View from Saleve

View of Geneva from the Saleve

We took the telepherique up Le Saleve on Monday, a steep ride up the face of "Geneva's mountain" in a cable car followed by a pleasant stroll in the sunshine to find the summit of Mont Blanc hiding behind cloud. Its the second time I've been to the top of Le Saleve once before we took the girls up in the cable car, but yesterday it was just Grandad and I who went up. On the first occasion we hardly got further than that telepherique station, such is the way with the legs of little ones. This time around we were able to discover much more of the beauty to be seen on and from the top of the mountain.
The mountain itself is actually in France, the telepherique station is about 100 yards from the border post in Veyrier. On the way there we remembered we might actually need some euros to pay for the tickets, ice creams and whatever else we might discover. Although we have a small number of euros in a drawer in our house, I completely forgot to bring them with us, so we had to find somewhere to get euros before we could do anything. You can pay for a ticket for the telepherique in CHF, it comes with your bus ticket from the TPG. But that's not much use if you drive out there and find you've got no euros.

Mont Blanc behind the cloud

From the station at the top to the top of the mountain is around a 25 to 30 minute walk. You spend a good while going up hill, and then you arrive at a point where the whole thing pretty much levels out and you can walk across some pretty meadows to the south side of the mountain and a view of Mont Blanc. Once on the top you can walk for a good two hours if that's what you want, there is plenty of ridge to cover and plenty of France to look out on. It's slightly disappointing that you get to the south side of le Saleve to find what you were looking for obscured by cloud. But handily there is a geological map at a look outpoint that at least helps you figure out what you can't see!

Good beer on a hill top

All that walking on a hot day made us quite thirsty, strangely, whilst we were up there none of the restaurants, and I counted a few, were open. Howevver, though the restaurant at the top of the telepherique, La Panoramique, was closed, the little cafe was open, selling ice creams and delicious local beer from Brasserie du Mont Saleve. Perfectly delicious.  La Panoramique is only open briefly for lunch and then again for two hours from 19.00, which curiously is when the cable car stops on Sundays to Wednesdays.  From Thursday to Saturday the cable car carries on until 23.00, for all those late night strolls on the mountain top - perhaps at that altitude sunset is later than it is down in the city?

We paid 10€80 each to ride up and back, which is pretty good value considering what you get to enjoy from the top, and what you get to see on the way up and back down.  It is real country side right up close to the city. The noise of the crickets whilst we were walking was close to deafening at times, such was the quite of the surroundings. Although if that doesn't make you happy, there is a road on the top, so you can just drive up, sit in your car, listen to your stereo and still enjoy the views. One way of another, I highly recommend a visit, the place is beautiful and I'm certain we only explored a small part of the whole.