The giant sequoias
Huge mature trees shading the top of the slope.
Fanny Schertzer — CC BY 3.0 · Fanny Schertzer — CC BY 3.0 · sanja mm — CC BY 3.0 · Sylvain Vuilleumier — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Jardin Anglais sits in the heart of the centre — small, crowded, with the famous flower clock and a direct view of the Jet d'Eau: a quarter of an hour for photographs. The Parc des Eaux-Vives is a twenty-five-minute walk further east, larger and quieter, with real trees and a lawn you can sit on. The recommendation: take your photographs at the Jardin Anglais, then walk east and spend your actual hour at Eaux-Vives and La Grange — especially with children, or if you want to eat lunch on the grass.
Late April and May for the rhododendrons and azaleas, and June for the rose garden in neighbouring La Grange, which is the undisputed peak of the season. July and August are excellent for sitting on the lawn in the evening, though midday can be oppressive and shade is thin at the bottom of the slope. From November to March the park is bare, grey and damp — do not budget time for it on a short winter trip.
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The Parc des Eaux-Vives is a broad green slope running down from a low hill to the left bank of Lake Geneva on the Quai Gustave-Ador, east of the city centre. It was a private estate before it became a public park, and an eighteenth-century mansion still stands at the top, working today as a hotel and restaurant. It covers about eight and a half hectares, and became a public park only in the 1910s, when the commune of Eaux-Vives bought the estate; it is open **free and around the clock**. What distinguishes it is not its size but its planting: mature **giant sequoias**, pines and firs, an alpine rock garden with a small cascade, and rhododendrons and azaleas that turn loud with colour in spring. A long lawn falls towards the water, so you sit on the grass with the lake in front of you and the Jura ridge behind it. At its foot a gate opens straight into the neighbouring **Parc La Grange**, which holds Geneva's largest rose garden. In practice it is the quiet alternative to the crowded Jardin Anglais in the centre. Buses run along the Quai Gustave-Ador, or you can walk about twenty-five minutes east from the Jet d'Eau, entirely along the water. Note that the mansion restaurant is an expensive fine-dining address and there is no ordinary café inside the park — buy what you want to eat before you arrive and sit on the lawn.
Huge mature trees shading the top of the slope.
An alpine corner with a small cascade inside the city.
Sit on the grass with the lake ahead and the Jura beyond.
Quai Gustave-Ador, 1207 Geneva