More than watches and banking

Suisse Romande goes overlooked, bar a few destinations such as Geneva and Montreux. But this western quarter of Switzerland has great dollops of history and culture and landscapes as pretty and tidy as a toy train set. It also provides the perfect backdrop for a touring holiday, with its snow peaks off on the horizon.

You’ll discover a more relaxed version of Switzerland whose French speakers are more liberal and fun-loving than their German-speaking counterparts, giving Switzerland a completely different feel.

Geneva, which has excellent air connections, is the place to start. You can see the best of it on a long walk around the lakefront from the Botanic Gardens to the Parc des Granges – a couple of hours’ stroll past villas, rose gardens and Geneva’s famous 150-metre fountain. Of course those with a love of horology will want to linger longer and even those with a passing interest in Swiss timepieces will feel as if they’ve arrived at watchmaking’s ground zero.

Once you’ve had your fill of time though, drive out along Lake Geneva and stop as the spirit takes you. The French-style chateau at Coppet was once a literary salon that attracted the likes of Rousseau and Byron. In Nyon, Roman pillars sit amid a riot of flowerbeds. Lausanne is the best place to base yourself – the whole of Suisse Romande is under two hours’ drive in any direction.

Despite its magnificent setting, Lausanne’s old town ignores the lake in favour of a hilltop setting topping out with university buildings and a cathedral. Only in relatively recent times has the city reached the lake at Ouchy, now laid out with fine promenades that ogle the French Alps across the water.

Here you’ll find the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee, which has an excellent Olympic Museum and beautiful gardens dotted with delightful contemporary statues depicting various sports.

The classic road from Lausanne winds uphill through spectacular vineyards and villages whose houses crowd in so closely they might take off a wing mirror. Then you snake back down onto the Swiss Riviera, which gets its moniker from its balmy micro-climate. Walk the promenades to Chillon Castle, which perches on a lake rock like the epitome of medieval romance.

So far, you haven’t left the tourist route, but as soon as you turn away from the lake you’ll find the rest of Suisse Romande refreshingly under the radar. A drive north takes you through undulating fields of fat cows and golden corn, presided over by squat farmhouses with gardens full of dahlias.

This is a happy countryside, adrift with cherry blossom in spring, studded with mushrooms in autumn and known for its rich cream and cheeses. You could spend a pleasant hour or two in various small towns that preserve much of their historical character.

Moudon clusters around a bubbling river, Lucens boasts a turreted castle with striped shutters, Payerne is proud of its ancient abbey and austere Romanesque church.

At Estavayer-le-Lac a quaint medieval town contrasts with modern apartment blocks in bright colours: purple walls, scarlet roofs, green balconies. The local museum is a magnificent jumble of mounted butterflies, muskets, armour and peculiar nineteenth-century stuffed frogs, dressed like humans and set in a miniature schoolroom and household scenes.

Head around the Lake of Neuchâtel in a clockwise direction and the first town is Yverdon, known for its sulphur and magnesium baths. The scenery is a scaled-down version of alpine Switzerland, with rolling hills instead of mountains, villages instead of towns.

Stop off a Grandson Castle, site of a crucial battle in 1476 that guaranteed this region’s independence from Burgundy. From the ramparts, you get views towards the Alps to cheer you up after an investigation of the dungeons.

Pleasant commercial and university town Neuchâtel has more defensive towers, a medieval cathedral and grand old buildings festooned with geraniums. The capital of Switzerland’s watch-making region provides the country’s official time from its observatory. Neighbouring La Chaux-de-Fonds has an excellent horology museum displaying timepieces through the ages, from the earliest sundials to the most modern atomic clocks.

At La Chaux-de-Fonds you’re bumping up against the French border, so time to turn back south. Soon you’re drifting through towns with both French and German names such as Morat/Murten, a signal that you’re also bumping up against Switzerland’s linguistic divide. Morat’s medieval moat, town walls and guard towers are preserved intact and enclose a huddle of ancient arcades and cobbled streets that merit an hour of aimless wandering.

In Morat you’ll hear Swiss-German; minutes out into the countryside, French returns. One village is called La Sauge, the next Witzwil. 

The cows, standing knee-high in lush grass, seem to be French-speaking: they produce Gruyère and Vacherin cheeses. Pastures alternate with pine woods. Locals produce pretty blue-and-white porcelain painted with farming scenes.

You’d expect Fribourg to be a market village where peasants with rolled-up sleeves haggle over piglets. Instead, you discover a proud university town, prominent in the Middle Ages as the capital of a small aristocratic republic. It’s one of Switzerland’s best preserved fortified cities, with most of the medieval walls and towers still protecting a huddle of Gothic and baroque houses.

Anywhere else in Europe, such a city would be swarming with tourists, but Fribourg is full only of locals and university students. It overlooks the Sarine/Saane River, which forms the country’s linguistic border. Most of Fribourg’s streets have bilingual names. The serious political newspaper is in German, but the restaurant menus are in French. Suisse Romande likes to keep it light and indulgent – an amiable place for a puttering week’s drive.