Montreux's Old Town

We both slept late and made a slow start to the day, but after lunch we walked to Montreux Gare to enquire about tickets for our forthcoming travels. The day travel card is still good value but only for a nine hour train excursion. Its price is has increased from CHF50 to CHF60 over the past decade, understandably, but now there may be no price advantage for travelling to Buchs to visit Heinz and Marlies as we plan to do next week, unless we buy a carnet of six for the price of five, which would make each single journey six francs cheaper. This would leave us two spare tickets for another day trip together, but we can't decide at the moment where we would go on the few spare days we have left, given that we're arranging to see several old friends over the coming couple of weeks while Clare is here with me.

We walked from the station up into Montreux Vielle Ville, through which the train cremailere up to Glion, Caux and Rochers de Naye runs. The old village spans both sides of a steep ravine with a fast flowing stream, and walking routes which take you up the Gorge de Chauderon to the heights of the Col de Jaman.  Houses are stone built, 3-4 storeys high with shuttered windows and wide eaves, solidly built, rather plain, and asutere, reflecting their protestant social environment. We found the mediaeval church of St Vincent, patron saint of wine growers, perched on a rocky promontory and flanked on either side by neat rows of vines, planted on steep slopes. It's the protestant Temple of the Paroisse de Veytaux, a building of 13th century origins, ordered with great simplicity and respect for its primary liturgical functions of celebrating word and sacrament. It would serve equally for Roman Catholic services as for protestants today. One thing lacking is a font. It's fairly rare to find one in Vaudois protestant churches, app part of its particular reformation history no doubt.

Rather than walk back into Montreux, we followed a road and a footpath which led us back down to Territet and into the churchyard garden where, this evening, I found the tombstone of Henri Nestle founder of the great chocolate empire. I can't help wondering what the grand old man, who died in the first year of the twentieth century would make of the company's way of doing business in the twenty first.