Three cantons, four castles
Last weekend our good friends Soph and Sim visited from London. They brought with them the news that there are actually quite a few castles close to Lausanne, which until now was a fact that had entirely eluded me. I must have had castle blindness, or at least chateau cateracts, because there are indeed a whole bunch of castles right here, hiding in plain sight. To celebrate this fact Tanya, Soph, Sim and I spent the long weekend castle-hopping. We started in Montreux, where you can walk along the foreshore to get to Chillon Castle.
It's been very grey recently in these parts.
In Montreux there are a series of cool sculptures along the foreshore. Here's a fox.
And here's a giant spider!
Chillon Castle is absolutely magnificent. It is in stunningly good shape for a building that has been there since the twelfth century. It has been renovated and had bits added and removed and changed over the years. We walked through the dank dungeons and climbed its keep and just marvelled at the sheer history of the thing. It was awesome.
Chillon Castle sits right on the lake.
Beautiful old stained glass in Chillon castle.
This tree was all dressed up for Easter.
After seeing Chillon we caught the train up the hill behind Montreux. We were in a wonderful old carriage, because our train was a special classic train of the slightly dubiously named "Golden Pass" series. It delivered us to Montbovon where we changed to another little train to go to Gruyères, the village of the famous cheese. Our first task was to find something for lunch, which had to be fondue because we didn't want to offend the cheese-producing cows.
Not a difficult choice for what to eat in Gruyères!
The Chateau de Gruyères.
As well as the cheese, Gruyères has a beautiful chateau, and a really incongruous alien museum. This is the HR Giger Alien museum, which unfortunately was closed, but its bar was open, so we enjoyed a drink in the Giger-themed bar, before heading back to Lausanne for a rest.
The bar of the HR Giger Museum in Gruyères.
The next day we spent in Sion! Not content with having one or two castles, Sion outdid itself and has four. The Basilique de Valère contains the world's oldest playable organ which was originally constructed in 1431-1437. How crazy is that? Meanwhile Tourbillon Castle is mainly ruins but sits majestically on top of the next hill. We didn't go to the other two castles, because it's good to have some historic monuments in reserve, and also because we ran out of time.
On the way to Sion.
Sion's pretty town centre with the Basilique de Valère sitting high above.
The view down from Tourbillon Castle.
Tourbillon Castle!
Looking from Tourbillon to Valère.
The walls of Tourbillon.
Tourbillon's gate.
We spent the afternoon wandering the town of Sion, which is a most remarkably beautiful spot. Around the town there are tall mountains still cloaked in winter white, and while Lac Léman was shrouded all day in mist and fog the sun was in full force in Valais. In the end we visited four castles and three cantons in two days. Not bad for a weekend!
Eeeey.
Library artwork in Sion.