We chose to stay in Hotel Splendid, which is about 10-min walk from the Montreux train station. It turned out to be a very nice place to stay. The hotel owner was really nice. He even upgraded our hotel to the lake-view room for free hoping us to give his hotel a nice review in return, which we did, of course.
After putting our luggage down, we headed to the Chillon Castle. One thing that is really nice in Switzerland is that if you stay in a hotel you can ask for a public transportation card from the hotel, which will give you free access to local bus and sometimes ticket discounts to attractions. Using the Montreux Riviera Card given by the hotel, we just took the local bus and it took us to the front of the Chillon Castle.
Chillon Castle is made famous by Lord Byron, who wrote the poem The Prisoner of Chillon. You can actually find his signature in the dungeon of the castle.
Though the size of the castle doesn't look big from outside, it actually consists of a lot of rooms. When visiting the castle, you will be given a map that marks about 40 places that you can visit within the castle. It took us about 2-3 hours to just walk around and visit all the places.
(For Swiss Pass holders, Chillon Castle is free of charge. For non-Swiss Pass holders, using the Montreux Riviera Card you can pay your tickets for half-price.)
The castle is right on Lake Geneva, so from there you can have a fantastic lake and mountain view.
A lot of people choose to walk back to Montreux along the lake side lane, but if you are like us who just arrived and still had jet lag, you can also choose to take the bus to go back to Montreux. The bus stops several times in the city and took us all the way back to our hotel.
After relaxing for a while and had a simple dinner, we walked around the Lake Geneva area.
What I really liked about Montreux is that it's a city full of flowers.
Walking along the lake was quiet and peaceful.
I don't know the name of this flower but I simply love it.
Lake Geneva was dyed golden yellow by sunset. Stunning beautiful!
Our first day in Switzerland. :)
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