Montreux

On the way from Gryon to Geneva we hopped out of the train in Montreux to visit a castle and see more of the Swiss Riviera. Montreux is a beautiful lake-side resort town full of beautiful buildings, green parks, and - apparently - artists and musicians.


We started our visit by walking the 3km lake-side path to the Chateau de Chillon. The path was flanked on both sides by trees, flowers beds, greenery, and trolls. Yes, that's right - trolls. Every hundred meters or so a scene of trolls was played out in colorful topiaries. We are not sure why they were the mascots of the path, but they were a fun addition to the walk. Also along the way, we past the Casino de Montreux (which burned down in 1971 and inspired Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water), a statue of Freddie Mercury, and the vineyard that supplies the grapes to the castel winery.
The Chateau, or castle, at the end of the walk was our first look at a real medieval castle. The whole castle was open to visit and we wandered through cellars, prisons, bedrooms, dining halls, lookout towers, and interior couryards.


After our tour, we hopped on the tram back to town and visited the artists and musicians garden outside the building that holds the annual jazz festival. We were greeted with statues of B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald, and Ray Charles, just to name a few.

Then it was back to Geneva to discover more of the old town. To see the rest of the pictures from Montreux, including more trolls, click here.