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Few Swiss towns carry as much romantic weight as Montreux. Perched on the northern shore of Lake Geneva, with the Vaud Alps rising steeply behind it and the Savoy mountains of France reflected in the water across the lake, the town has drawn writers, composers, and musicians for well over a century. Nabokov spent the last years of his life here. Freddie Mercury recorded albums here and is commemorated by a bronze statue on the lakeside promenade. Stravinsky composed The Rite of Spring nearby. That accumulation of creative residency is not coincidence; the microclimate is unusually mild for this latitude, the light on the water is extraordinary, and the town has always offered a particular kind of cultivated quiet that suits sustained work.

The lakeside promenade, the Quai du Casino, is the natural axis of any visit. It runs for several kilometres past flower beds, palm trees, and the grand facades of belle-époque hotels, with the Rochers-de-Naye mountain visible above the town and the castle of Chillon visible to the east. That castle, the Château de Chillon, is the single most visited historic monument in Switzerland and the experience that anchors the tickadoo catalogue here. Built on a rocky islet at the lake's edge, it served the Counts of Savoy as a strategic stronghold and later as a state prison. Lord Byron visited in 1816 and was moved to write The Prisoner of Chillon after seeing the pillar to which a political prisoner had been chained in the dungeon. The castle's great halls, towers, and underground chambers are remarkably intact, and the view back across the water towards Montreux from its battlements is one of the more quietly dramatic in the whole of the Alps.