Lac Leman/Lake Geneva - help me choose where to stay
Replies: 2 - Last Post: Oct 15, 2012 1:27 AM Last Post By: neckervd
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Lac Leman/Lake Geneva - help me choose where to stay
I'm seriously driving myself nuts here. I need to choose a place and I'm finding it terribly hard without knowing either location. So I figured I'd send it out to the experts who have at least visited the area. We are a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 children ages 5 to 10) We're travelling by train. We'll be in the Montreux area for 3 nights. We're used to staying in very nice places when we travel but aside from my husband, we've never travelled to Europe. The price of accomodations to fit all 5 of us in a room is seriously interfering with where I'd like to stay. So, I'm looking for a place to stay that is middle of the road, clean and reflective of where we are. I've narrowed it down to two hotels. Hotel Excelsior du Lac in Montreux and Hostellerie Geneve in Vevey. The first is 4 star and the other is 2 star. But I really like the location of Hotel Geneve being right on the lake. And while I'd like to stay right in central Montreux on the lake, I think the excelsior is further away so it might be hard to walk that distance with the kids. We plan to visit Cully, Vevey, Montreux (and Chillion) and possibly Le Bouveret while there. I'm really leaning towards Hotel Geneve in Vevey because Vevey seems like a better place to be for the kids. (we're avoiding the area completely during hte Jazz festival and arriving the week after)Between these two hotels, which would YOU choose (and I know everyone is different and no one can choose for me but I'm finding it hard as I don't know either town (and yes, I've reviewed all the ratings on Trip Advisor and I"ve looked at both on google maps... again, driving myself nuts.) Please help me decide.
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Thanks Neckervd. You've been a great help in planning this trip. I had a look at both Caux and Glion. Caux seems a bit far away but I'm interested in Glion. I need to find out how to get there though and how long it will take (and how hard on the kids). It seems there's just one hotel there. I've emailed Hotel Victoria for rates. Based on their website though it looks like it may end up being much more expensive than the quotes for Hotel Geneve and Hotel Excelsior (between 300 and 350CHF per night). We'll see.Its interesting your comments about the other two hotels. I was leaning towards Geneve because I thought it was right on the lake and in the market area and I thought excelsior had a road between it and the lake and it was further away from the Montreux markt/ downtown area. You mention its close to territet. I actually had ruled out Hotel Masson which had similar rates because I thought it was too far from the main area in Montreux. What's your thoughts on that hotel? Would you still choose Excelsior?
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Public transport:City bus Vevey - Clarens - Montreux - Chillon Castle - Villeneuve:about every 10 min, 25 stops between Vevey and Montreux, 4 stops between Montreux and Territet
Commuter train Vevey - Clarens - Montreux - Chillon Castle - Villeneuve: every hour
Vevey - Montreux trains without stop at Territet: 3 trains every hour
Cablecar Territet - Glion: every 15 min
Excelsior: the road between the hotel and the Lake (Quai des Fleurs) is a pedestrian lane (leading from Montreux up to Chillon Castle): no road traffic.
Train Montreux - Glion - Caux: every hour
It's rather difficult to define a Montreux downtown area. The small historic nucleus is rather offside, north of the railway line, somewhat between the railway station and the Excelsior. The touristic center (hotels, restaurants, casino) is close to the boat's pier. The railway station is about 300 metres north of this place and can be reached from the pier over long stairs or with elevators.
The Hotel de Geneve at Vevey is in the center of this small town, in front of a parking, but not in fornt of the Lake: https://maps.google.ch/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF-8&q=hotel+de+geneve+vevey&fb=1&gl=ch&hq=hotel+de+geneve+vevey&cid=0,0,4444769184211552745&ei=ZsR7UKrTM-iC4gScloGwBA&ved=0CI0BEPwSMAA
Historic Hotel Masson is definetely not on the board of the Lake, but above the Lake, with wiews over the lake and to the mountains. It's about 200 metres from the bus stop Bonivard (bus every 10 min) and 300 metres from the railway station Veytaux-Chillon (trains every hour).
http://www.booking.com/hotel/ch/ha-tel-masson.de.html?sid=fdd7d490c4ba48df4bb3831e96ff3671;dcid=1;checkin=2013-05-02;checkout=2013-05-03;srfid=f4d6f1bd8da1450bcefb8ce68f9b2314X9
