This place should be high on your places to visit for cigar holidays!

[molecularstudent]

Geneva.
I'm not biased because I live here, actually I only work here and live over the border in France. The fact is when you are concerned with cigars you are spoilt for choice here. And the flights to Geneva are quite cheap from the UK (Although it is expensive to stay here ).
Within 5 mins walk of the main shopping road, Rue de Marche, you can visit a number of cigar shops. The one to see should be the Davidoff Store on Rue de Rive, but don't buy anything there unless you're a fan of the Davidoff range. The place to part with your hard earned cash is GestoCigars, on the 5th floor of an apartment building on Rue de Marche (They have a website with prices, you can change the currency in the bottom right hand corner). In fact it is, more or less, a converted apartment. It has two large walk-in humidors filled to the brim with lovely cigars! You can buy singles, 3 and 5 packs and all the boxes you could ever want. Their prices rival those of The Cigar Store in Andorra (a tax free country), and are often cheaper. Joann, the main sales person, speaks perfect english and is a lovely lady.
One of the other options is Tabac Rhein on Rue de Mont-Blanc, although I find this place a little too 'posh' for my liking and their prices are similar to the Davidoff store.
If anybody decides to come out this way give me a shout and I'd be more than happy to meet up for a Herf. While I'm not from the UK (I'm from New Zealand) I don't get to see many native english speakers and I certainly don't have anyone to smoke glorious Cubans with!
Happy Herfing!!
P.S. this thread is from a request from Deano

[Deano]

Cheers dude! Good selection there then. Might have to go next year, when I'm not so broke!

[Eddie]

Remember you're always welcome over here to her with us too.

[molecularstudent]

Remember you're always welcome over here to her with us too.

Thank you very much! I'll keep an eye out for herf meetings!!

[Eddie]

If you want to come over I'm sure we can all arrange something, plan a road trip (the trains aren't like Swiss ones)

[bfg84]

Soundss great, I do hope to visit one day not quite sure when though!

[Stevieboy]

Love Gesto! Only been in the shop the once but it was a lovely experience! Geneva is s cracking place to visit and when we were there 5 years ago, smoking was allowed indoors!! Still the same??

[James811]

What are house prices like haha

[molecularstudent]

Love Gesto! Only been in the shop the once but it was a lovely experience! Geneva is s cracking place to visit and when we were there 5 years ago, smoking was allowed indoors!! Still the same??

Unfortunately no smoking indoors anymore But I was told recently there were still cigar lounges....I'm not sure where though..

[The Rodster]

Gesto is one of the greatest cigar shops in Europe - up there with Stagnetto in Gibralter. I'm in Geneva about four times a year and always drop into Gesto - they also sell masses of singles. A MUST visit for any cigar fan.

[Bad-Yeti]

Went to Gesto this week, great service.

My god Geneva is expensive though

Duty free is so damned expensive though, disgraceful.

[molecularstudent]

Went to Gesto this week, great service.

My god Geneva is expensive though

Duty free is so damned expensive though, disgraceful.

Yeah they are great in there Is that where you got your haul from? They're very cheap from what I can gather at Gesto. They must have loved you!
Yes Geneva is horrendous.....I think the flights from the UK are cheap enough to do day trips....saves having to pay for dinner and a hotel in Geneva haha
I've found duty free fairly expensive in a lot of places....I guess Geneva is no exception :S

[geob]

Hi Guys,

I was in Geneva recently and visited Gestocigars - As many of you seem to have bought a lot from there, can you advise on following -

All of their boxes have the barcode part of the seal removed - Some of the boxes as well did not have the Habanos sticker on the top right, while other boxes (same brand) did have it.

The cigars themselves looked OK, however why would anyone remove the barcodes? That set alarm bells off for me and in the end I did not buy anything...

Anyone has any clues?

Thanks!

[Puff Scotty]

Habanos seal missing..never seen that in Gesto..have seen boxes with & without barcode, others with barcode removed (torn), others with a electronic security tag (lump) under the barcode...allsorts in fact..
Never had alarm bells rung though..pretty reputable outfit AFAIK.
Now Gerards on the other hand cut RE labels off for some strange reason...unless asked not to!

[monkey66]

Hi Guys,

I was in Geneva recently and visited Gestocigars - As many of you seem to have bought a lot from there, can you advise on following -

All of their boxes have the barcode part of the seal removed - Some of the boxes as well did not have the Habanos sticker on the top right, while other boxes (same brand) did have it.

The cigars themselves looked OK, however why would anyone remove the barcodes? That set alarm bells off for me and in the end I did not buy anything...

Anyone has any clues?

Thanks!

Hi Geob, be nice if you pop over to newbie greets and introduce yourself.

In answer to your question the removal of barcodes is common practice amongst 'grey market' traders. These are (on the whole) genuine factory cigars but have come through non-official distribution to a particular country (normally duty free suppliers). Since the barcode identifies the original distributor these are often removed to hide/protect the source.

In the last year or so HSA have started embedding the barcode number (in tiny print) in multiple places across the warranty seal. It appears the intention here is either to identify the source or to force grey distributors to remove the warranty label altogether (potentially devaluing their stock).

We will no doubt see many variations on label combinations from grey market suppliers over the coming months/years.

The positive is I have never heard a bad word against Gesto so probably all fine (allowing for the above).