Like an English coastal town, lakeside Montreux can seem to be largely populated by very young or very old people doing nothing; the young ones sitting snogging around a statue of Freddie Mercury, the old ones scowling suspiciously at tourists looking scruffy. The rest, you assume, are making pots of cash to pay for the Bang & Olufsens and expensive togs for sale in the shop windows.
As a visitor, I didn't want to do anything either at first, except sit on my balcony in the blazing sunshine and stare out at the blue, blue view: lake, mountains and cloudless sky merging hazily into one. I was staying at the Eden au Lac, for once a hotel whose surroundings lived up to its name. That said, I was becoming increasingly aware that many of the other people here might well be shuffling off to the non-earthly paradise before too long. Sooner or later, I would need to get out and about.
In fact, being in Switzerland shares many of the attributes of a near-death experience: you spend much of your time looking down at the world from a great height, suffused in bright light, surrounded by benevolent people, and with a feeling that finally everything's working just right. High in the hills, people in buggies are riding around playing golf. The only way you know it's not actually heaven is that Philip Morris and Nestlé have their headquarters round here, when an omniscient deity would have relocated them somewhere appropriately grim.
And things really do work. Our trains were several minutes late on the final day, to the mortification of the Swiss tourism people we met, who claimed to have never seen anything like it before. They needn't have worried: I was still astonished by the trains that somehow shot up Alpine slopes. Here, the ticket inspector asked to see our passes with the pride and purpose of a man who knew he was part of a well-oiled machine that could scale mountains in sun or snow.
It was almost a little bit too clean and smooth for us Brits. Yet even when we embarked on getting sweaty, dirty and a little drunk, we couldn't ever feel worse than fantastic, because all the views are astounding and the air is fresh - and the earthier and less pasteurised the sausage and cheese, the better it tastes.
The plan of action was, in short, to get on a mountain bike and search out the fruits of the countryside. Breaking ourselves in gently, we put our bikes on the funicular uphill from nearby Vevey, so we could freewheel back downhill.
First, the grape. The Swiss, we found, do in fact make a good bit of very decent wine, but export little. In autumn, as the Vaud region starts to turn golden, the vendange is under way. While the heaving vines meant most hands were occupied in the fields, we were able to stop for a tasting at the Caveau des Vignerons (the wine-growers' traditional cellar-cum-restaurant) in Chexbres, one of many appealing old villages on the terraced hillsides. We mulled over several St Saphorins: a couple of whites, a rosé and a red; enough to blunt the novice cyclist's fear while bombing down the steep slopes towards the lake and home.
Mountain biking without funicular assistance is a very different experience: one providing a tremendous sense of achievement at climbing the mountains, albeit in my case by walking and pushing for most of the steep bits. The following day, after a train ride to the village of Château d'Oex, we pedalled uphill for several hours in search of a cheese maker.
This was classic Heidi territory: imposing green hills, wooden houses at unfeasible altitudes and no sound bar the incessant cowbells. The countryside was so impeccable that when, astonishingly, we saw a solitary piece of litter, one of our group instantly picked it up and put it in his pocket, like a vacationing Stepford Wife.
At the high, remote farm of La Cluse, we were greeted by one Mme Therese Morier. She explained the secrets of cheese while her father-in-law, the blessed cheese maker, pressed and flipped an enormous round one. Why the holes? What are curds and whey? Whey, she said, was this milky substance; would I like to try it? Well, why not; I drank a mug-full. What's it used for, we asked? "We feed it to the pigs," she replied, deadpan.
You wouldn't imagine there could be much passing trade up here, but visitors can get a talk and a tasting, and a peer at the bulls out the back, in a setting which has to beat a tour of your local Kraft factory. With her husband Alexis, we toasted the Moriers' cheese with a bottle of those Swiss wines that tended to be brought out at these moments (late morning, post-lunch, mid-afternoon and so on), and the hard work done, raced downhill.
The next stop was Les Diablerets village, a spot whose main feature is a whopping great cable car up to a 3000m-high glacier. Here, we were tracking down a bit of an animal. If the Moriers' cheese set-up had felt rustic, next to M Laurent Favre they would seem positively bourgeois. Yet his sausage was the talk of the town, ever since, apparently, a German journalist had got there and proclaimed its virtues to the knockwurst cognoscenti.
Now, M Favre was receiving visitors from afar with what would appear like surly nonchalance, if it hadn't been for a lovely tarte à la raisinée (a kind of thickened fruit juice pie) he had made for the occasion. He also brought out one of his famous sausages and hacked it up in front of us on a bench by his barn, to the horror of effete urbanites and vegetarians. But those of us who tried it can testify to the excellence of his soft, yielding sausage; we even bought a few to take home, and tried in vain to milk the cows destined to play a future part in his product.
We returned to Montreux, and walked along the lakeside, watching the sun set beautifully over Freddie Mercury. I wondered what the choice of the former Queen singer - a regular guest at the Eden au Lac - said about the town. Perhaps it too, underneath a bushy moustache of middle-of-the-road respectability, enjoys a double life of debauchery? We never chanced upon it, try as we might. More likely it stresses the opposite: the virtues of the rest cure, the healthy living, the call of the not-too-wild. It's more a monument that says: if we'd just got the poor bugger into mountain biking and organic cheese, he might still be here now.
Five more non-winter things to make you feel alive around Lake Geneva
Marmotte Paradis
Do you like marmots? Then this is the place for both of you. Otherwise, you may be wondering quite what possessed anyone to import a bunch of Siberian desert rats to a lonely hilltop and call it a visitor attraction. Entrance is included with the spectacular train journey up to the Rochers de Naye, from where you'll get even better views than usual.
Go on a boat trip
The Swiss pass is good for boats as well as trains, and if boats are not the quickest way to get around the lake, it's certainly the most enjoyable. Regular services stop around the lake (eg from Montreux to Vevey or the Château de Chillon, the famous Swiss landmark). lake-geneva-region.ch
Play golf
The course at Bretaye, above Villars-sur-Ollon, is astonishing in both its altitude (1600m) and the fact that it doubles as a ski slope for much of the year. villars.ch
Glacier 3000
You can almost get a bit blasé about the views, but the cable car here makes a particularly spectacular ascent. Snow buses and a decent restaurant at the top, and unfortunately what looks like a bit of a building site on the glacier at the moment. But look the other way at Quillle du Diable and the panorama is just divine. diablerets.ch
Visit Lausanne
The biggest city on the north shores of Lake Geneva, its main claim to fame is as the home of the International Olympic Committee. The Olympic museum is good for a wander, even if it has a slightly surprising emphasis on sponsors and the assorted nobles, sheikhs and glorified bandits who make up the IOC, rather than the athletics itself. olympic.org/uk/passion/museum/index_uk.asp
Way to go
Gwyn Topham travelled with Inghams Lakes & Mountains to Switzerland with Swiss International Air Lines and stayed at the four-star Hotel Eden au Lac in Montreux.
Seven nights at the four-star Hotel Eden au Lac starts from £686 per person based on two sharing and includes half board, return scheduled flights with Swiss International Air Lines from London Heathrow and Swiss rail second class transfers to resort, a free Swiss half price card - offering 50% reduction on first or second class travel on most of the superb Swiss transport network (first class available at a £24 supplement).
Regional direct flights from Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and London City are available at a supplement. All guests staying at the Hotel Eden au Lac receive a free lake cruise, "Tour du Haut Lac Superior", on Lake Geneva.
Regional Pass: second class: £37, first class: £44. Giving three days unlimited travel within the region on selected trains, boats and mountain railways (choose any three within seven consecutive days).
Inghams reservation line: 020 8780 4433; brochure hotline: 09070 500 500 (calls cost 50p per minute at all times)
