Curiously Among the most affordable or economical destinations for a long weekend I have found Geneva, in Switzerland, located around Lake Geneva or directly Lake Geneva, and I have remembered that I have not told you enough about how wonderful it can be to do a mini-cruise on this lake.
To start I will tell you what you can discover in this city European headquarters of the UN and the headquarters of the Red Cross. On the left bank is the old part of the city dominated by the St-Pierre cathedral, and in it everything is glamorous, with promenades, abundant parks, elegant shops and very lively alleys.
From here you can move from one shore to another of the lake, which by the way, remove the idea of a lake, because It is huge, with almost 600 square kilometers in area. For a reason it is the largest lake in Europe.
In the heart of the port, you have the Geneva Fountain, one of the city's biggest attractions, a valve that psprays water up to a height of 140 meters, at a speed of 200 km / h. This fountain was built until 1951 and what is beautiful is to see, on sunny days, is how the rainbow appears almost immediately.
Cruise options on Lake Geneva
The options for a cruise on the lake are numerous, I will comment on a couple of them. In the first of these visits they will show you the castles of Chillon, Morges, Rolle, Yvoire, seeing the vineyards and the snow-capped mountains of the Alps. To embark on this 3 hour XNUMX minute trip you can do it from Geneva, Lausanne, Montreux and Vevey. This route is included in the Swiss Travel Pass (Flex) / GA card and there is no need to pre-reserve seats. Of course, these types of cruises, in which it is also possible to have lunch with a price supplement, are only available on Sundays and holidays. The explanations on board are in English and French, but the views are enough, I assure you.
The other option that I wanted to tell you about is the precious ones. steamboats that ply this lake, and with which you will move in time. To embark on these floating beauties, there are eight ships, you can do it from Lausanne, Vevey, Geneva or Chillon. This fleet was built between 1904 and 1927. The price of the trip is 36 euros per person and the duration of the journey is approximately one and a half hours. If you stay in a hotel in the city of Geneva, they must give you GenevaPass, is the transport card for use in Geneva, and with it you can make a beautiful free excursion around the lake aboard some yellow boats, They are called Mouettes, which translated means seagull. Obviously you can also buy tickets to move around the lake, as if it were a kind of bus, on board this boat. There are four lines and they are operating, with Swiss punctuality from 7:30 in the morning to 18:XNUMX, with an average frequency of ten minutes.
Other recommended excursions
Since you have reached this beautiful corner, very close you will have a series of recommendations and interesting excursions such as the possibility of observe marmots, stay in a real Mongolian yurt, or walk the chocolate train route, that runs between Montreux and Nestlé's Maison Cailler factory.
How not visit the interior of the Chillon castle, on a rock on the shores of Lake Geneva. This is one of the most visited buildings in Switzerland. For almost four centuries it was the residence of the Counts of Savoy. In it there are 25th century murals, underground vaults, bedrooms with original decoration…. The construction is made up of 3 buildings and XNUMX courtyards, which are protected by two rings of walls.
From Vevey you can take the cogwheel train that, via Blonay, reaches the Astro-Pléiades viewpoint with the most important outdoor exhibition on our solar system and the universe. Besides if you go in spring, you will find kilometers of daffodils.