Prisoners of Chillon - and aspiring residents of Montreaux

Montreaux is like a movie set. We arrived in to our lake view hotel, dumped our bags and set off on foot to walk the water front gardens and explore.

What a ridiculously beautiful place

Famous for its Jazz festival I can imagine it gets heaving in peak season but for now we had it largely to ourselves, and ate ice-cream and gleefully pedaloed along the sunny shoreline. 

A Quiet evening stroll and italian food rendered us, yet again, semi comatosed - so, with a storm rolling in off the lake, we abandoned attempts to explore further and retreated up the hill to our cosy hotel and made plans for our early escape from (to) the castle.

Chillon Castle, subject of Byron's epic and the place Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein is as beautiful as it is steeped in history and literature. We arrived early to try and miss the worst of the crowds,  Dad and I gleefully acquired audio guides (because there ain't no party like an audio guide party..!)

and set off to explore the courtyards crypts and dungeons. Loudly declaiming poetry to each other - much to the confusion of our fellow explorers - and dancing through the feasting halls (more perplexed expressions).

Clawing at every potential escape route we found

Confirming that Byron was infact 'ere

And climbing to the top of the tours to inspect the horizon for potential invaders.

A merry couple of hours sped by and we were regurgitated out in to the twenty first century sunshine ready to move on round the lake

Via some Roman Columns in Nyon

and the rather lovely Cathedral de Notre Dame in Lausanne

To a very merry wine fuelled supper by the Lake in down town Geneva, with the Jet D'eau in the back ground.

Location: Chillon Castle - Montreaux, Roman Columns - Nyon,  Cathedral de Notre Dame - Lausanne and Cafe Du Centre - Geneva.