CHÂTEAU D’OEX (pronounced day) is sited in a wide, sloping valley bowl. The valley in which it sits generates exactly the right kinds of thermal air currents for perfect hot-air ballooning, and the town is acclaimed as one of the world centres for the sport. When Bertrand Piccard, from Lausanne, and the Briton Brian Jones made their record-breaking 45,000km round-the-world balloon flight in 1999, which ended on March 21 after 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes, the take-off point, and nerve centre of the whole operation, was Château d’Oex. Every January, the town hosts perhaps the most beautiful sports event in the Swiss calendar, the annual Hot-Air Ballooning Week, when eighty or more colourful giants catch the dawn thermals to float peaceably over the hills and valleys round about.