Musée d'art et d'histoire (MAH)

The Musée d'art et d'histoire, known as the MAH, is Geneva's largest museum and one of the biggest in Switzerland, housed in a grand building of 1910 at Rue Charles-Galland 2 on the edge of the Old Town. The collections combine fine arts, applied arts and archaeology across several floors. Visitors can see Konrad Witz's celebrated altarpiece of 1444, which includes one of the earliest recognisable landscape views, a depiction of Lake Geneva with the Mont Blanc massif. The painting galleries also hold works by Ferdinand Hodler, the Swiss master whose lake and mountain scenes define the national image, along with pieces by other Swiss and European artists. The archaeology section brings together Egyptian antiquities, including mummies and funerary objects, as well as Greek and Roman material and finds from the Geneva region. The applied arts displays cover medieval and Renaissance objects, period rooms, tapestries, silverware and a notable arms and armour collection. The permanent collections are free to enter, which makes the museum excellent value, while temporary exhibitions cost roughly CHF 12 to 15. A thorough visit takes two to three hours, and the building is large enough that many visitors choose just two or three sections rather than attempting everything. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00AM to 6:00PM and closed on Mondays; visitors should check the museum's website for late openings and holiday closures. Weekday afternoons are generally quiet, whereas weekends and rainy days draw more local families. A café and shop are available on site. The museum is about ten minutes on foot from the Old Town and from the Bastions park, making it a natural stop after the cathedral and the Reformation Wall. Children under 18 enter free, and the Egyptian mummies and arms displays tend to hold younger visitors' attention best.