Making the Most of Your Time

Making the Most of Your Time

To experience the highlights of lake and mountain, reserve five days. Spend two savoring Lausanne and its Old Town, museums, and hyperactive waterfront. Dine at one of the region's top restaurants; lunch will leave more funds in your travel budget than an evening meal.

The Corniche route winds its way through the vineyards and hamlets of the Lavaux. Pull-offs are strategically interspersed for photo-ops and to steady the nerves of drivers not used to narrow, cantilevered roadways. Get out and walk a section of the wine trail and definitely taste a glass of white wine. A few hours in the harbor-front town of Vevey, especially its older section and the glitzy, Riviera-like city of Montreux will suffice.

A visit to the region would be incomplete without a chateaux tour of Chillon; while heavily touristed it is exemplary of life within a walled fortress. It's the location that inspired Lord Byron to pen his famous poem, "Prisoner of Chillon." For a good night's sleep in the brisk mountain air, hop a train from Montreux or take the winding drive to Villars-sur-Ollon, where chalet architecture contrasts dramatically with contemporary museums and estate homes of the low lands. Break in the new day with an Alpine walk before doubling back down the steep canyon for connections to Nyon for a dose of Roman history.

Extra days enable you to explore a vignoble (vineyard) and surrounding wine village like Lutry or Aigle, shop village markets where locals gossip in front of tables of woody mushrooms and stalls of handmade cheese, or cruise the lake on one of those red and white steamers you have seen crisscrossing the waterfront.