Switzerland · Lake Geneva
Montreux
A belle epoque lakefront strung between a castle on the water and the festival that made the town famous.
Montreux sits on the steepest, mildest corner of Lake Geneva, where palms and magnolias grow on the promenade under vine terraces and the snow peaks stand across the water. Its two draws are at opposite ends of the shore: the Chateau de Chillon, a Savoy castle built onto a rock in the lake, and the Montreux Jazz Festival, which has taken over the lakefront every July since the 1960s. In between are belle epoque hotels, a long flowered waterfront and cog railways climbing into the Vaud Alps.
Suggested stay
2–4 days
Language
German, French, Italian
Currency
CHF
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Montreux
The promenade a flowered lakeside walk running for kilometres past palms, sculptures and grand hotels, with the Dents du Midi and the Savoy Alps standing across the water
Chateau de Chillon a Savoy fortress on its own rock in the lake, with vaulted cellars, painted halls and the dungeon Byron made famous
Music the town has been a festival and recording address since the 1960s, from the casino fire that gave Deep Purple a song to Queen's studio upstairs in it
Trains up the hill funiculars and cog railways climb straight off the shore to terrace villages and the ridge at Rochers-de-Naye
Best time to visit
Apr-Jun, Sep-Oct
15-23° days
46.431° N, 6.913° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Zurich
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Weather & when to go to Montreux
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Apr-Jun, Sep-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Montreux
Winter is the flat spot: the lake goes grey, the terraces above town sit in cloud and much of the boat-and-terrace life shuts down, though the lakefront Christmas market pulls the crowds back before Christmas. July is the opposite problem, when the jazz festival fills rooms across the Riviera and prices rise with it.
Top things to do in Montreux
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Chateau de Chillon - the castle in the lake
history culture arts 👍 PopularA Savoy fortress built onto a rock a few metres offshore, where the mountain drops almost into the water and the shore road could be taxed. Inside are vaulted cellars, painted chambers, a chapel and the pillar-lined underground hall where the Genevan prior Bonivard was chained, later turned into a poem by Byron. It is one of the most visited historic buildings in Switzerland.
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The lakefront promenade - flowers, palms and Freddie Mercury
scenic culture arts 👍 PopularThe waterfront walk runs the length of the town and well beyond it, planted with palms, cedars and beds that are replanted each season, and dotted with sculpture. The bronze of Freddie Mercury stands at the Place du Marche end, hand raised at the lake, and is rarely without someone photographing it.
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Montreux Jazz Festival - the lakefront in July
nightlife music culture arts 👍 PopularClaude Nobs started it in the 1960s as a small jazz weekend, and it long ago widened into rock, soul and pop while keeping the name. For a fortnight each July the shore fills with ticketed halls, free stages, food stalls and boats, and the whole Riviera is booked out around it.
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Rochers-de-Naye - cog railway to the ridge
scenic nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommendedA rack railway climbs from the town station through forest and pasture to a summit ridge above two thousand metres, roughly an hour up. The top looks down the whole length of Lake Geneva on one side and across to the Alps on the other, with an alpine garden, marmots and a short walk to the actual peak.
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GoldenPass Line - the panoramic train over the pass
scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedThe narrow-gauge line leaves Montreux station and climbs the wall behind town in a series of loops, with the lake dropping away below, then runs through Chateau-d'Oex to Gstaad and Zweisimmen. Panoramic cars have oversized windows, and it is one of the great scenic rides in the country even as a half-day return.
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Queen: The Studio Experience - Mountain Studios at the casino
nightlife music culture artsQueen bought the recording studio inside the Montreux Casino at the end of the 1970s and worked here for years; Freddie Mercury settled in the town. The old control room is preserved with its desk, instruments and handwritten lyrics, and you can mix a track at the console.
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Belle epoque paddle steamers - crossing Lake Geneva
scenicThe lake fleet includes restored side-wheel steamers from the early 1900s, brass and varnish intact, still working scheduled routes. From Montreux they run along the Riviera to Vevey and Lausanne and across to Evian and Saint-Gingolph on the French shore, which is much the best way to see the vine terraces.
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Territet-Glion funicular - up to the terrace villages
scenicA short funicular hauls you off the lakeshore at Territet to Glion, a village of old hotels and schools perched on the shelf above the town. From there a cog line carries on to Caux and its enormous hillside palace hotel, with the lake laid out several hundred metres below.
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Les Avants and the narcissus meadows - the May snow
nature wildlife scenicThe slopes above Montreux around Les Avants turn white in late spring when wild narcissi flower across the meadows, a bloom locals call the snow of May. Marked paths thread the fields, the mountain railway drops you in the middle of them, and the flowering shifts by a couple of weeks each year.
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Filets de perche and Chasselas - eating on the Riviera
foodThe lakeside standard is small perch fillets fried in butter with lemon and chips, drunk with a cold Chasselas from the terraces just along the shore. Winter brings fondue and raclette, and the Vaud sweet tooth shows up as taillaule and cream tarts in the bakeries.
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Montreux Noel - the Christmas market on the water
shopping culture artsChalets line the promenade for weeks before Christmas, with mulled wine, hot cheese and a market that draws coach parties from across the region. Santa's house sits up at Caux, reached by the cog railway, and a flying sleigh crosses above the lakefront after dark.
Best areas to stay in Montreux
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Montreux centre
First-time visitors $$$Lakefront promenade, grand hotels, casino
Explore hotels in Montreux centre →
Territet
Quiet lakeside base $$Quiet belle epoque shore below Glion
Explore hotels in Territet →
Clarens
Value & local life $$Everyday residential lakeside, west of centre
Explore hotels in Clarens →
Veytaux
Beside Chillon $$Small village at the castle gates
Explore hotels in Veytaux →
Glion and Caux
Views above town $$$Hillside terraces high above the lake
Explore hotels in Glion and Caux →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Montreux
Getting to & around Montreux
Getting there
Fly into Geneva (GVA), then take the lakeside train; a little over an hour, often changing at Lausanne
Flight
Geneva Airport (GVA)
About 95 km up the lake. Trains leave from the station under the terminal, some direct and most connecting at Lausanne, and the ride takes a little over an hour. Montreux station sits on the slope above the town, a few minutes' walk down to the promenade.
Train
Montreux station
Mainline trains along the lake from Geneva, Lausanne and the Valais run all day; from Bern, Basel or Zurich you change at Lausanne
Train
Montreux station
The GoldenPass narrow-gauge line arrives over the pass from Zweisimmen, with connections through from Interlaken and Lucerne
Ferry
Montreux quay and Chillon landing
Lake boats call from Lausanne, Vevey and Villeneuve, and cross from Evian and Saint-Gingolph on the French shore; slow, seasonal and lovely
Drive
The A9 motorway runs behind the town from Lausanne towards the Valais and the Simplon; parking in the centre is garages rather than kerbside
Getting around
Walking
The lakefront path is the spine of the town and runs unbroken to Chillon and Vevey; everything behind it is steep
Free
Trolleybus
The shore line links Villeneuve, Chillon, Montreux, Clarens and Vevey every few minutes and is the workhorse for visitors
TBC
Local train
Stopping trains serve Clarens, Territet and Veytaux-Chillon, which saves the walk back from the castle
TBC
Funicular and cog railway
The Territet funicular and the mountain railways from the station are transport, not just excursions, for anyone staying above the lake
TBC
Boat
Scheduled lake steamers double as local transport along the Riviera, though timetables thin out sharply in winter
TBC
Taxi
Ranks at the station and the casino; useful late, when the shore buses and boats have stopped for the night
TBC
Day trips from Montreux
Lavaux vineyard terraces
Half dayTerraced wine country
Stone-walled vineyards fall straight into the lake for kilometres between Vevey and Lausanne, a UNESCO landscape worked since the monks laid it out. Paths run along the terraces from village to village, cellars open their doors to taste Chasselas, and a little tourist train grinds through the rows for anyone not walking.
Getting there
train | walk | car
15-30 min by train to Vevey, Chexbres or Lutry, then walking
Vevey and Chaplin's World
Half dayLakeside town and museum
Charlie Chaplin spent his last decades above Vevey, and his manor and a purpose-built studio are now a museum of his films and his life. The town itself has a big lakeside square, a Saturday market, the food museum in the old Nestle building and the giant fork planted in the water.
Getting there
train | bus | walk
6 min by train, or an hour on foot along the shore
Gruyeres
Full dayCheese and castle village
A walled hilltop village of one cobbled street under a counts' castle, with the cheese dairy in the valley below and the Giger museum of alien design incongruously beside the church. The train there over the pass is half the point, and the double cream with meringues is the other half.
Getting there
train | car | tour
1.5-2 hr by GoldenPass train and connection
Lausanne
Half dayLakefront city
The steepest city in Switzerland, stacked between its Gothic cathedral and the harbour at Ouchy, with a metro doing the climbing. The Olympic Museum sits in a park on the water, the Collection de l'Art Brut is one of Europe's oddest museums, and the old town is properly lively.
Getting there
train | ferry | car
20-25 min by train
Aigle and the Chablais vineyards
Half dayCastle and wine villages
A moated castle ringed by its own vines at the head of the Rhone valley, holding a museum of wine and the vine, with the terraced villages of Yvorne and Ollon on the slopes above. Quieter than Lavaux and the gateway to the Vaud Alps behind it.
Getting there
train | car
15-20 min by train
A little history of Montreux
Montreux is really a string of wine and fishing villages on a steep shore, tied together by the castle at its eastern end. Chillon stands on a rock where the mountain comes down almost to the water, and whoever held it controlled the road between Burgundy and the Great St Bernard pass; the counts of Savoy rebuilt it as a lakeside seat in the 13th century. In 1536 Bern took Vaud by force, freed the Genevan prior Francois Bonivard from the castle vaults and ran the shore as subject territory until Vaud became a Swiss canton.
Tourism arrived with the Romantics. Byron wrote The Prisoner of Chillon after a visit in 1816 and made the dungeon famous, the lakeside railway brought guests to a resort sold on its mild winters, and hotels went up along the front while funiculars climbed the slopes behind. The town reinvented itself again in the 1960s: a jazz festival on the lake, a casino that burned during a concert and handed Deep Purple a riff, Queen buying the studio in the rebuilt one, and Nabokov seeing out his last years in a hotel suite on the promenade.
A fortified post is recorded on the rock at Chillon, guarding the shore road
Peter II of Savoy rebuilds Chillon as a residence and toll point on the lake
Francois Bonivard is chained in the castle's underground hall by the Duke of Savoy
Bern conquers Vaud, takes Chillon and frees Bonivard
Byron visits and writes The Prisoner of Chillon, launching Romantic tourism here
The lakeside railway reaches Montreux and the belle epoque hotel boom begins
Claude Nobs founds the Montreux Jazz Festival on the lakefront
The casino burns down during a concert; Deep Purple write Smoke on the Water about it
Queen buy Mountain Studios in the rebuilt casino and Freddie Mercury settles in town
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / J
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+41
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about Montreux
▸ When is the best time to visit Montreux?
Late spring and early autumn are the sweet spot: warm enough for the promenade and the boats, green on the terraces, and without July's festival crush. May brings the narcissus meadows above town. Winter is grey and damp on the lake, brightened mainly by the Christmas market on the waterfront.
▸ How many days do you need in Montreux?
Two nights covers the town itself: the castle, the promenade, and one ride up the mountain. Three or four turns it into a Riviera base for Lavaux, Vevey, Gruyeres and Lausanne, which is how most people end up using it.
▸ How do you get to the Chateau de Chillon?
It is about 45 minutes on foot from the centre along the lakeside path, which is the nicest way to arrive. Otherwise the shore trolleybus stops outside the gate, stopping trains run to Veytaux-Chillon, and lake boats tie up at the castle's own landing stage.
▸ Do you need a car in Montreux?
No. The town is a walk, the shore bus and stopping trains handle the rest of the Riviera, and the mountain railways go where cars cannot. A car helps only for the back valleys of the Vaud Alps, and parking in the centre is garage-based.
▸ Is Montreux expensive?
Yes, even by Swiss standards. It is a resort town of grand hotels on a famous lake, and July's festival pushes rooms across the whole Riviera to their peak. Staying in Clarens, Villeneuve or Vevey and travelling in on the shore bus is the usual way to soften it.
▸ Can you swim in Lake Geneva at Montreux?
Yes, from quays, ladders and small pebble strands along the shore, with proper lidos at Territet and Clarens. The lake is deep and cold, so it only feels inviting from midsummer into early autumn, and there is no real beach in the sandy sense.
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