Walls from the water
The castle growing straight from the lake — the angle behind a thousand paintings.
Zacharie Grossen — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ank Kumar — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ank Kumar — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Johann Rudolf Rahn — Public domain
François Bonivard, a Genevan prior who defied Savoy's duke and lay chained in Chillon's crypt 1530–36 until the Bernese freed him — three centuries on, Byron and Shelley toured the castle one rainy day and Byron's poem of the musing prisoner made Chillon Europe's first Romantic shrine. His pillar 'autograph' is judged probably genuine — the doubt half its charm.
The free numbered route (no forced tours) of forty stations: two concentrated hours or three savouring — the audio brings halls alive, take it. Children get a treasure sheet at reception turning it to a hunt — a declared family strength.
The proven formula: morning steamer from Montreux to the castle gate (a royal quarter-hour), the castle before the groups, and the flowered sculpture-lined shore walk back with its quay cafés — having sailed, visited and walked Léman's finest in a single half-day.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
Switzerland's most visited historic building — and its loveliest sited beyond dispute: Chillon on its rock islet fused to the shore, walls rising straight from Léman's water with Savoy's French mountains opposite — the country's romantic postcard for centuries. The castle (twelfth-century at core) guarded Savoy's Great St Bernard trade road and fattened on its tolls — and the interior is a complete authentic maze: festal halls under timber ceilings, painted chambers, walkable walls and towers, and the famous rock crypts: here the monk Bonivard lay chained six years, immortalised by Byron's 'Prisoner of Chillon' in 1816 — his name carved on the third pillar as still seen. From Montreux it is reached on foot by the flowered lakeside path in 45 minutes — the finest arrival — or by Belle Époque steamer landing at its gate: castle, lake and promenade, Montreux's golden trinity.
The castle growing straight from the lake — the angle behind a thousand paintings.
The rock prison's pillars and rings — Byron's signature carved.
Wall-walks and towers circling Léman and Savoy views.
Centuries' timber ceilings, hearths and authentically painted chambers.
Avenue de Chillon 21, 1820 Veytaux