As I had asked some questions I thought I would now come back and report how I went in Geneva and Montreux last week. I had booked one night in Geneva at the Hotel Suisse. My flight was coming in at 8.30pm from UK and my son's from Amsterdam at 10.30pm so just in case... I decided to book a night in Geneva instead of trying to get to Montreux the first night. Well, was I glad I had done this.. my flight from the UK was 3.5 hours late, which meant I arrived at the hotel at 12.45am and my son's flight was cancelled completely. So our 3 day mini break was now down to two. It appeared that all the flights were delayed no matter where they were flying to, very annoying. Very little help or explanation was given by Easyjet either in Bristol or Amsterdam. My son managed to change his flight to one arriving the following afternoon.

The Hotel Suisse was fine. More of a business style hotel but very welcoming after the long travel day, they even swapped the twin room, now no longer needed to a double for me. It was very clean and so handy to the station and also very close to the lake. I collapsed into bed ... the next morning I did a reccy of Geneva, I didn't really get the vibe.. I knew I only had the morning but even so I didn't feel the need to hang around. Lots of hotels and shops. About midday I headed back to the station and on to Montreux. What a difference! The train ride was about an hour and painless. I had booked the Hotel Eden Palace au Lac. This is a hotel right on the lake side, now getting a bit old and tired and in need of some serious renovations. However, we had a room on the 5th floor with the most amazing lake views. Well worth the extra money to get these views. The room had a tiny balcony where you could sit and admire the view. I checked in and then went by bus to the Chateau Chillon. I spent an hour and half here, enjoying the castle and its history. It was really hot but at least the castle was cool inside! I was going to walk back but to be honest it was quite a way in this incredible heat so bussed it back again. The hotel had a pool and I even went in for a dip to cool off which is pretty unusual for me, just goes to show how hot it was!!

I then sat and read on the lovely balcony waiting for my son who had managed to get a flight out that afternoon. He eventually arrived and we went downstairs for dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was very disappointing, the food was overcooked and very ordinary and of course horrendously expensive as was everything in Switzerland. I had been warned but even so I was shocked at the prices.

I had asked for help with choosing a 'day trip' from Montreux and the choices had been Rochers de Naye, Gsaard or Gruyeres. The day was glorious and as expected with my son it was a late start to the day. I plumped for Rochers de Naye and was very pleased. I hadn't quite known what to expect. We bought tickets having queued up at the ordinary ticket office at the train station to be told to go upstairs to the MOB (MQB?) desk. The train wasn't crowded and we got seats and off we went. The journey takes about an hour, just shy of. You wind through the hills of Montreux up and up through gorgeous green valleys and hills, great views back over the lake. It is what is known as a scenic ride!! Plenty to ooh and ahhh at along the way. At the top when you get off there is a restaurant/hostel place. But everything looked pretty ghastly so we just walked around instead. There are a couple of different paths that take you up further to look outs and another to the Jardins des Alpes which has pretty wild flowers. In fact the wild flowers were out all over the place and were gorgeous to walk through. At the end of the Jardin there was a bench seat which afforded the most amazing view. My son just wanted to chill so we did... we sat and chatted for a while. You could spend an hour up here (the trains only run once an hour) or like us you could take longer and chill.... We saw lots of people who had obviously walked from further afield. We got the best part of the day and caught the 3pm (ish) train back down, again admiring the views. For us the journey was long enough and filled our needs for a bit of scenery.

We got back into town and immediately went to the boat cruise pontoon where we bought tickets for the Riviera cruise which went from Montreux around the lake a bit (1 hour 52 mintues) and came back to Montreux. There are other trips you can do but to be honest this was even a bit long for us. Just over an hour would have been long enough but there isn't a trip for this duration! The hotel had given us the Riviera travel card for free and this gave us free travel on the trains and buses as far as Vevey and we got half price on the boat and the train to Rochers which made a nice difference. It was now 6.30 so time for an ice cream and then shower and out for dinner at an Asian restaurant near by. I hadn't had any asian food since coming to the UK so was keen to get a fix. The restaurant was buzzing and full and the food not bad, the soup was terrific but the noodles a tad bland.

The next day we caught the train to Vevey (you have to realise our days start about 11.00 at the earliest) we had a lovely lunch at the hostellerie near the main large square and then wandered about the town which seemed to be quite "closed" and not a lot happening. Not quite sure why.. we caught the train back to Montreux, had our usual argument and then made our way to the airport that afternoon. My flight was delayed again but at least my son got home unscathed.

It was certainly very pretty and I'm glad I chose Montreux, Vevey also would have been nice but not as buzzy. The transport is easy and the train runs directly with no changes straight to and from the airport which was a bonus. The prices were as mentioned horrendously expensive. But hey it's Switzerland.

Loved reading your trip report. Thanks for taking the time to write up all the details. I have long-time friends living in Vevey/Montreux but I haven't been to visit them in awhile. Sounds like nothing much has changed -haha- it being Switzerland and all!