Nature Walk- Salève by Telecabin
Since it was a warm and sunny day, we decided in the morning to get the cabin up to the top of the Salève!
Total walking time: approx 30 minutes to the Mont Blanc lookout point and back.
A family pass for the telecabin costs €19.50 including the dog! Kai had a great time playing on the mini cabin just in front of the ticket office in the car park.
The Salève telecabin runs seasonally, so be sure to check that it’s running on the day you wish to do this trip. At the moment it is running every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between 9.30am and 5pm. The telecabins run around every 15-20 minutes.
The car park for the Telecabin station at the bottom is just beyond the border, about 20 minutes drive from central Geneva, or you can take the bus 8 to Veyrier-Douane and walk about 10 minutes to the ticket office.
This is a nice family outing and you could have a picnic at the top with a view of the Mont Blanc, or combine it with the loop walk across the top of the Salève. It takes roughly around 30 minutes to walk to the Observatory Restaurant, which is signposted from the telecabin station at the top.
You could also stop for a meal at the restaurant called Le Panoramique that is part of the telecabin station itself at the top, which has a nice view down onto Geneva. Just behind, there’s a small buvette that sells some drinks, snacks and ice cream and such. Here, there is a small play park with a few things your child could play on.
The walk up to a big field where the hiking path signs bring you (called Panorama du Mont Blanc) takes only about 15 minutes of easy but steady climbing, though being 2 weeks from due date, this slight incline seemed very hard!!
You will cross the road a couple of times so be careful with any dogs off the lead or children running around.
Despite having ran from home with my husband to the telecabin station at the bottom which is around 8km, Luka was being super annoying on the cabin for some reason whining incessantly so enjoyed his freedom of running around and sniffing in the woods on the way up here. When ever we passed people we made him heel since he was off the leash.
We only planned to go as far as the field for the Mont Blanc lookout point, and here the boys played with sticks and had a good run around.
Kai really enjoyed this half-day outing, and was sufficiently tired for a big nap too as he walked down from the look out point all the way to the telecabin station.
This is also a nice thing to do with visitors on a sunny day.
Fun factor for child: 5/5 - play at the play park and enjoy the views
Fun factor for dog: 3/5 - Luka would have preferred if we had kept walking and walking….! But he had fun sniffing around in the woods and having a run around in the big field.
Water access for dogs: No - be sure to bring water for your dogs. The buvette does have a bucket of water for dogs but otherwise there are no other sources for water apart from public toilets.
Potable water: Bottled water can be bought from the restaurant or buvette
Pram-Friendly: No, unless you plan to stay in the immediate area around the top station, otherwise bring a carrier
Baby changing facilities: Not that we saw, it’s possible the restaurant has, but we’ve never been there.
Please review the Disclaimer before attempting any walk or activity mentioned on this website.
