Thanks
This is probably a stupid idea/question, but I was curious today -how possible would it be to backpack around the lake? And any ideas how long it might take? If it's easy to follow the shores all the way around, I was thinking of making a long weekend of it. Thoughts? Would biking be a better idea? Or would it be too difficult/pointless to do either?
I did a very quick and approximate calculation in Swiss Map Online, and it came up with a total time of 45 hours following (roughly) the shore of the lake - so that would be something like 7 days' walking at six hours per day, not including breaks.
The vast majority of this would be on tarmac, so really hard on the feet. I would say definitely bike rather than walk, and I would question whether it's worth doing at all given how urbanised the lakeside is. You would have to make lots of detours to avoid major roads and private property.
Having said that, I have an equally silly project to walk round the Vierwaldstättersee over the Easter weekend, so I shouldn't be giving advice .
There is a cycling event where they cycle around the lake in a day (link to cyclotour du Leman ), it's 180km. On the swiss side the route is pretty flat, but there are some slopes up and down on the french side.
Also, the jacobsweg (St Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage route) has a few segments along the lake, see jacobsweg website .
They plan 3 days for Lausanne-Allaman (28km), Allaman-Celigny (26km), Celigny-Genève (24km).
Googled it. Apparently lake Geneva is in ....
Wisconsin
Hi there,
I plan to do the same on a sunny weekend probably in May, by bike.
Some people told it takes 2 days, only need a cheap accommodation for that 1 night.
Thanks for all your help. We looked at the wanderland site, and are probably going to follow one of the trails on there. While it doesn't follow the lake exactly the whole way, and we'd only go halfway around, it would probably be a nicer hike than just blindly walking along the edge haha.
Another question, though: anyone know any good (cheap) places to rent camping/backpacking gear in Geneva? Just things like sleeping bags, maybe tents.