Geneva transport and the airport

Geneva has the most generous public transport arrangement for visitors in Switzerland, and hardly anybody arriving uses it, because nobody is told.

The free airport ticket

In the baggage hall at Geneva airport there is a machine that dispenses a free ticket valid for 80 minutes on Geneva public transport, including the train into the city.

Take one before you leave the baggage area — you cannot get it afterwards. It covers the train to Cornavin, or a bus to wherever you are staying.

The train takes six minutes and runs several times an hour. It is one of the shortest airport transfers in Europe.

The free hotel card

Every hotel, hostel and campsite in the canton gives arriving guests a Geneva Transport Card, covering all buses, trams, trains and the lake shuttles for the length of the stay.

It is funded by the tourist tax already on your bill. It is not always handed over unprompted — ask at check-in.

Between the airport ticket and the hotel card, a visitor to Geneva should not need to buy a transport ticket at all.

The network

Trams, trolleybuses and buses run by TPG, plus suburban trains (Léman Express) and the yellow Mouettes — small boats that cross the harbour between the two banks in five minutes and count as buses.

The Mouettes are the pleasant way to get between the old town side and the international quarter, and tourists routinely queue for an expensive lake cruise while the same view crosses in front of them for the price of a bus ticket.

Zones and tickets

If you do need to buy: the city is zone 10, which covers everything a visitor does. Machines at every stop take cards. A 24-hour pass is cheap and covers the Mouettes.

The Léman Express, opened in 2019, runs suburban trains across the French border to Annemasse and beyond — useful if you are staying on the French side, where hotels cost half as much.

Into France

Geneva is surrounded by France on three sides and crossing is routine — no formality, and the buses and trains go through as though it were not there.

Practical uses: cheaper accommodation, dramatically cheaper shopping, Chamonix and Mont Blanc an hour and a half by coach, and Annecy 45 minutes.

Watch the customs allowance coming back: 300 francs a head, and this is exactly the border where it is enforced.

Walking and cycling

The centre is compact — the old town, the lake front and the station are within twenty minutes of each other on foot, though the old town is a hill.

Genèveroule lends bicycles free for four hours from several stations in the city, against a deposit. It has run for years and remains obscure.

Getting to Geneva

• By train — Lausanne 35 minutes, Bern an hour and three quarters, Zurich under three hours.
• By boat — the lake steamers from Lausanne, Vevey and Montreux; the run along the Lavaux shore is the scenic arrival.
• By air — the airport has a French sector as well as a Swiss one, a legacy of its position on the border. Check which side your flight uses; the sectors are connected but not interchangeable.

More on the city itself in Geneva.