Last month my wife and I took a trip to Switzerland for our anniversary. One of the stops we made was at Musée Suisse du Jeu – the Swiss Museum of Games (wikipedia link). The museum is located along the shore of Lake Geneva in the castle La Tour-de-Peilz. Now, to my European friends this might not seem like a big deal, but as someone from the States, castles are pretty cool, especially ones dedicated to board games. To go along with their standard historical look at board games, they had two temporary exhibits open at the time of our visit – an exhibit examining the connection between video games and board games and an exhibit on the history of western themed games.

The permanent collection includes examples of the earliest played games such as Mehen, a game dating back over 5000 years; examples of games from the Renaissance period, some of which resemble contemporary games; and mid-century to modern classics.

The temporary exhibit on western games provided an overview the adventurous nature of games based on the frontier while highlighting the troubled past of the genre including racial caricatures of Native Americans and white colonization. 

We really enjoyed this stop on our trip and recommend it for individuals and families in the area or traveling near Montreaux, especially if you are a fan of board games.