Hauts De Montreux
Less than 20 kilometers away from and 800 meters above the swanky Swiss Riviera, Hauts de Montreux is a hiker's dream. On a good day you can see to Geneva in the west and Bern in the east. If you look hard, you can even see the sparkle of all those flashy watches and dripping diamonds on the rich old people shuffling around the muggy lakefront.
Montreux-Oberland-Bernois
or MOB This is one of the longest established of the Swiss narrow gauge railways and runs from platforms 5 and 6 of the town's main line station to Zweissimmen via the resort town of Gstaad. Over recent years to company, which operates 1/3 of the Golden Pass route to Lucerne along with the BLS and the Zentralbahn brought under its sales banner the cog-wheel Montreux - Glion - Rochers-de-Naye Railway and its associated funicular from nearby Territet, the Les Avants - Sonloup funicular and the lines of the former CEV from Vevey into the hills.Note that the trains on the Rochers-de-Naye line stop running to and from the top around 6PM but they'll shut down early if the weather's bad, so don't count on one to carry you out of a sudden early evening rainstorm.
The MOB operates not only local, stopping, trains but a regular service of panoramic trains with coaches having large picture windows and glass sections reaching into the roof, great for the views. Twice a day the line runs a classic service using either original coaches built before World War One or some built later to the same design, a throw back to the days of the Orient Express. First and Second class fares, single and return, are available on all trains with no extra charge for the panorama or clasic trains. Well worth the ride and a cup of tea or coffee in the buffet car.The best deal to date has to be the jazz train, which runs on various days throughout the jazz festival see above. The train goes from Montreux to Gstaad, and you can buy tickets for three of the carriages, where jazz bands play live during the journey. Once in Gstaad there is an opportunity to sample some local products and pretend to be a millionaire Gstaad is that kind of place before a return trip with more live jazz. In 2008 this trip cost 50CHF, which is only 2 francs more than the regular journey.Pretty much anything heading North and/or East of Montreux will lead to some combination of charming Swiss villages, such as Château d'Oex and invigorating Swiss landscapes. Despite the heavy Golden Pass advertising scheme, most of the visitors are small groups of locals, not the hordes of tourists you'll find in near-by, but hard to get to Chamonix or Interlaken. Many of the mountain-top restaurants double as 'buvettes' - something between a refugee hut and a hotel - where you can stay the night, often for much less than you'd pay for a lakeside hostel.
