Smoke on the water and music in the air: the magic of Montreux Switzerland

The town’s fabled music festival is just one side of a place that is framed by natural beauty to hike through – and wine heritage you can savour

My aunt Carol, an enthusiastic traveller and music lover, was driving back to the UK from the Algarve in her veteran campervan when she decided, on a whim, to swing right near Lyon and make for the Montreux jazz festival on the shores of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman).

This was 1987 and travel was still analogue. She hadn’t phoned with any indication of her whereabouts but, one day in July, Carol’s campervan suddenly appeared in my folks’ driveway in the south London suburbs. Out she jumped, with cassette tapes of all the gigs she’d been to spilling from the driver’s door behind her. I was immediately fascinated by her tales of this Belle Époque town and its association with musicians as diverse as Nina Simone, Deep Purple and Freddie Mercury.