GENEVA (Reuters Life!) - A setting on western Europe's largest lake with Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest peak, as a backdrop, explains why Geneva has a wealth of healthy looking citizens who arrived for months and have stayed for years.
If you only have a weekend, here are some tips from Reuters correspondents with local knowledge to help you on your way.
Saturday
Take the train (just over three hours from Paris) or the airport has fast connections to the city.
It's also very close to the U.N. European headquarters, central to Geneva's status as an international city, where you could begin your tour, but drop off your bags first as they might be a security problem.
Morning tours start at 10:30 a.m. and you can book them on the U.N. European website.
Visitors, armed with their passports, must enter at the Pregny gate, just up the hill from the Place des Nations, where campaigners for a vast array of causes gather between the fountain, the flags and a giant chair with part of one leg blown off.
The sculpture's aim is to support the prohibition and elimination of anti-personnel mines.
A U.N. tour will include the council chamber -- setting for debates drawn out over hours, months, even years -- and a history of how the United Nations evolved from the League of Nations, set up in 1919.
The pioneers decided the body needed a home to suit the league's yearning for a more stable world after the devastation of World War I and they held an international competition.
As a precursor of many U.N. outcomes, the judges could not decide on one winner -- so a team of five architects from four nations was chosen.
The Palais de Nations is the harmonious result, built between 1929 and 1938.
Since then, there have been two extensions, creating a huge complex set in 45 hectares of parkland with a view over Lake Geneva to the French Alps.
Adding to its charms, peacock cries echo through the grounds, a legacy of the art collector and keen traveler Gustave Revilliod who left the land to the city on condition peacocks would always roam there.
Before you leave the U.N., you could send a postcard home with a special U.N. stamp from the U.N. post office.
12:30 p.m. Trams from Place des Nations will take you down to the main station Cornavin.
From there, it's a short walk across to the left bank and lunch in one of the cafes or restaurants of the quaint old town.
2:30 p.m. The old town is the home to the Cathedrale Saint Pierre (St Peter's Cathedral), which dates back to the 12th century.
In the 16th-century, the religious reformer John Calvin fled his native France and made Geneva his home.
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