Switzerland – Montreux

Photos : Switzerland : Montreux Gallery Page 06/08

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Welcome To Paradise…Swiss Style

If you wanted to sum up Montreux in one work you could do it with either beautiful or exquisite or picturesque or IwantToRetireHere. The trip from Geneva airport to Montreux can be done in roughly an hour by train. The stations are clean, the people polite and trains run on time. After leaving the city centre on the train you pass through smaller villages/areas along the side of Lake Geneva aka the Swiss Riviera. The lake is huge and nestled amongst the Swiss alps. As you look across the lake you see the french alps looking over the lake. Even in the summer you can see the glaciers precariously perched on the rocky outcrops. From afar they look majestic and almost out of place but they add a beauty to the landscape that’s hard to describe. Without them the alps would not live up to your preconceptions of what they are supposed to be.

Upon arrival in Montreux the most used word would be WOW. The city is on the water front and extends along the waterfront from the center of town and into the steep mountains standing guard over the lake. As you reach the waterfront you are presented with a walking path wide enough for a car but used by pedestrian, cyclists, prams, roller bladers, runners and fat old people. I know I’m supposed to not say that but hey…they take up twice as much room as the rest of us and move at 1/2 the speed causing confusion. 🙂

Generally mot st hotels will have 2 types of rooms. The lake view and the mountain view. The latter has a discounted 20% rate. We opted for the latter and stared into the surrounding hills at the hike we would undertake the next day. Whilst the rate is more for a lakeside room, the view is probably worth the price. We opted to eat at one of the 2 hotel restaurants that had outdoor seating overlooking the lake. The prices here for food is on a par with good food in London or middle to upper meals in Oz. As we didn’t have a booking we had to wait 40 mins for a table however the lounge overlooking the lake and a quiet drink helped pass the time in the blink of an eye. The Italian flavour of the menu made for a wide selection of which we chose as many as we could 🙂 Due to the late hour the kitchen was closing however that also mean the service was fast. In short, great food and service left us with full bellies and happy taste buds.

To Snow Train Or Not To Snow Train…. What Was The Question?

Good intentions and poor execution led to not starting our hike up to the highest peak in the region. The room had shutters ont the outside that made the room pitch black and this couple with our desire to sleep meant we didn’t rouse ourselves from slumber until late morning. Our main objective for this weekend away was to get some hiking done in preparation for our 10 day hike in Kyrgyzstan. Our careful preparation for the hiking consisted of heading to the tourist bureau on the Saturday and getting a very high level tourist map of the hikes. Trusting the details of this we headed off in the direction of the mountains and in search of the 5 1/2 hour route to Rochers De Naye. Our expertise, well the fact we could read the signs, guided us to the start of the hike. As soon as you leave the city you are in beautiful lush forest that’s much cooler than the city. The trail was moderate and started off with a moderate incline. After a relatively relaxing walk you break out of the forest into farmlands and then into a small village nestled in the hill overlooking Montreux. The signs/markers in the towns, we discovered, weren’t all that good and it requires you to adopt a healthy amount of common sense to find your way to the next marker. For us it wasn’t too hard….just point yourself uphill! A series of steps and walkways leads you out of town. The incline was constant and the steps felt never ending. The temperature was around 30C and with the sun beating down the energy could be sapped from your body.

There’s a train that runs from Montreux to the Rochers De Naye and it soon became evident that all the smart people (obviously excluding us) took the train to the top and walked down. Doing it in reverse is a hard slog. On our climb we didn’t see one person who was walking up however we did see about 40 people heading down and these people looked a lot fresher than us. The hike is in 2 stages with the first being the walk to the first village and the second being the walk from the villages to the top. The first stage is easier to the village however the trips through the villages sets the tone for the next few hours.

We’ve done hikes before through Tajikistan up to 4000m however this 2000m hike was almost always uphill with no respite for your legs. After a few hours it certainly starts to take its toll. Many places you walk, the signs advising how long the hike is expected to take are overstated however in Montreux they are pretty accurate. From the ridge we were tracking, you got an amazing view of the alps in to both sides of you plus down to the valley and Lake Geneva. About two hours from the summit there was a road that ended at a small jut of land that was used by para gliders. They launch themselves of the ridge towards the valley and whilst I have no inclination to try it, it would be hard to imagine a better place to launch from or a more scenic. It was at this point we also said goodbye to the forest as the trail opened up onto farmland interspersed with trees. continuing uphill you can see the summit as a beacon of hope and footstep after footstep we continued to our goal. Any fatigue is outweighed by the sheer beauty of the walk and the views. About 40 mins from the top there’s small hut that must be around 1t600m overlooking the lake. A great view but a bitch to walk home to!

Finally we arrived at the top and what’s there but the end of the train line, a restaurant, a ski life and yurts. Yep as any good mountain has …yurts. Next time we’re back we will have to try them out as they are fitted with proper beds, skylights and all the essentials for a good nights sleep….plus the view is spectacular.
We opted for the easier route down and hopped on the train It takes about 50-60mins for the trip back to the city centre and along the way you get to see the snowfields, glaciers and small villages. In parts The line is carved through the mountains in a series of small tunnels. The rail line has the standard config of parallel lines however it also has an extra line in the center that allows the cogs of the train to control its ascent/descent in any weather. A one way trip isn’t what you call cheap (18EUR per person) however the hotel gave us a Riviera Card that entitled us to free transport on buses and 1/2 price on other items…luckily this was rail and the discount applied.

Castle By The Lake

Our last day was again in beautiful sunshine and temperatures hovering around 30C. We walked along the lakeside to the Chateau Chillon. The lakeside walkway, shared between pedestrians and cyclists/roller bladers, takes you past hotels, restaurants and the casino plus some exquisite houses however all of these take a distant second place to the most important icon…the Freddy Mercury statue. Yep…right on the water front in the heard of Montreux there’s Freddy in the “We Will Rock You” pose. Recovering from this awe inspiring and truly life changing experience of seeing the statue, we continued to the Chateau

This castle is small by comparison to many others however I found it one of the most interesting. The shape of it isn’t square however it does span 3 or more levels and beneath it are a series of tunnels that create a labyrinth where you can get from one wing to another without surfacing. Chillon has been used to house prisoners and in a couple of the rooms at sea level you can see where they shackled to the walls and a separate area where they were hanged. In the floors above you can see the large dining halls, reception rooms, bed rooms, weapons rooms, activity room and most other rooms you imagine from this era. The toilets here were more refined (not saying advanced) than the ones I’ve seen in Libya in so far as there was some privacy and the seats were wood and not stone. In Libya there was a proper sewerage system however here there’s just a 30-40 foot drop to the lake. The funniest thing is this was one of their most vulnerable positions (no pun intended) as the attacking parties had taken to arriving via the like and climbing up the ‘drop’ to attack the ‘dropee’. Now that’s determination!!!!

Thus far we hadn’t used public transport however with time running short before our express train we opted to use the bus. The buses here are like Vancouver using overhead power lines for its power. As soon as you board you have reaffirmed this is a society that takes pride in itself. Driver is polite and smiled, the bus is clean and rubbish nowhere to be found. This was a stark contrast to the last leg of our homeward journey when we boarded a bus from our train station to find rubbish strewn throughout the lower deck and drink bottles rolling this way and that with each turn the bus made. We think “Welcome Back From Heaven To Ol Blighty”.

The differences between Montreux and London