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 Dwight
Peck's personal Web site
Castles
in Switzerland
The
Château of Chillon
There
may be neater medieval castles somewhere, but if you think so, try convincing
somebody who's seen this one!!
If
in your present frame of mind if any, you prefer not to see photographs of a walk
through the Castle of Chillon, Switzerland, then you need to go somewhere else.
Not here.
Marlowe
goes to Chillon. Twice. 
Marlowe
Tyson Peck, tongue hanging out again, visits the Château de Chillon for
the first of many many times in November 1986, at the age of TWO. 
Marlowe
inspects fish with her Mum on the pier at Chillon, 1986. 
Marlowe
cavorting merrily at Chillon, her first visit, in 1986. Chillon sits on
a piece of rock just off the coast of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) near Montreux
in Switzerland, and served throughout the Middle Ages Etc. as a customs
toll booth on steroids, since all travelers, merchants, pilgrims, schoolkids,
ornithologists, rugby players, and invading armies had to pass right along where
Marlowe is here cavorting merrily, and pay their dues. 
And
now she's back -- Chillon on Marlowe's annual Christmas
visit to the Old Dad, 2002, this time with Young Dima in tow. 
Chillon's
had a major face-lift in the intervening years, a strengthening of the whole thing
and extensions of the walkable routes inside. That's welcome foresightedness,
these days. 
Marlowe
and her Dima pose in front of the landward walls and the moat, December 2002.
Chillon's
had one previous brief exciting episode before Marlowe's visit -- during the Reformation
troubles of the 1530s, Bonivard, a religious guy
on the wrong side, got locked up in the dungeons here, and languished for a few
years in a pretty nasty semi-sub-lake-level room hollowed out of the rock, then
got sprung by the Bernese and got himself rowed across the lake to the Savoyard
duchy in France, probably grinning foolishly and drooling. Byron wrote one of his many elaborate catch-penny poems on the subject, "The
Prisoner of Chillon" -- in fact, he wrote it whilst sipping excellent
coffee on the terraces of the lakeside hotels in Ouchy (Lausanne), and indeed
he supposedly carved his name into one of the pillars in the Chillon dungeon,
somebody did anyway, and it's covered in inviolable plastic now. One
line of this ponderous poem I will never forget, a perverse invocation of the
Stockholm Syndrome -- after six years attached to this pillar, Bonivard says "My
very chains and I grew friends". Pick a better metaphor for the USA
today!
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Marlowe
smirks from the balcony of the Great Hall (2002);
The Old Dad smirked from
the balcony of the Great Hall (1979). 
The
third courtyard, the keep on the left. Marlowe
and her best pal Dima. The second courtyard. 
Dima
and Marlowe in the Lords' Hall and armoury exhibit. 
Marlowe
on the window seat. 
Marlowe
and the Old Dad. 
The
rampart walk behind the lakeside walls, the original glacis on the left. 
Marlowe
and Dima, on the top floor of the central castle keep, discussing computer games. Views
from the keep. 
The
classic synoptic view of the whole pile. 
One
of Marlowe's favorite castles.
 Feedback
and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative,  .
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 24 February 2003, revised 12 April 2009.
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