Geneva · Switzerland · Ordinary hotel, well placed
Staying in Geneva
The base that makes the French Alps and Lake Geneva work: Annecy, Chamonix and Chillon are day trips, and the kosher food is there all year rather than for six weeks in summer.
No kosher kitchen — listed for where it stands, not for its food.
- The alpine resorts have kosher food only in season. A city base solves that, at the cost of an hour or two of travel each way.
- Geneva airport sits on the border and has a French exit as well as a Swiss one — worth knowing if the hire car is booked on the French side.
Distances measured from Beth Yaacov synagogue, Geneva, not from the building itself.
Lyon · France · Kosher-friendly, in the Jewish quarter
Staying in Lyon for the French Alps
One of the largest kehillos in France, with kosher shops and restaurants out in Villeurbanne — and Annecy, Grenoble and Chamonix all close enough to drive out and back in a day.
No kosher kitchen — listed for where it stands, not for its food.
- This solves the French Alps the way Zurich solves the Swiss ones. The alpine resorts themselves have no kosher food of their own outside a seasonal programme; Lyon has it every week of the year, and the mountains are a drive rather than a move.
- The distances are the point: Grenoble is about an hour and a quarter, Annecy about an hour and twenty, Chamonix about two and a half. Those are day trips from a fixed base, not a touring itinerary.
- The split to know before booking. The Grande Synagogue is central, on the quai Tilsitt by the Saône, but the everyday kosher provision is out east in Villeurbanne and the 8th. Staying by the sights means travelling to every meal — the same trade as the Marais against the 19th in Paris.
- Geneva, already listed on this site, is the other base for the same mountains and is closer to Chamonix. Lyon has more kosher food; Geneva has less distance. That is the whole choice.
- Listed as a quarter rather than a hotel. Nothing here claims a kosher kitchen — what you are buying is the position.
Distances measured from Grande Synagogue de Lyon, 13 quai Tilsitt, not from the building itself.
Grenoble · France · Ordinary hotel, well placed
Staying in Grenoble
A city of a hundred and fifty thousand people wedged between three mountain ranges, with a rabbinate, a mikvah and a few kosher places — the only town in the French Alps where all of that is true at once.
No kosher kitchen — listed for where it stands, not for its food.
- The trade against Lyon: Lyon has far more kosher food, Grenoble has far less driving. Grenoble is in the mountains rather than an hour and a quarter from them, and for a family doing a week of walking that is the difference between a base and a commute.
- There is kosher provision here but it is small — a brasserie under the local rabbinate, a grocery and butcher, and Chabad. Establish what is open for your dates before you commit to a week, and do not plan Shabbos on the assumption of a restaurant.
- Anchored on the city centre rather than on a shul, deliberately. Grenoble's Jewish life is spread across the city rather than gathered in one quarter, and published addresses for the Grande Synagogue disagree with each other — so the honest anchor is the town, and the community is who to ask for the door.
- The cable car to the Bastille goes up from the middle of town and is listed on this site; the Vercors and the Chartreuse start at the edge of it.
- Listed as an ordinary hotel city. Nothing here makes a kosher claim and none is implied.
Distances measured from Grenoble city centre, not from the building itself.
Annecy · France · Ordinary hotel, well placed
Staying in Annecy
A lake town at the foot of the Alps with a shul and a mikvah and not one kosher shop — which is a stranger combination than it sounds, and worth understanding before booking a week here.
No kosher kitchen — listed for where it stands, not for its food.
- The shul is on the rue de Narvik and the community runs to about fifty families. There is a mikvah in the compound. There is no kosher shop and no kosher restaurant in the town at all.
- How people here actually eat: they buy elsewhere. Geneva is about thirty-five kilometres north and Grenoble and Lyon are down the motorway, all three listed on this site. The rov here is a shochet who supplies communities across the border and in Grenoble, which tells you how the meat moves in this corner of the Alps.
- The position is very good and that is why it is listed: the lake and the old town are the attraction, Chamonix and Geneva are each about an hour, and the Gorges du Fier is twenty minutes away.
- For Shabbos, write to the community first. Fifty families is a kehilla that will know you are coming; it is not one that will absorb an unannounced family of six.
- Listed as an ordinary hotel town. Nothing here claims a kosher kitchen and none is implied.
Distances measured from Annecy old town, on the lake, not from the building itself.