The Swiss village of Château-d’Oex is celebrating the 40th annual Festival International de Ballons from January 27 to February 4, 2018. Surrounded by mountains, Château-d’Oex is blessed with a microclimate that makes it ideal for hot air ballooning. This year, more than 80 balloons from 20 countries are expected to take to the skies. The town is famed as the start of the first successful around the world balloon journey, made in 1999 in the Breitling Orbiter by Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones.