Musée Ariana

About this audio guide

This guide to Musee Ariana in Geneva centers on Gustave Revilliod, the last of an old Genevan family, who spent decades touring Europe and the Middle East buying porcelain, glass, clocks and curiosities before building this palace in the 1880s to house it all. But the guide follows a stranger habit of his: hiding sealed capsules of photographs, medals and keepsakes somewhere on these grounds, for whoever might one day stumble on them. You'll hear about the conditions he attached when he left the estate to Geneva, and about the unmarked grave he asked for on his own land. As you walk the park, consider that not every capsule he hid has been found.