Montreux walking tour & city guide

The lakeside promenade

The heart of Montreux is its quay, a lakeside path planted with flowers, palms and exotic trees that change with the seasons. Benches and sculptures look across the water to the French Alps, and the old paddle steamers of Lake Geneva call at the pier on their way to Vevey, Lausanne and the French shore.

On the Place du Marché, by the lake, stands the bronze statue of Freddie Mercury, unveiled in 1996. Queen recorded several albums at Mountain Studios in the Montreux casino, and the singer spent long periods in the town. Next to the statue is the old covered market hall, still used for the weekly market.

Chillon Castle and the hills above

Chillon Castle sits on a rock in the lake just south of Montreux. Its towers, halls and dungeons grew over centuries under the Counts of Savoy and later the Bernese. Lord Byron visited in 1816 and wrote The Prisoner of Chillon about a monk held in its vaults, which made the castle famous across Europe.

Above the shore, the steep old village of Montreux climbs in narrow lanes, and a cogwheel railway runs up through Glion to the Rochers de Naye, a summit with views over the whole lake. The Lavaux vineyards, terraced down to the water between Montreux and Lausanne, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A walking route

Start at the Place du Marché with the Freddie Mercury statue and the market hall, then follow the flower-lined quay south past the grand hotels and gardens. Keep to the lakeside path through Territet, where the shore becomes quieter, until Chillon Castle appears on its rock, about an hour's easy walk. A bus or a boat brings you back to the centre.

Visiting tips

Montreux is about an hour from Geneva Airport by train and twenty minutes from Lausanne. The Montreux Jazz Festival, founded in 1967, fills the lakefront for two weeks in early July, and a Christmas market spreads along the quay from late November. The GoldenPass panoramic trains leave Montreux for Gstaad and the Bernese Oberland.