Carouge

Carouge exists because the Kingdom of Sardinia wanted to hurt Calvinist Geneva commercially. From the 1770s Turin architects laid out a planned town on the far bank of the Arve, on a grid of low two-storey houses with interior courtyards in a north Italian idiom, and it was deliberately made attractive to people Geneva excluded - Catholics, Jews and tradesmen got freedoms there they did not have across the river. It passed to Switzerland in 1816. The layout survived because the town never industrialised, and the courtyards and low scale now house workshops, ceramicists, small galleries, bars and a Saturday market, giving it a character quite unlike the banking city a tram ride away.

Highlights

• A planned Sardinian grid - laid out from the 1770s by Turin architects.
• Low houses with courtyards - a north Italian scale beside a Swiss city.
• A town built to compete - freedoms offered to those Geneva excluded.
• Workshops and a market - the craft quarter the layout became.

When to go

All year; Saturday for the market. Half a day.

Before you go

It is a neighbourhood rather than a sight - the pleasure is walking and sitting, not visiting anything specific. Shops close on Sundays and Monday mornings. Geneva prices apply.

Nearby

Geneva's old town is across the Arve; the Jet d'Eau is on the lake.

Key facts