This morning I took Annie with me into Geneva, and we did a quick bit of exploring. We strolled to the waterfront and saw the giant jet of water that soars 140 meters into the air. We took in a number of the old buildings before stopping for a “chocolate chaud”. After an hour we picked up our hire car (for the next ten days), and thankfully scored an Audi A5 wagon, larger than the last, auto, with GPS, self-parking, diesel fuel, and a lot more grunt than our piece of rubbish from the UK. There was no attempt at upsell, just excellent service. Cruising at 100kms/hr in seventh gear, we were barely pushing 1,000 rpm!

After arriving home and picking up the others, we drove west along Lake Geneva passing pretty high above Lausanne, with excellent views over the nearby mountains, even if they were half hidden in the low cloud. We soon arrived at Chateau de Chillon, and paid a reasonable 29 Swiss Francs for a family ticket.

Chateau de Chillon is a medieval fortress on the banks of Lake Geneva. Before the coastal road was carved out of the mountain, the castle controlled the strategic road along the lake, and the pass between the mountains. There’s no definitive date when it was first built, but it’s at least as old as AD 1005, however it’s been significantly extended and renovated over the ages.

The castle is an excellent family attraction, with the self-guided tour starting through the dungeons, where a German monk was chained to a pillar for six years, wearing a path in the floor as he walked in circles, below the waterline, with just a faint view of a narrow window. The tour continued through a number of the mid-level rooms, with high barrel ceilings, and the highlights were a secret tunnel behind the royal bedroom, an escape route down to the lake (if the castle was under siege and in danger of falling to the enemy) and some long drop toilets, with the holes carved into the wood.

The tour finished with a climb up the tower, with superb views over Lake Geneva and the surrounding towns.

It was one of our favourite Swiss attractions last time we were here, and it was just as good this time around. Also, there's a random photo of a bus, powered by an overhead power-line, or does that make it more of a tram?