Montreux Castle
In the morning we got some change and a receipt for the room and we left toward Lac Lemain. We stopped on the way on an American Western style restaurant where we had a simple breakfast of non-western croissants and a water washed coffee. On the way we bought apricots and we continued our fruit breakfast in the car driving all the way to Vileneauve, the first town on the lake where we took a break. Latter we stopped in Montreux in front of Chateau de Chillon around noon and we went to visit it. The castle is interesting, built in the rock, in French called “chillon”, was mentioned in the poems of Lord Byron. It passed hands three times from Savoie to the Bernese, changing its role but remaining an interesting fortress on the lake. It looks very “medieval” and its dungeons are the most impressive part of it the reat being restaurated even now. No matter how the rooms may look like its position is quite spectacular.
The Jazz Festival
From the castle we drove into the city and parked in the center at the railway station. After a quick lunch of crepes on Avenue des Alpes we started to walk on the lake’s shore that was dotted by tents selling all sort of crafts. We got the city in the frenzy of its famous Jazz Festival. We walked a little on the lake shore and further we wandered off into the old town going all the way on top of the hill at the Montreaux Church. Inside a woman was practicing all by herself on the harpsichord. We strolled more retracing our steps to the lake shore where we found the place for the free concerts in an open air stage for the Jazz festival. After listening to a few tunes played by a band conducted by an Englishman, we headed back to the car through the same jungle of tents and left to Lausanne where we planned to stay the night in the area. But when we got into the city we realized that it will not be easy to find a hotel and a place to park the car over night so easily so we continued toward Geneva on a local road looking for accommodations. The French area certainly wasn’t anything like German part that was teeming with signs for “Zimmer” meaning “room”. As usual we did not have a reservation and we had no clue where we will spend the night. We started to look for hotels outside of Lausanne but all were already complete and the ones that still had rooms were ridiculously expensive for a hotel in the field, like an already discounted 3 bed room for CH400!!!
So we kept driving till we got somewhere close to Morges where we still could not get a room but we were pointed by a guy to a village whose he forgot but “ is on top of the hill”. So we reached Aubonne, a charming little village, that was looking and feeling like in Provence with crickets chirping in the nights. Here we found Hotel de Commerce that had a room for CH160 and we stayed happily there for two nights. The funny thing is that the hotel was to be closed the next day, on Thursday, “Oui c’est bizarre main est comme ca” and we opened the hotel door ourselves and manage it the following night.
We happily had dinner in the hotel, of great salade nicoise and schnitzel, whose price is more expensive than the best steak in the best Four Season restaurant in New York.
After dinner we left for a quiet walk in the village, to its castle overlooking the lake.
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