Day 3 was the first day we left Geneva to visit some neighbouring cities. We had 3 main places we planned to visit that day:
- Chateau Chillon in Montreux
- Olympic Museum in Lausanne
- Lavaux Express in Lutry
Chateau Chillon - Montreux
The day started off with our usual Coop breakfast. We grabbed some drinks and some sandwiches for lunch before heading off to the Gare Cornavin train station. On day 2, after coming back from the United Nations building visit, myself and Dana decided to check out the platform from which we needed to take the train to Montreux for Day 3.
We beelined for Platform 6 where the train to Montreux was waiting for us. We got into the carriage and made ourselves comfortable for the 1 hour 10 mins trip to our destination.
Once we got off at Montreux, we had to grab a bus to Chateau Chillon. We headed in the underground tunnel from the train station which exited on the nearby road from where we needed to take the bus N 20.
We had to walk some few meters and get down a big flight of stairs to reach the bus stop we needed to reach and there we waited only some 5 minutes before our bus showed up.
We boarded the bus and sat down ready for the ride. While on the bus, we met some people from India who were also going to Chateau Chillon but who were uncertain about whether they took the right bus and were going in the right direction.
One of the girls from the group approached us to confirm that they were indeed going in the correct direction and we reassured them that the bus was indeed meant for Chateau Chillon.
We eventually reached Chateau Chillon after some 20 minutes and got off together with the Indian contingent at the Chateau Chillon stop.
We walked towards the entrance of the castle and were were immediately blown away by the picturesque views which greeted us.
Since we had our trusty Swiss Travel Passes, we made our way to the welcome desk and confirmed that we were indeed eligible for a free visit of the castle - to which the person at the desk confirmed was a resounding yes.
We proceeded through the entrance and to our surprise, we found out that there was a free wine tasting happening of the Chillon wine for visitors!
Dana and I agreed that we’d come back at the end of our visit to grab a sip of this unique wine - Clos de Chillon.
We started off our visit of the castle with the various lower chambers. We visited the different rooms and eventually saw a room with medieval armor on display which was amazing to us as we had never seen a real one up close.
We also saw some cannons left over from eras where they needed to possibly defend themselves. As an Arsenal fan, I felt obliged to take a picture next to it being a Gunner.
Eventually our walk within the castle opened up in the garden of the castle but we found ourselves staring at it from up top rather than on the ground floor.
From there we reached the top of one of the towers of the castle and saw a breathtaking view of Lake Geneva open up before us.
It was finally the end of our visit of Chateau Chillon and we existed the castle and made our way to the wine tasting happening at the entrance. Both myself and Dana grabbed a glass of the white wine and sipped while eagerly gushing over the amazing visit we just had.
While sipping on our wines, we were approached by one of the event organisers for them to take our pictures for their Facebook page. We agreed and being in Switzerland; they took consent and privacy very seriously and made us sign consent forms which duly obliged. The photographer reassured us that we would also get our pictures by email which we provided. Lo and behold, we got the pictures when we were back in Mauritius - a pleasant surprise!
Once done with the wine tasting, we headed out to grab our lunch on a few of the sitting benched outside of the castle. We quickly gobbled down our food as we were hungry and made way to the souvenir shop to buy some fridge magnets and Dana got herself a plush Swiss cow.
We then got down to the small jetty next to the castle to take some pictures. Again a girl approached us to take some pictures of her as well on the jetty and we duly obliged.
While taking pictures of Dana, to our surprise, we saw a big cruise ship loom behind us; making way to a dock just some 100 meters away from the castle.
We decided to jump onboard and take the cruise we couldn’t have in Geneva due to the technical difficulties the ship was having back there.
We rushed to the dock and presented our Swiss passes and boarded the cruise which the captain informed us would be around two hours for the round-trip back to Chateau Chillon.
The cruise itself was a pleasant slowish cruise around Lake Geneva with several stops along the different piers along the way. At the Vevey pier, we decided to get off since it would make no sense to go back to Chillon if we could just grab the train to head back to Lausanne for our next visit: The Olympic Museum.
So we got off at the Vevey pier and made our way through the countryside; trying to find the train station.
Vevey
Vevey was a small peaceful town. We walked away from the pier and crossed several shops and made our way into the town center.
We had to find a shop along the way as Dana’s toe nail was hurting her and she wanted to trim it down. We eventually found a shop pictured above and got a nail cutter before making our way to the train station where she trimmed her nail.
Along the way we found a pub having a happy hour in the middle of the day with loads of people enjoying drinks and food.
We finally reached the Vevey station and grabbed the next train to Lausanne.
Lausanne and the Olympic Museum
After we reached Lausanne, we got off at the train station and were welcomed by the writing on the wall letting us know that we are in the capital town of the Olympic:
To go to the Olympic museum from the train station, we had to walk for a couple of minutes to grab the metro to the terminal station of Ouchy-Olympique where another walk of about 200m awaited us before we reached the museum.
We were struggling to find the entrance to the metro station but an old gentleman walking along the street kindly guided us to the not so evident door giving us access to the metro.
After a quick ride to the terminal station, we got off and started making our way to the musuem.
Along the way, we found out that there was a sport event happening for kids and they had sealed off the road to vehicles and had kids do all kind of activities.
We found a small park along the way and decided to grab a small snack before proceeding to the museum. We soon reached the museum soon after and of course Dana had to take a picture in front of the entrance.
Once we reached the entrance, we confirmed again if we were eligible for a free tour of the museum with our Swiss passes and indeed, we could!
The receptionist printed our tickets and we made our way up the red carpet to the first floor where the exhibition starts.
Inside, Dana got very excited when she saw photos of Pierre de Coubertin and grabbed some shots with him.
During the tour, we saw a plethora of Olympic artefacts, including the different Olympic torches used over the years, Olympic podiums, medals.
We had only an hour to kill at the museum before we had to head out for Lutry for our next activity on the Lavaux Express. We managed to get a full tour of the museum and really enjoyed the visit, Dana especially as she had previously represented Mauritius for an international Olympic committee in 2011.
We headed back to the Lausanne train station by taking the metro back and reached there in time to grab some bite for dinner from the Coop in the station. Once we were set, we took the train to Lutry and set on our way for the vineyard visit which awaited us late in the afternoon.
Lutry - Lavaux Express
We reached Lutry in the evening around 6.30PM. We walked through the municipality until we reached the Lutry Pier. It was a charming place with cobbled stone streets and a lot of friendly people walking around the place.
Once we reached Lutry Pier, we say a guichet where we paid for our reservations and to our surprise discovered that the lady working the counter was Mauritian. We chit-chatted for some minutes and she provided us with the tickets and a boxset of Lavaux Express branded wine glasses.
We grabbed a quick dinner with the food we bought at the Coop in Lausanne while waiting for the Lavaux Express.
The Lavaux Express eventually pulled up next to where we were sitting and it was just a tractor disguised as a train 😆
It was eventually boarding time and after some technical difficulties, we got going to the vine vault via the vast wine yards of Lutry. We saw acres and acres of grape trees which completely blew our minds.
There were grapes, dark and green hanging from every tree, something us living in tropical Mauritius don’t see on our island.
We reached the vault pretty soon and all the passengers gathered inside a tavern for some wine tasting. We were served some bread and some pretty good Lutry wine.
We drank several glasses of wine tasting their white and red wines. There was a good offer for 3 bottles of wine which we could buy and we took up the deal and decided to get 3 bottles.
However the card machine was not working and the tavern owner agreed to let us have the bottles of wine provided we paid when we were back in Mauritius. Talk about trust!
Before leaving the tavern, we took some additional pictures around the place as memory of us drinking wine and having a good time there.
We left the tavern late in the evening and the sun was already setting. Our train driver stopped at some nice view points for us to take some pictures of the sunset over Lake Geneva.
After reaching back Lutry pier, it was already dark and we made our way quickly to the Lutry train station and got onto the next train to Lausanne. From there we grabbed the next train to Geneva and reached our hotel late that night. It was a tiring day, but we wholly enjoyed all the places we visited.
Dana during our planning was not too keen on Chillon Castle but loved it a lot and I was not too keen on Lavaux Express but loved it as well! This goes to show that in a couple, we can make each other discover and love things we would usually not give a though.
We retreated to our hotel rooms and decided to have an early night because the next day we would need to grab all our luggages and check out of Vision Apartments for our next stop: Grindelwald!