Switzerland Honeymoon: Montreux

In less than an hour, we arrived at Montreux Station and we checked in at Eurotel, a hotel with all lake view rooms.   We actually booked the standard room but as we were on our honeymoon, the hotel very kindly gave us a free upgrade to the Panoramic Room, which comes with a private balcony offering the best view of the Lake Geneva. Even our toilet came with a view!

We were supposed to be on our way after checking in but we had to spend some time admiring the great views. 

View from the balcony from left to right

Our hotel was a 10 minutes bus ride away from Château de Chillon. We had lunch at Cafe Byron, a self service restaurant located in front of the castle. As it was drizzling, we got a table indoors but with a view of the castle. 

Our light lunch - Rosti with salad, Ham & Cheese Panini and homemade tea 

With our tummies filled, we visited Château de Chillon where we had free access with our Swiss Travel Pass.

Love the late autumn views from the lookout point, the castle is huge and requires at least 2 hours to finish exploring the entire place, we actually skipped some spots as we have a tight itinerary to follow due to the train schedules.

We headed to our next stop: Lavaux Vinorama for a Chassalas wine appreciation session

Fun fact: the terraced vineyards (although not in season now) is UNESCO heritage designated site 

Nice to know that the Vinorama building architectural concept is respectful of the environment as it perfectly integrated to the waterfall located next to it

Can’t get enough of the misty alps view of Lake Geneva  

We got to try three different types of Chassalas wine from the region and here is Pigg trying to be a wine sommelier 

Lucky us managed to catch a bit of the sunset at Vevey 

The giant fork in the lodged in the lake is actually an art sculpture to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Alimentarium, a food themed museum that is located opposite of it 

  Look who got hungry looking at the fork

Hanging out with Charlie Chaplin

The skies soon turned dark by the time we are done with our pictures, we took a direct bus which takes us directly to Montreux Christmas market. 

Santa Claus is coming to town on a reindeer sleigh at Montreux Noël! We got a good spot to see Santa flying over the Christmas market. 

Christmas markets are one of the things I look forward to on our trip, and the festive vibes sure did not disappoint 

Trying perch and Christmas tea. I love the Christmas tea so much that I had it twice that night. 

Fun fact: to encourage people to return their cups after drinking, a deposit is taken and refunded upon the return of the cups

View of the festivities from above the Ferris wheel, we had so much fun on this one as compared to the one at Geneva as the ride was taller and longer. We can even turn the poles to spin our pods for a panoramic view, the staff even spun us from below which made the ride exciting. We even saw Santa sleigh from above! 

Montreux Noël is definitely my favorite Christmas market among the four that we visited throughout the entire trip! Instead of being contained in an area, the market is a whole stretch of chalet stalls that extends all the way past our hotel! 

Glad I am able to experience an early Christmas overseas and it was indeed a fun and eye opening experience!