Things to do
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Chateau de Chillon
A castle on a rock in the lake, held by the counts of Savoy from the twelfth century, with the vaults where Francois Bonivard was chained for four years and Byron then made famous in 1816. Byron's name is cut into a pillar down there.
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Les Avants
A hamlet at 970 metres above the town, reached by the cog railway to Montbovon, whose meadows fill with wild narcissi for about two weeks in May. Noel Coward lived and is buried here.
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Fairmont Le Montreux Palace
A belle epoque palace of 1906 on the promenade, where Nabokov lived in a suite for the last sixteen years of his life. Its bar is a jazz festival institution and the front rooms look straight down the lake.
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Rochers-de-Naye
A summit at 2,042 metres directly above the town, reached by a cog railway that climbs nearly seventeen hundred metres from the lakeshore in under an hour, with an alpine garden and a marmot enclosure at the top.