Chateau de Chillon

My parents came out for a visit last week and we had a great time showing them around Switzerland and France. I am still sorting through the hundreds of pictures I took over the last 9 days, but I'll start with our trip to the Chateau de Chillon

Picture taken from here
Picture taken from here

This castle is near my favorite town of Montreux on the banks of Lake Geneva. The oldest parts of the castle have not been dated, but the first written record of the castle is around 1100. We picked up a free English walking tour brochure and spent at least 2 hours exploring every nook and cranny of this place.

Here are my mom and dad in front of the castle

Going down to the prison and the storage rooms
Where Francois de Bonivard was held prisoner for 5 years
Jack seemed to really enjoy exploring the castle as well
Most of his time he spend finding places to climb up and jump off

Or walk through hidden passages

He loved playing in the huge rooms

And finding all the toilets
The toilets are just a hole in a bench. The hole drops at least 100 feet to the shoreline below. I guess no one ever went swimming around this castle...
Sitting on the toilets
Where the archers used to shoot from
Just chillin'
With Nana
Walking the archers path along the top of the wall
Taking a break
A view of one of the courtyards
You can walk the walls around the whole castle

A view from above
Walking the walls
Enjoying the view
View from one of the towers

Afterwards we had lunch in Montreux
A view of Lake Geneva from Montreux
Lots more to come...