Romantic, medieval, flower-rich Yvoire is a small French town on Lac Léman popular with day-trippers from Genève, Lausanne, Nyon, Évian, and ski resorts.
Yvoire is a small but very romantic small town (population ca. 800) on the southern, French shores of Lake Geneva. This traffic free village has managed to preserve much of its medieval look with town walls and gates, a historic castle, and narrow cobblestone streets. Yvoire is a beautiful town year round but particularly attractive during spring and summer when it is filled with flowers blooming from seemingly every balcony and windowsill. Yvoire is hugely popular with day-trippers and thus has a large number of restaurants, cafés, boutiques, art galleries, studios, and souvenir shops. With few formal sights, visiting Yvoire is relaxing and the town easy to enjoy.
Yvoire’s written history goes back to 1306 and a time when Lake Geneva castles played an important role in protecting the strategic trade routes through the Alps and along the lake. However, changing trade routes pushed Yvoire into decline and relative obscurity since the sixteenth century. It is only the onslaught of mass tourism during the twentieth century that placed Yvoire back on the map as a popular day-trip destination for travelers in the Lake Geneva region.
Yvoire Castle Seen from the Fishing Boat PortChâteau d’Yvoire still dominates the small town today, as it must have done back in the Middle Ages. The castle is a typical Savoy design and reminds of many other medieval castles in the Lac Léman region. Yvoire Castle looks the part with turrets, towers, few windows, and thick walls. It has a commanding position right on the banks of Lake Geneva from where it guards the small fishing boat and large modern yacht harbors.
Le Labyrinthe – Jardin des Cinq Sens (the Garden of the Five Senses) is a privately owned and meticulously maintained park in the former kitchen garden of Chateau d’Yvoire. The garden is designed to tickle all five senses. The Garden of the Five Senses in Yvoire is open from mid-May to mid-October.
The Castle of Ripaille is an ancient manor of the late thirteenth century or early fourteenth century that stands in the town of Thonon-les-Bains a French commune in the department of Haute-Savoie and Rhone-Alpes region.
Duration: 8 hours
Price: CHF 700.00
(Guide services included. Car rental - at extra charges. Car type - on request)
Price CHF 900.00
(Guide-driver services included. Car type - Standard)
Excursion starts from Geneva.