Luxury escorts in Nyon

Nyon sits at the centre of La Côte, the vineyard shore between Geneva and Lausanne, with a Roman past it wears casually — Caesar founded the colony — and a white castle above the port that gives the town its silhouette. It is smaller and calmer than either city flanking it, which is its entire argument: fifteen minutes from Geneva's airport, the town belongs to residents rather than visitors, and its evenings have the ease of a place with nothing to sell.

The country behind it is the reward. The La Côte vineyards climb from the lake in an unbroken belt — Féchy, Mont-sur-Rolle, Luins — and their caveaux and auberges make the region's best evenings: a tasting at the vigneron's own table, dinner in a village auberge, the drive back along the lake with Mont Blanc pink across the water. Our companions here suit that register — French-speaking, easy in both a castle-town café and a starred dining room — and the Paléo festival each July, Switzerland's largest open-air, adds one loud, joyful week to an otherwise quiet diary. Geneva engagements extend here without any change of arrangement.