concerts through the summer months.

In this breathtaking private collection you'll discover delicate gold watch cases, complicated watch innards, lifelike portrait miniatures, and softly lighted enameled fans, pens, pocketknives, snuffboxes, telescopes, and vanity pistols that shoot singing birds. Most of the objects displayed in this former watchmaking workshop are hundreds of years old; many were created in Geneva by Patek Philippe, one of the city's most venerable watchmaking companies. Meticulously restored workbenches, audiovisual displays, classical music, and a horological library complete the picture. Audio guides are available in English as well as a two-hour guided tour (in English at 2:30 on Saturday).

Aristocratic town houses now overlook Geneva's opera house, the Musée Rath, the Conservatoire de Musique, and the gilded wrought-iron entrance to the Parc des Bastions, but until 1850 this wide-open space was the city's heavily fortified main southern gate. The equestrian statue at the center of the square honors Guillaume-Henri Dufour, the first general of Switzerland's federal army and the first person to map the country. The large bust of Henry Dunant, founder of the International Red Cross, marks the spot where public executions once took place.

Ancient roads met in this layered Vieille Ville square before heading south to Annecy and Lyon, east to Italy and the Chablais, north to the Rues Basses, and west through the center of town to the bridge. Once a Celtic cattle market, later flooded with refugees, it's still the quintessential Genevois crossroads where shoppers, lawyers, workers, and students all meet for drinks around an 18th-century fountain.

On the border of the Rive Gauche's Plainpalais and Centre Ville neighborhoods is the lone surviving fragment of a 13th-century castle built by Bishop Aymon de Grandson to protect Geneva from attack via the bridge. The castle was demolished in 1677; this carefully preserved lookout tower is not open to the public.