TRIP: Grand Tour of Switzerland pt. 4/4 – Montreux - Gruyere - Estavayer le lac- Neuchâtel - Schaffhausen

Before i return back to normal operation with more car related blog posts, i’d like to share the fourth and last installment of our Roadtrip. We start where the last post ended (in beautiful Montreux) and slowly move back homewards, with a few stopovers in between.
Our first stop was where we actually wanted to stop at Day 1 of our tour, but then changed plans (See last post). Gruyere:

Gruyere is a beautiful little village on top of a hill with an attached historic castle, surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery…

The world famous castle is extremely well preserved and definitely worth a visit:

Look at the incredible size of this fireplace:

Every room offers so much to see… with all the incredible details so well preserved or restored…

In one of the castle’s outside buildings there’s also the H.R. Giger museum (of Alien Movie design fame). Unfortunately i wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside. But if you Like H.R. Giger and the Alien movies. THIS is the place to go. It hosts world’s biggest collection of H.R. Giger Art including a lot of original movie set stuff. The only thing i could take a picture from is the “Birthmachine” Sculpture hung outside the Museum. On the other side there’s also a Giger Themed bar with incredible design, but it was still closed early in the morning…

We decided to eat brunch in gruyere. I mean it’s the place where world famous “gruyere” cheese comes from after all. So you defintely should get a cheese plate and a glass of local white wine, while here 🙂

We then hit the road again and stopped at Estavayer le lac. a small town at the Lake Neuchatel. It is famous for the street art exhibitions and you can get a free map at the tourist office, bringing you to all the cool art pieces and guiding you around the town (approx 1-2 hours). This piece was a huge beautifully made embroidery on a house wall…

This one was made of hundreds of handmade steel origimi birds..

And this piece was hand-carved into a wooden barn door…

After we’d seen all the beautiful art, we moved to our Goal for the day: Neuchatel. After checking in we wen’t directly to the hotels rooftop bar, which is probably one of the best rooftop bar views you can have in switzerland:

With the Yacht marina (one of them) and the Port directly below:

Later we went for a swim in the lake and a little walk in the sunset

Before we returned to the hotel for an incredible dinner with a beautiful breeze and view. Who needs the sea when you have this just two hours from home?

The next day we spent sight-seeing in Montreux.

I really love this place with the youthful vibe and lots of historic buildings, but also lot of hip places to go and tons of great food…

As you may realize now: Switzerland has historic castles in every damn corner 🙂

Like Estavayer, Neuchatel is also known for the street art to be seen everywhere, and i just love this stuff..

Unfortunately we had to return home then, because i had to go to management school on saturday. but not before enjoying the silence with a fancy drink at a nice, hidden little beach bar…