Montreux!

Sunday December 21st.


Some of the folks in the office in Lausanne were telling me that Montreaux, Switzerland was well worth a visit if I had a day to spare. Fortunatly, I did. Montreaux is about a 25 minute train ride from Lausanne up the coast of Lake Geneva. It is a truly spectacular ride right along the banks of the lake. The scenery is unbelievable with the lake on one side with the French Alps practially growing straight out of the lake and the Vineyards on the hillsides on the other side. This is wine country for sure and there are 100's of vineyards in the area. After a short while I arrived in Montreaux and made my way to the annual Christmas pagent/festival that attracts tons of visitors from all over. The organizers setup little booths and craft shops down on the lake front and sold lots and lots of hot spiced wine as well as typical French food. They also sold chestnuts that were freshly roasted which was very very cool. The town itself is very quaint and I imagine in the summer time it is a wonderful place to be. Everyone keeps telling me how the Lake Geneva area/region is much more wonderful in the summer. After all it is labled as the Swiss Riviera. I ended up doing a lot of walking and a bit of shopping (found myself a scarf) and after a few hours decided to call it a day as I needed to get to Geneva Sunday night in preparation for my flight on Monday. All in all it was a really nice weekend in Lausanne and I look forward to my next visit. So far this is my favorite town in Europe.