Île Rousseau

About this audio guide

This guide to Ile Rousseau in Geneva starts with a puzzle: a stone fortress that mason Nicolas Bogueret spent roughly three years building into the moving current of the Rhone in the 1580s, meant to guard the harbor below, yet no cannon ever seems to have fired from it. You'll hear how the islet's job kept changing instead, from shipyard to quarantine store for goods arriving from plague-stricken ports. Along the way the guide follows the centuries of engineering it took to hold a foundation against a river that never pauses. Listen as you cross the footbridge onto the old stonework itself.