Dwight Peck's personal website

Winter 2015-2016

Retirement is still as much fun as ever

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

A lakeside walk to Montreux, and the Château de Chillon

And good weather for it

We're leaving from Villeneuve, 9 March 2016, for a walk along the coast path to Montreux on Lake Geneva.

And that's Montreux, just over the way.

We're on what's grandly called the Sentier du 800ème, Villeneuve-Chillon, punctuated by 14 information panels along the way filling in the background on 800 years of the town's history.

When the Castle of Chillon, essentially a medieval toll booth at the narrowest part of the road from France to Italy, began attracting the interest of too many settlers in the very narrow neighborhood between lake and cliffs, Count Thomas of Savoy established the "new town" of Villeneuve-de-Chillon in 1214 and began granting commercial privileges to help it grow and prosper. Thomas had begun the expansion of Savoyard suzerainty and sometimes ownership which later made most of the present Swiss cantons of Vaud and Valais into baronies under Savoyard authority.

A look across the lake at Les Grangettes, the Ramsar Wetland of International Importance along the shoreline, the mouth of the Rhône, and the French border at the foot of the mountains. The island, the Île de Peilz, is known as 'Queen Victoria's island' because the Swiss tried to gift it to the queen (Montreux was known as the "England Riviera" at the dawn of the serious tourist era in the late 19th century) and then, according to legend, tried to hit her with a property tax on it.

The well-channeled Tinière, down from mountains between the Rochers de Naye and the Pointe d'Aveneyre.

A zoom view of the Castle of Chillon, with the A9 autoroute 100m overhead on the Viaduc de Chillon

Leaving Villeneuve, with a look back at the Dents du Midi (3257m)

We're on the Quai Alfred Chatelanat, named in honor of no one on Google seems to know whom.

The Inter Regio express blasting past

The château

The classic "can't go wrong" photo of the Castle

Lovely castle, but no time today

Onward. Montreux!

The tiny port of Territet coming up

Zoom look back at Chillon, Villeneuve, and the Dents du Midi

Zoom look at downtown Montreux

We're entering fancy hotel country now.

The tiny port of Territet

Nice trees; full of guys (like the one on the upper right)

I was wondering why branches kept dropping into the water.

Four of them up there, from the Soins des Arbres company

A flower King Kong

We're now on the Quai des Fleurs.

Les Grangettes wetland, and the Dents du Midi

Romulus and Remus

The famous Casino of Montreux (think "Smoke on the Water")

The Thinker

The old covered market, subsequently a public carpark, which in turn was subsequently drilled down several stories underneath it

Freddie Mercury of Queen

Farther along the Montreux waterfront

The Château de Châtelard in Clarens overlooking Montreux, first built by the Tournus abbey in Burgundy in the 12th century and strengthened on the orders of the Amadeus VI, the Green Count of Savoy, in 1352, but destroyed by fire in the Burgundian Wars of the 1470s and rebuilt subsequently. (I attended a wedding reception there in the early 1990s, but it has recently changed ownership and seems now to be devoted to the production of highly regarded wines.)

Freddie

The former covered market

Just time for a double cheeseburger to fortify us for the return trip

The Palais Oriental, perched alongside the channel of the Baye de Montreux after its emergence from the Gorge de Chauderon

Chillon from Montreux

Chillon from the Territet marina

The inter regio train headed towards Italy

Chillon and the Dents du Midi

A passing train 6 kilometres long

Chillon

The Castle of Chillon, and our destination in the offing

Home to Ollon, checking the menu

Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 24 April 2016.

Recent Events