Saturday August 6: L’Étivaz to Montreux
We didn’t walk any of this stage. If I recall correctly, today’s distance was supposed to be something like 39 kilometers, with no realistic transport options to shorten it. That would’ve been out of the question regardless, but in our case we really did need to get to Montreux that morning to meet my brother and his family.
Needing an early start, we’d requested breakfast at 7:30. Our host was dismayed because the bakery wouldn’t be open yet, but we insisted.
Getting to Montreux is easy enough, though it did involve a bus and two trains. Walking out to the bus stop, we saw our host peddling his bicycle to the bakery for fresh croissants and baguettes.
We arrived around 10 and spent a lovely morning with family. It felt strange not to be walking in the mountains.
Montreux used to have a thriving music recording industry, hence the presence of the famous Freddie Mercury statute. The name “Montreux” is known in the U.S. mainly from the Deep Purple song “Smoke on the Water.” In case you don’t remember (or perhaps have never heard this work of musical genius!), “Smoke on the Water” recounts the time the band went to make a record in a mobile studio but some “stupid with a flare gun burned the whole place down.” The fire produced the “smoke on the water and fire in the sky.” Must’ve been something to see. We had ice cream by the water, right in front of the Casino where Deep Purple ended up recording their record, after their studio burned down.
My brother’s family headed off to Kandersteg, where they were about to embark on their own fun week of Bernese Oberland activities. Before they left, we set them up with the SBB app to make their transits easy.
Our room at La Rouvenaz had an odd setup – the bathroom was walled in glass. Entirely. Turning on the light in the bathroom thus illuminated the entire bedroom. The arrangement detracted from privacy, too. Not turning on the light seemed like an option, except the bathroom had a motion sensor in it that turned on the lights whenever anyone walked in. The solution was to take our room card out of the electricity slot and simply have no power that night.