This scenic hike wanders through the Lavaux terraced vineyards and cute villages along the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne.

Trail: moderate • 4 hours • 12 km • 230m up, 240m down • see trail map

TIP: For a shorter hike, you can do just half of the trail. We slightly prefer the section from St Saphorin to Cully, about 2hours.

Trail description

The trail starts in St-Saphorin, a charming winegrowing village near the lake shore. Follow trail signs with the green label "Terrasses de Lavaux," direction Cully.

When you reach the Epesses village, you can optionally do a detour down to the Cully village for lunch. We definitely recommend this as Cully is quite charming. There are a couple restaurants near the lake. We enjoyed Le Major Davel.

If you want to keep hiking, follow signs to Grandvaux. After about 15 mins uphill, you eventually rejoin the official "Terrasses de Lavaux" trail headed to Lutry.

Continue through the vineyards, ending in Lutry where you can take a train or boat back to your starting point.

➡️More trail info on SwissFamilyFun.com

How to get there

This is a one-way trail, with train stations at the start, middle and end of trail.

We suggest starting at the St Saphorin train station. From Montreux, 18 mins / Lausanne 16 mins / Geneva 1h15.

The first half of the is about 2 hours to Cully, which has a train station and ferry stop.

If you hike the second half, it's about 2 hours more to Lutry, which also has a train station and ferry stop.

By car: Best to park at the Lutry train station (or Cully station if you are only hiking half) and start by taking the train to St Saphorin to start the hike.

Wine Tasting

If you want to do wine tasting along the way, you can stop at Vinorama, which is near St Saphorin. You can drop in, no need to book in advance.

Most other wineries along the route are very small and require advance booking for a tasting.

However, sometimes on weekends, especially during harvest season in September, some wineries will be open for drop-in wine tasting and will have signboard advertising this.

Wine tasting is not free. Usually you pay a fee to taste three wines, accompanied by light nibbles.

If you love wine, there are two big wine events in this region that you can plan your trip around:

• Vaud Open Cellars in May - one fee to visit 200 wine producers in the region over the weekend

• Heart of the Harvest in September - book ahead to visit a Swiss wine produce, help with the grape harvest, tour the facilities, taste their wine, and eat lunch on site.