Thanks to the razor-sharp forward planning of yours truly, in our still heavily jetlagged state we were only up for about an hour’s drive to our next port of call, the Swiss resort town of Montreux. Home of the famed lake-side walk, the medieval Chateau de Chillon, a rather unattractive casino (not a patch on Vegas!), and, not to be forgotten, a statue of Freddie Mercury (what the?! – more on this later).
Our hotel for the night was apparently one of the most ‘beautiful historic hotels of Switzerland’ – and it was certainly very quaint;
Although the highlight had to be the view from our balcony;
The first day, we walked. And walked. And walked. Actually it wasn’t that long, and it was actually mostly flat, and along a lake and really pretty. But I was really jetlagged! All that aside, it was incredibly beautiful, and if I’d had a motorised scooter it would have been absolutely perfect! OK I’m kidding. Here are a couple of moments I captured along the way;
When we finally reached the casino we were somewhat disappointed to discover it was quite unexciting-looking (although we had been spoiled by over-the-top casino glamour in Vegas only a week before so the poor old Montreux joint admittedly had a hard act to follow). After all this walking for what seemed (to me) like miles (I think it was actually about 3km, just so you know I’m not a total flake), we still couldn’t see any sign of the mythical Freddie Mercury statue which was erected in his honour after he moved to Montreux (for the serenity, apparently) and built a recording studio here where he recorded his last album – pretty cool! BUT what was not cool was the fact that no matter how hard we tried (admittedly I did stop trying once the sugar hit from my Calippo wore off) we could not find the darned statue. This was such a vexing state of affairs that we trudged back to our hotel, stopping on the way to hang out with some really cute little lizards;
On our return, we promptly fell asleep for a stupidly long nap, which meant we went down to dinner looking like we’d been whacked in the head with a mullet. Actually I think the correct expression is that we looked like stunned mullets. Whatever the case, we were wrecked, but still managed to find amusement in the fact that our 4-course dinner was served to us with much pomp and ceremony by bustling ladies in long skirts, striped blouses and maid aprons a la Fawlty Towers. As we couldn’t understand everything on the menu we were preparing ourselves for a pot luck meal, although we were spared the suspense when some English vacationers at the next table began translating it for themselves very loudly. Even funnier was when a guest at another neighbouring table declined the ‘saumon fume’ (smoked salmon) entree as she was a vegetarian, and, as a replacement, she was brought (with much pomp and circumstance as the occasion required) a plate of sliced honeydew melon served with a celebratory cocktail plume; honestly I don’t know how to describe it other than to say it was a big toothpick with a bunch of magenta-coloured lame glitter kind of sprouting out the top like a lopsided firework (that’s supposed to be like ‘lah-may’ with a fancy acute thing over the ‘e’, although let’s face it, either adjective works); I suppose the chef must have thought the magenta set off the green colour of the melon quite nicely; anway, dinner accomplished, we went back to our room and slept some more……
The next morning, my husband set off on an exploratory mission before I was even awake; he went for an enormous and exhaustive run around the lake, and returned with the devastating news that even on this reconaissance mission to end all others, he still could not find the Freddie Mercury statue. We consoled ourselves with some breakfast in the hotel dining room, where we ate some lovely home-made bircher museli out of bowls that we later realised were coffee cups (oops – our cups just aren’t that big in Australia, ok!?) then we decided to take a little hike to the Chateau de Chillon before we hit the road once again.
It turned out to be a great decision; this castle was really amazing and painstakingly restored to give an idea of what it would have been like in its medieval heyday. Because we were there on a Monday morning the place was nigh on empty, and when we wandered through the dungeon we were the only ones there.
There were some scrawlings on the walls, it’s unknown who did them or when, but along with all the names carved into the pillars as we walked through, what looked like some old blood stains on the walls, and the post where the famed Bonivard was supposedly chained for a few years, it all combined to have a pretty spooky effect (the hotel keys on their 5-kg metal keyring (why!?) jangling around in my husband’s pocket sounding like chains clanking didn’t help either);
Next it was up to the part of the castle where the lordly type of people lived, which was much more civilised; we took a walk along the sentry walk
and checked out the amazing view through the holes in the rock walls (OK actually I’m just putting this photo in to show how arty my photo-taking abilities are)
Then up to the top of the tower for a view over the whole of Montreux (still couldn’t see the Freddie Mercury statue! Is it all a big hoax!?)
And then it was back down many steep flights of stairs and onto our next destination; the fabulous cheese and chocolate pastures of Gruyeres!…..
