Mountains wearing white hats and an enormous lake suited in blue-green are the first things you see when arriving in Montreux. As the suburbs give way to well-dressed streets, the riviera-chic centre cascades down stairways past boulangeries and chocolatiers to the lakefront and a singsong view of the Alps that transfixes your eyes. Soon, you’re off walking a promenade, shaded in palm trees, towards a suite of over-the-top Belle Epoque-era hotels, or to begin your exploration of one of Switzerland’s most underrated – and understated – cities.
For starters, there’s jazz galore in cafes, bars and during summer at one of the world’s most prestigious music festivals. There is wine on tap, thanks to the town abutting the Unesco-worthy Lavaux terraces, a tightly knit matrix of refined vineyards to the north. There is the country’s most romantic castle, which looks out over the mirror-still lake. And there is a fist-pumping, four-octave soundtrack thanks to Queen and Freddie Mercury, who stayed and recorded dozens of their greatest hits in the town from the late 1970s until the frontman’s tragic death in the early 1990s.
