Detailed Review
Raffles Le Montreux Palace has 235 rooms and suites, most of which overlook the lake, and thus offer a fabulous panorama of the vigour and freshness of nature, all drenched in light. Most of the rooms have a balcony or veranda--ideal spots to take advantage of the first rays of sunlight or the warm summer nights.
Spacious and light, decorated in warm colours such as burgundy, royal blue or eggshell, the rooms have an elegant and classical feel. A few pieces of antique furniture--desk, chest of drawers or wardrobe--enrich a decor recently renovated in the Belle Epoque spirit. Yet behind the sophisticated atmosphere lurk all the conveniences of the modern world: Public Wireless LAN connection, air conditioning, fax, telephone with voice messaging, modem connection, cable television with Pay-per-View. Our hotel is no stranger to high technology!
Montreux, a Swiss resort located between Lake Geneva and the Alps, is an ideal starting point for many day trips. It can be reached from Geneva international airport in 45 minutes and from major European cities by car or train. The hotel is just a two-minute walk from the Montreux train station.
Independent Reviews
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"Massive Montreux grand dame, an ex-convalescent home, you can see why"
Montreux Palace
By Jamie Dunford Wood
This massive (240 room) and classic (1868 and 1906) hotel on the lakeside in Montreux (separated, however, by the main lakeside road), was a convalescent center for British army officers after the war, and wandering round the huge, silent, carpeted corridors, lined with reproduction Matisses and Chagalls in oil, you are reminded of a luxurious lunatic asylum. There is something overwhelmingly institutional about this hotel, with a certain lack of charm. The rooms are large, many with fine views of the lake, but the windows are modern and double glazed and somehow mean in aspect, so the views are through the window rather than in the room. The best, lakeview rooms have walnut furnishings and separate showers, smallish bathrooms that need updating, and little balconies with yellow awnings (which need adjusting to let light into the rooms), while the ’mountain view’ rooms have ordinary wood fittings and even smaller bathrooms and are darker. The décor is sophisticated pink/rose and beige - subtle and discreet. However, being an old palace hotel, some rooms differ significantly, so if you know what you are looking for you can improve vastly on the regular rooms for no extra outlay. One such is the corner room, 321, with three windows (as opposed to the regular one), and an old fireplace. Another is 316, brighter with more recent, vibrant décor, a more modern bathroom and a spacious covered balcony which is almost a separate room. There are some dozen others like this, but you need to ask for them. If, like Vladimir Nabokov, you intend to spend the last 16 years of your life here, make sure that you do. A quarter of the rooms are in the older ’Cygne’ wing, set back further from the lake, which apparently older clients prefer, probably to steer clear of the conventioneers, with whom the hotel does most of its business. Indeed it would come to life a bit where everybody knew everybody else - exciting for corridor creeping (you can see so far down those corridors), and doubtless those British army officers had a ball, dressing up for dinner in the sumptious ballroom or Rose ’d’Or bar with its snooty barman below. It has a ’Grand Bablylon Hotel’ feel about it, a place of Edwardian intrigue and assignation. Over the road they are building a new fitness center and pool right on the lakeside.
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Condé Nast Traveller 2008 Gold List
