Geneva sits at the south-western tip of Lake Geneva, which locals call Lac Léman, and on a clear day the white shoulder of Mont Blanc rises over the far shore, more than sixty kilometres away. The Rhône leaves the lake here, fast and blue-green, and the city spreads along both banks. The most famous thing is the Jet d'Eau, a fountain that throws a plume of water about a hundred and forty metres into the air from the lake, visible from far across the water.
The old town climbs a hill on the south bank, with the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre at the top, where John Calvin preached in the sixteenth century and made Geneva the centre of Protestant thought, so that the city came to be called the Protestant Rome. Calvin's city later became home to the Red Cross, founded here by Henri Dunant in 1863, and then to the League of Nations and the United Nations, so that today it hosts dozens of international organisations. A short distance to the west, under the countryside near the French border, lies the ring of CERN, where physicists smash particles together in the largest machine ever built. The whole place has an air of quiet prosperity, with watchmakers, banks, chocolatiers and lakeside parks full of swans.
Riding from Geneva is easy and rewarding. Swiss motorways require a vignette, and you will need one for any section, so buy it at the border or online. The road along the northern shore leads to Lausanne and the terraced vineyards of Lavaux, which are a landscape of their own, steep slopes of vines above the lake, while the French side, toward Annecy and the Alps, rises into bigger mountains. Traffic in the city can be heavy, and the border crossings fill at rush hour, with tens of thousands of commuters from France every morning.
Fuel is plentiful, though Swiss prices are higher than in neighbouring France, so many riders cross the border to refuel. Cheese fondue and a plate of lake perch are the local specialities, best taken with a glass of local white. The best months are May to September, but a clear October day, when the first snow dusts the Jura and the lake shines like steel, can be the finest of the year. Beware of the bise, a cold north-easterly wind that comes down the lake in winter and spring.