Swiss Escape (A Globus Tour): Montreux

After leaving Neuchâtel, we headed straight to Montreux and to our hotel, Eurotel Montreux, which was my absolute favorite hotel during this trip.

Eurotel Montreux

Grand’ Rue 81, 1820 Montreux, Switzerland

First off, this hotel is located right on the banks of Lake Geneva. When you exit the hotel there is a pathway to walk along the lake and since it was December, the pathway was lined with stalls for Montreux’s Christmas market. From our room, we had the most amazing view of the lake and the Christmas market.

The room was also very spacious with two beds and then a nice seating area. There was even a small balcony overlooking the lake. Not as useful in the cold winter but probably amazing to sit at in warmer temperatures.

The hotel lobby also had a coffee machine, a popcorn machine, and they also put out water, juice and different candies that guests could grab at any time. Breakfast was also had a very nice selection of items such as eggs, potatoes, breakfast meats, pastries, fruits, smoke fish, and more. There was only one thing about the hotel that was not the best and it was the elevator. The elevators are on the small side and cannot fit many people and you have to open a separate door (not the elevator door) when going into and coming out of the elevator. If you are not used to it you might be confused and staring at a closed door wondering why the elevator is not opening when it shows it has arrived. Other than this though, I highly recommend this hotel and I am so glad Globus had us staying here for two nights.

Exploring Montreux

There were two optional excursions offered by Globus while we were in Montruex. The first was to the area of Lavaux for a wine tasting. Since my mother does not drink, we decided not to join since it seemed it would be wasted on her. This would have been on the day we arrived in Montreux. The next day, there was the option to go to the town of Gruyères. This was supposed to be a very scenic tour and included a lunch with local favorites and a stop at the Maison Cailler chocolate factory. However, neither my mom nor I really eat cheese (which seemed blasphemous in Switzerland) and my mom also barely eats chocolate so we turned down this tour as well.

Instead we spent our time walking around the town of Montreux, enjoying their Christmas market and just relaxing in general with our gorgeous view of Lake Geneva and the Alps. The first night we ventured out and walked along the lake, browsing the stalls of the Christmas market. It was a really gorgeous market, right along the lake and had a lot of stalls selling different items.

Montreux Noel

Grand’ Rue 241820 Montreux, Switzerland

Towards the main part of the market by the Ferris Wheel, there was an area with more food where you would order from the cashier and then take the ticket over to the area with the item you ordered to pick up want you wanted. My mother ordered a stuffed bell pepper for us to share and I ordered a beer. Afterwards, we stopped by and ordered dessert in the form of a chimney cake. Or at least that is what I know it was called when I was in Central Europe on my last tour.

Now the fun part about the Montreux Christmas market is that on the hour (though I am not sure from when to when), they will start playing music and Santa will “fly” through the air. The first time this happened, we did not know what was going on. We just saw a lot of people lining up along the lake with their phones out looking like they were ready to take photos or videos so we did the same and ended up seeing Santa.

The second night we were in Montreux, we went back to the Christmas market and had some hot chocolate and crepes.

Now as much as I love eating at Christmas markets, the food can get repetitive so for lunch the next day we decided to look for a restaurant to eat at since the group was on the optional tour to Gruyères. We ended up passing by a restaurant that had a selection of seafood on display outside where someone was preparing what looked like platters of seafood. My mother LOVES seafood and I recognized the restaurant name from when I was looking up restaurants in Montreux so we decided to go in and partake of Restaurant La Rouvenaz.

Restaurant La Rouvenaz

Rue du Marché 1, 1820 Montreux, Switzerland

The restaurant was nicely appointed and I am not sure how large it is as we sat towards the front. We were seated at a two-person table but they added a small extension to our table to give us a little more room for the food we ordered. Since it was the seafood that had lured us in, we ordered a seafood platter and a seafood pasta. I loved it all. The pasta texture was great and they were generous with the seafood in the dish. The platter had a lot of different items though some were very small and maybe a little tedious to eat. Overall the two dishes and a glass of white wine ended up being 91 CHF but we were happy and full.

After lunch we wandered in and out of some shops and picked up some more chocolate from the grocery stores. We also walked along the lake some more and spent some time relaxing in the hotel room (while I also caught up on some work I needed to do). I originally had wanted to take the cogweel train to Rochers-de-Naye as there are supposed to be spectacular views up top but looking at their live video feed, all you could see were fog and clouds. Considering it takes I think about an hour each way, we decided to pass on it due to the weather.

On our second day in Montreux, we had an included tour which was to Chillon Castle (or Château de Chillon). This was only a few miles from Montreux, located between the towns of Montruex and Villeneuve.

Chillon Castle

Av. de Chillon 21, 1820 Veytaux, Switzerland

We got there early (I think before they even opened) so we had some time to take photos before are tour of the castle started. The castle is really a fort and it sits right on Lake Geneva so there were some truly beautiful views.

When they were open (or just ready), we split into two groups and followed our tour guides through the castle. The guides gave us an overview of the history of Chillon Castle as well as its inhabitants. The tour was about 45 minutes and they led us through the “dungeons”, the rooms and the chapel.