A Parisian banker built it. A king bought it. The Swiss turned it into a museum.
The first record of a domain at Prangins dates to 1096. The current building is more recent: constructed in 1732 by Louis Guiguer, a Swiss banker based in Paris who wanted a residence in proportion to his fortune. Voltaire was a guest here. So, later, was Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's elder brother, who bought the estate in 1814.
Today the château is the Swiss National Museum for French-speaking Switzerland, opened in 1998 after extensive restoration. The permanent exhibition "Noblesse oblige!" fills the former reception rooms with some 600 objects from the Enlightenment era, including the diaries of Louis-François Guiguer, who spent fifteen years recording the daily life of his barony in seven volumes. The sunken kitchen garden, the largest historic vegetable garden in Switzerland, has been replanted to its original 18th-century layout and is worth the visit on its own.
The café terrace looks out over Lake Geneva. The Alps are on the far side.