Explore Geneva

The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire is Geneva's main art and history museum, housed in a square building with an inner courtyard designed by Marc Camoletti and built from 1903 to 1910 with a bequest from the banker Charles Galland. Its galleries show archaeology, applied arts, arms and armour, and paintings and sculpture from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.

St. Pierre Cathedral stands on the hill of the old town, where the present Romanesque-Gothic church was begun in the 12th century; a neoclassical portico was added to its west front in the 18th century. Since 1535 it has been Geneva's main Protestant church, where John Calvin preached. Visitors can climb its towers and see the archaeological site below.

The Musée Ariana is the Swiss museum of ceramics and glass, set in a domed neoclassical and neo-baroque building of 1877–1884 on Avenue de la Paix, near the Palace of Nations. Built by the collector Gustave Revilliod and named after his mother, it shows part of a collection of about 20,000 objects spanning twelve centuries.

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum opened in 1988, built into the hillside below the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Its permanent exhibition traces humanitarian action through the history and work of the Movement, with objects, testimonies and records from a collection of about 30,000 items, alongside temporary shows.

The Château de Voltaire in Ferney-Voltaire, on the border with Geneva, was the home of the writer Voltaire, who bought the estate in 1758, rebuilt the house and lived there from 1761 to 1778. Owned by the state since 1999 and restored from 2015 to 2018, it shows his rooms, the park and the chapel he rebuilt beside the house.

CERN Science Gateway is the visitor centre of the CERN particle physics laboratory in Meyrin, designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop and opened in October 2023. Its pavilions, linked by a bridge across the road, hold hands-on exhibitions on accelerators, the universe and the quantum world, plus lab workshops, science shows and guided tours.