Location
The Hotel D’Angleterre is located overlooking Lake Geneva and Switzerland’s largest water fountain, the 140m-high Jet d’Eau. It’s a pleasure to be able to walk out of the boutique luxury hotel and be on the lake’s shore in seconds. Weekends and warm summer nights bring out the crowds and you can mill around soaking up the hustle and bustle for hours.
It’s an easy 15-minute walk to the old town, and also around 15 minutes’ walk to the city centre, which is on the other side of the lake. Alternatively you can jump on a ferry to cross the water, which is a good option for little tired legs after a day on foot. We really enjoyed walking everywhere in Geneva to make the most of the lake views.
Accommodation
The Hotel d’Angleterre has 39 guest rooms, five lake-view suites and one junior courtyard-view suite, which was our room. The junior courtyard-view suite is a whopping 50m2, so definitely one of the biggest rooms we’ve stayed in. The king bed sits towards the rear of the room, with a sitting room-style space leading from the foyer. At check-in there was a bowl of fresh fruit on standby for hungry travellers, so our daughter was immediately happy with our hotel choice. The hotel also ensured that there was a cot in the room for her and she was also gifted a backpack with a few toys.
Our space was amazing, as was the service that came with it. It was thoroughly cleaned each morning, turndown service always involved another clean and a sweet left bedside, and staff were always on hand to ensure that we were comfortable and happy.
I was able to take a tour through the hotel, stopping in at some of the unoccupied rooms. Although some design aesthetics are carried across from room to room, each room is distinctively different from the next, with different colour schemes, wallpapers, upholstery and the like. One big consistent is art. Art is a big focus at Hotel D’Angleterre, with many original artworks peppered throughout the rooms and public spaces.
The Space
The lobby is small, which is a little unusual as it’s the entry point and first impression of a hotel, however you quickly realise that it’s all about the other spaces at Hotel D’Angleterre. The Windows Restaurant is where guests can enjoy contemporary cuisine with lake views. The Leopard Bar – although not one for kids – is a very suave space to while away a few hours. The moody room with charcoals and animal prints is a popular local haunt, so be prepared to be one of a crowd if you’re visiting on a weekend night. The cigar lounge is another intimate elegant space, equipped with an innovative air extraction system (so the cigar smoke smell does not linger on your clothing). Maybe one for dads.
Why we stayed here
Hotel D’Angleterre is part of Red Carnation Hotel Collection, a family-owned and -run business. It’s also a family-run hotel dating back to 1872. There is something to be said for businesses that have been managed by families for a long time – that they know how important family is and how to look after families.
Hotel D’Angleterre has won many awards and consistently came up top of the list when searching luxury family-friendly properties in Geneva. It was an easy choice to make.
Food & Beverage
The food offerings at Hotel D’Angleterre are what you’d expect from a fancy hotel… but even better. We enjoyed delicious breakfasts at The Windows restaurant each morning, which included a small buffet selection with fruits, cereals and and cold cuts as well as a cooked-to-order dish of your choice. I enjoyed poached eggs one morning and scrambled the next, while my husband couldn’t go past the omelette. Our daughter was in foodie heaven with scrambled eggs, velvety pancakes and fresh fruit salad each morning (at home she usually eats Weet-Bix or porridge).
We didn’t get the chance to enjoy dinner at The Windows, but we did fit in a signature afternoon tea experience, which I highly recommend. Soft classical music in the background, that famous Lake Geneva view, and a tiered platter of delicacies including a variety of sandwiches and plenty of decadent pastries and cakes. Delicious!
Explore
It’s worth spending a few days in Geneva to see what this Swiss city is all about. It’s nothing like other Swiss cities I’ve visited, so it was interesting to check out the attractions and see what locals get up to. We walked around the cobblestone streets in the old city, joined a free walking tour, stopped by at a number of playgrounds so our daughter could run around, and ate plenty of food. A playground we didn’t get to, but heard great things about from local parents, is the one found at Parc Gustave & Léonard Hentsch in the Charmilles district. It’s a large and modern space that looks like an artwork with its glistening steel slides and towering climbing equipment. One for next time!
READ MORE:
Why Switzerland is kid-friendly heaven
What to do in Switzerland in winter beside ski
5 best cities in Europe for families
This story first appeared in Family Travel magazine. To subscribe or read back issues of the magazine, click here.
When you travel every day is different! You get to experience different cultures, meet new people, get lost, find cool laneway bars, try weird and delicious foods, snorkel with sea lions, fly over mountains carpeted in grass, laze about in hammocks immersed in Windex-blue water, horse ride alongside gauchos, call sleeper trains, igloos and yurts home for a night, cycle past giraffes, dance with Masai warriors, play with local school children.