Who we are

Hello, I’m Marie-Claire. A graduate of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Geneva, I take care of the content of the newsletter, the website, and marketing. He is Jérôme, an IT engineer responsible for supervising all technical aspects. Partners in life as well as in work, happy parents of a 6-year-old boy, we form the dynamic duo behind Léman Events. In this article, we tell you everything about the genesis of our newsletter.

Moving to Bali

At the end of 2020, my partner and I felt the urge for a radical change in life. We knew everything about Geneva (and Switzerland), where we had been settled for many years; drawn by the digital nomad life, eager to offer our son an opening to the world, we aspired to explore new horizons. Our choice fell on Indonesia and more precisely Bali, an island we fell in love with during a trip before the birth of our son, both for its idyllic landscapes and its food and culture. Our son had been accepted into an incredible school in Ubud, a school open to the jungle where he would have learned Indonesian, English, practiced yoga, and spent recess playing with snakes and climbing coconut trees, in perfect harmony with nature. Plane tickets were purchased and the lease of our apartment terminated. We were all set for the great adventure!

One letter short…

In June 2021, 15 days before our departure, the news we dreaded came: borders closed! It’s downright crazy to undertake this project in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, I agree. No more apartment, no more kindergarten… Despite the discouragement, we had to bounce back, and quickly! We obviously had to stay in Europe, ideally not too far from Switzerland in case we had to return urgently due to another stroke of bad luck. At that time, Portugal already appealed to us, but we preferred to opt for Italy, whose immediate proximity to Switzerland and my knowledge of the language seemed like definite assets. At the beginning of summer, we headed to Puglia, with our whole life in the trunk of our Honda Jazz Hybrid! We settled in Bari for a few months, forced to change Airbnb every two weeks — not easy to find accommodation in the middle of the summer season! Our destination was supposed to be Bali, but we ended up in Bari. Looking back, we joke that our dream came true just one letter short… The summer was spent between work — thanks to the help of the fantastic nanny we found there — and relaxation, at the beach and discovering the natural wonders of Puglia. In early October, as it began to get cooler and we would soon no longer be able to enjoy the beach, we couldn’t see ourselves staying there. Puglia is beautiful, that’s undeniable, but we were missing a cultural component that was essential to us in the long run.

Risky bet

Portugal quickly came back into the picture, with Lisbon as the intended destination. I had never been there, my partner only knew the city of Porto, discovered during a weekend with friends, but several people had spoken highly of the Portuguese capital: sunshine, beaches, breathtaking landscapes, numerous green spaces, kids friendly, dynamic culture, welcoming population. We arrived in Lisbon, in early November 2021, with just three suitcases in a risky bet. At the same time, everything is a bit crazy in this story… We had been in Lisbon for two weeks already when we realized we wouldn’t regret our choice.

What to do with my kid?

As a mother of a very active little boy, I quickly started looking for children’s activities. I was immediately amazed by the richness of the cultural offer of the City of Lisbon. I also quickly noticed, however, that it could be difficult to find information or that one had to navigate between several websites or subscribe to a multitude of newsletters to have a comprehensive overview of the available offer, just like it was already the case in Geneva.

It was at this moment that we had the idea to create Lisboa Events, a newsletter that would allow parents to have access in one place — their mailbox — to all the events available for children. Beyond highlighting the incredible richness of the cultural offer for children in Lisbon and its surroundings, we aim with Lisboa Events to:

• encourage and promote culture among children;
• help parents plan their weekends/free time/family vacations;
• help working parents for whom school holidays pose a considerable challenge find holiday camps;
• give visibility to the hard and amazing work of both cultural institutions and independents in the arts sector.

Léman Events

From the start, the idea was to create newsletters for other cities if Lisboa Events was successful. As we are constantly moving between Lisbon and Geneva, we decided to replicate the concept for the Léman area. This is how Léman Events started in June 2024.

We hope you enjoy this newsletter and if you are interested in opening a new city in Europe or elsewhere, please talk to us!