Swiss barbecue, with weekend sunshine and temperatures just right for grilling (photo: flickr.com/photos/celestialpilgrim)
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The weather forecast for the weekend in the Lake Geneva area is better than you might think if you’re currently sitting in a downpour (your editor is watching a snow shower at 2,400 metres, above me). Showers will clear by morning, with just a few clouds left along mountain ridges.
Expect lows of 7 to 8C and highs of 21-23C Saturday, rising to 24C Sunday, with sunshine throughout Switzerland.
Geneva toasts its 2010 wines Saturday
The sunny spell is almost guaranteed, with Geneva holding its traditional and hugely popular wine open day Saturday: it’s hard to remember one when the sun wasn’t shining.
Geneva's wine open days are designed to introduce the public to the new vintage, but the canton has also been developing some beautiful wines that age well, several of which are part of the vintage wines collection of the Memoire des vins suisses
The Caves Ouvertes, as the day is called in French, sends thousands to Geneva’s wineries, almost of which are participating in the event, one of Geneva’s most popular. It was started in 1987, the first one in Switzerland.
The idea has spread and Valais will hold its cantonal open days the weekend of 2, 3 and 4 June (the Ascension long weekend), with canton Vaud having its – with several new surprise features – 11 and 12 June.
How to visit Geneva’s wine open day
The open days are designed to bring in the public to sample the new vintage, with white wines from 2010 recently bottled and the 2009 reds ready to drink.
Geneva’s cantonal wine office, Opage, has published its Terrific Terroir 2011 (pdf), with pages 19-20 giving you details about how it works, public transportation options, and a list of the wineries.
It is also available in printed form from Geneva Tourism, the Pont-de-la-Machine Information Arcade, the Geneva Welcome Centre, the UN kiosk and OffTheShelf English Bookshop, as well as hotels and eateries, clubs and associations, and several multinational companies and international organizations.
Vines in Satigny, Geneva, shortly after the harvest
If you’re looking for a guide to some of Geneva’s top wineries, and what to expect from them, you can start by reviewing the August 2010 winners of the cantonal wine competition (pdf).
The GenevaLunch wine blog, Among the Vines, offered tips for how best to visit the wineries in 2010, and it’s still valid, the advice of GL editor and Swiss wine expert Ellen Wallace.
France sends 81,000 people to work in the Lake Geneva region
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Lake Geneva region remains by far the largest in Switzerland for workers from across the border, des frontaliers, with a significant jump in numbers in the first three months of 2011. The number of workers from France rose to 81,619 by the end of March, an all-time high and up from 77,235 at the end of December.
Switzerland by the end of March had over 243,000 people crossing into the country to work, compared to 143,000 in 2000, figures released 26 by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office show.
Geneva had an increase of about 3,000 and canton Vaud about 1,000, during the first three months of 2011.
The Basel area in northwest Switzerland has the second-largest number of border-crossers, 63,995 at the end of Q3 2011, an increase of about 2,000 since the end of 2010. Ticino has just over 50,000.
Geneva’s border-crossers account for more than one-third of workers who cross into Switzerland.
Some 4,000 more women from across the border were working by the end of March, compared to December 2010, and about 6,000 more men.
The Lake Geneva region is good for weekend urban hikes: Geneva's Mont-Blanc bridge adorned with the UN and Geneva flags this week mark major world health and meteorology conferences
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Expect comfortable temperatures, with highs of 24-26C in western Switzerland over the weekend, but with sunshine mixed with thunderstorms, says MeteoSwiss.
Several events in the area should get you out of the house this weekend, including:
The Chateau de Chillon has on display 10 very special models of Lake Geneva’s historic paddle-wheel steamships, 1:50 scale models and some even 1:25: “La Suisse”, “Simplon”, “Helvétie”, “Rhône”, “Lausanne”, “Montreux”, “Savoie”, “Italie”, “Vevey” and the “Major-Davel”. The Lavaux vineyards that are a Unesco World Heritage site near the castle are now budding and green from the week’s rains, making it perfect for hiking.
Alpine and Jura mountain walks are never far away - cows out for a walk in Visperterminen, Valais
La Cote is learning a lesson from Geneva’s winemakers and this weekend’s winery open days in Mont-sur-Rolle will offer a shuttle bus to and from the Rolle train station and the 30 wineries that are participating. Pay CHF10 for a glass and you can sample the new wines in all the cellars for free (but don’t lose your glass!).
Nyon’s Gaos (Geneva Amateur Opera Society) offers good laughs with The Producer, which ends Saturday.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Radio Frontier is about to go live, at least on the web, offering English speakers in the Lake Geneva region a new music and information service with a voice that will be familiar to many: Mark Butcher, who for several years hosted The Breakfast Show on WRG and later WRS radio, will be providing one of the key shows on Radio Frontier.
The new station was founded by Butcher and Peter Sibley, formerly of World Television in Geneva, to provide commercial radio with a very local slant that focuses on the French-Swiss border area.
RadioFrontier will initially be available at www.radiofrontier.ch, operating from new studios in Meyrin, with plans to expand in 2012.
Radio in English is growing
WRS and RadioFrontier are the only English stations in the region, although there are others, mainly available online, in Switzerland. They include Mountain Radio Verbier, also started by an ex-WRS employee, Conor Lennon.
Main sources of Swiss news in English
The new radio station boosts the English-language information offer that is produced in the region, whose main providers include:
- GenevaLunch, the main producer of regional online news and events listings in English
- public radio station WRS, World Radio Switzerland, which has a Swiss nationwide broadcast mandate and operates online and via DAB and FM
- swissinfo, the online English information arm of Swiss broadcasting, whose main mission is to keep overseas Swiss informed about their country
- Glocals, a local social network now connected to BuyClub.ch, for “group-buying deals”.
International Link is a non-profit organization started by the Vaud Chamber of Commerce to provide a business-based network for the area that introduces foreigners and Swiss people.
Swisster, an online English language news service started by Swiss publisher Edipresse, closed in December 2010.
There are several small local groups based in or near Geneva and Lausanne that provide a variety of services and products for English-speakers, some mainly for expatriates who are relatively new to Switzerland (see list at end).
Switzerland’s international population also attracts outside companies
In addition, Switzerland’s English speakers, viewed as well-educated and well-paid, are wooed by a number of social network and information groups based outside the region. Some, like AngloInfo, a business directory and forum, have strong local ties: the franchise is operated by a Geneva area resident, although some of the information comes from the larger parent group, whose roots are in the south of France.
Others have no, or very little, Swiss presence: Expatica is based in The Netherlands (note: they carry news from swissinfo and GenevaLunch news feeds, with our permission); the English Forum, a social network used by many newcomers to Switzerland, actually based in and moderated from Sweden and Germany and linked to a new news site called local.ch, run from Sweden.
Geneva.com is another “local” news site, run from Argentina.
GenevaLunch “friends”
Local information providers who offer good quality; some offer networking and others sell products:
Books, Books, Books in Lausanne
Expat-Expo, based in Zug
Know it All
Leman Events and Leman Expat Fair
Off the Shelf, online and in Geneva
Business clubs
American International Club
British-Swiss Chamber of Commerce
Executives International
Owit, Organization of Women in International Trade
Henry Markram, Human Brain project
Adrian Ionescu, EPFL, Guardian Angels project
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – EPFL-led projects are two of the six accepted in the finals of a major research initiative by the European Commission, its FET (future technologies) flagship projects. At least two of the finalists will be funded by the EC to the tune of up to CHF1 billion over 10 years, with the decision about the winners to be announced in 2012.
The final project will make FET one of the largest research initiatives in the world, notes EPFL.
The two Lausanne-led international projects, both of which have already received EC funding to permit them to develop their proposals to date, are the Human Brain project and Guardian Angels.
Each will receive about €1.5 million to refine their proposals in the coming year.
The finalists were announced Wednesday 4 May in Budapest, Hungary, at a FET conference.
The other four finalists, listed by eGov Monitor, are:
- FuturICT Knowledge Accelerator and Crisis-Relief System: ICT can analyse vast amounts of data and complex situations so as to better predict natural disasters, or manage and respond to man-made disasters that cross national borders or continents.
- Graphene Science and technology for ICT and beyond: Graphene is a new substance developed by atomic and molecular scale manipulation that could replace silicon as the wonder material of the 21st century.
- IT Future of Medicine: digital technology has the power to deliver individualised medicine, based on molecular, physiological and anatomical data collected from individual patients and processed on the basis of globally integrated medical knowledge.
- Robot Companions for Citizens: soft skinned and intelligent robots have highly developed perceptive, cognitive and emotional skills, and can help people, radically changing the way humans interact with machines.
The first is the outgrowth of an earlier EPFL project led by Henry Markram, the Blue Brain project, now being developed by an international consortium. Human Brain integrates “everything we know about the brain into computer models and [uses] these models to simulate the actual working of the brain.
Ultimately, it will attempt to simulate the complete human brain,” according to the project’s web site.
Christofer Hierold, ETHZ, Guardian Angels project
GuardianAngels, under the direction of EPFL’s Adrian Ionescu and Christofer Hierold from ETHZ in Zurich is a zero-power project that “takes advantage of these recent developments in low-power electronics, energy harvesting and micro and nano-sensors to propose a new vision of the future: next-generation technology contributing to our wellbeing and our safety with simple, discrete and affordable high-tech accessories that seamlessly integrate into our daily life,” its web site notes.
Background, Human Brain project, GenevaLunch
Tour de Romandie finishes with glorious weather as partner
Weather forecast: brief rain, spot of frost, then warmer and sunny again
Sunny finish for Tour de Romandie winner (photo ©2011 Samuel Jacquet, flickr.com/photos/sam-s-place/with/5681965676/ )
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The rain is finally falling Tuesday morning 3 May, giving a reprieve after the spectacularly dry April in the Lake Geneva region, but weather forecasters warn it will be shortlived: expect showers to end late Tuesday, with only occasional rain along mountain ridges in the next two days. Some areas will be hit by ground frost Thursday, then temperatures will climb to highs of 24-25C with sunshine for the weekend.
Australian cyclist wins Tour, with Brit taking the day in Geneva
The Tour de Romandie finished in Geneva Sunday in a burst of fine weather, with Australian Cadel Evans taking the title for the second time, while British cyclist Ben Swift won Sunday’s leg of the race.
Lausanne’s popular 10 and 20-km runs celebrated their 30th anniversary Saturday. The evening run pulled in an estimated crowd of 18,000 participants. One of the corporate groups that took part did, not surprisingly, unusually well: the Lausanne-based governing body of athletics on the continent, European Athletics, sent a team of seven, who “finished high in the rankings”.
Army continues to fight Visp fire
Visp, Valais forest fire 1 May (click on imge to view larger)
The forest fire in Visp in canton Valais, at the edge of a vast Alpine forest area that stretches to Zermatt and beyond, was still smoldering Sunday 1 May, despite continual flyovers by helicopters dumping buckets of water on embers.
The army Monday morning sent in a Super Puma to step up the fight against the fire, after unrolling 2,700 metres of hosepipe to help local firefighters and dumping 400 tons of water on the area by the end of the week. The army also kept traffic and the curious moving Sunday, on the busy stretch of road, but by Tuesday the army presence was down from 120 soldiers to 70 in the area.
The forest rises steeply behind the body shop on the cantonal highway where the fire started, and much of the area cannot be easily accessed on foot.
The fire was caught early enough to prevent total destruction to the forest, but the full damage is likely to be apparent only later in the year, as some of the trees and plant life die off due to damage.
Authorities are concerned that the fire will be sparked anew by the extremely dry conditions.
Expect disruptions as the race moves through canton Vaud
Start to the Tour de Romandie (photo: Sam' place on flickr: flickr.com/photos/sam-s-place/
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Tour de Romandie, a five-day bike race, was off to a sunny start Wednesday 27 April, running from Martigny in Valais to Leysin in Vaud. Brutt Pavel, Russian, led the group at the end of the first day.
Police in cantons Vaud and Geneva are warning drivers to be patient if they find themselves near the race between now and Sunday 1 May. Roadblocks will be put in place temporarily and drivers will have to cool their heels while the racers run through the area.
The itinerary provided by Vaud police
2nd stage, Romont – Romont, Thursday 28 April 2011:
Canton de Fribourg – Sédeilles (13h31) – Rossens – Canton de Fribourg – Chesalles (14h20) – Oron-le-Châtel – Oron-la-Ville – Canton de Fribourg – Brenles (14h55) – Sarzens – Curtilles – Dompierre – Villars-Bramard – Villarzel – Rossens (15h25) – Canton de Fribourg
3rd stage, Thierrens – Neuchâtel, Friday 29 April 2011:
Thierrens (11h15) – St-Cierges – Peyres-Possens – Bottens – Cugy – Froideville (11h41) – Peney-le-Jorat – Corcelles-le-Jorat – Carrouge (11h58) – Vucherens - Marnand (12h30) – Avenches – Faoug (13h00) – Canton de Fribourg
Against the clock / Aubonne – Signal de Bougy, Saturday 30 April 2011:
Aubonne, Place de l’Ancienne Gare (roads completely closed starting at noon) – Lavigny – St-Livres – Bière – Saubraz – Gimel – Pizy – Signal de Bougy (open about 18h30)
5th stage, Champagne – Geneva, Sunday 1 May 2011:
Champagne (10h00) – Fontaines/Grandson – Fiez – Grandson – Les Tuileries – Peney – Baulmes (10h32) – Ballaigues – Vallorbe – Pompaples – La Sarraz – Cossonay-Ville – La Chaux – Cuarnens – Mont-la-Ville – Col du Mollendruz (12h05) – L’Abbaye – Les Bioux – L’Orient – Le Brassus – Col du Marchairuz (12h42) – St-Georges – Gimel – Mont/Rolle – Bursins – Vinzel – Dully – Gland – Nyon (13h22) – Crans/Céligny – Coppet – Canton Geneva.
Basel’s stinky flower, Geneva’s sexiest fingers study, Cern’s rumoured Higgs particles, US women skate to gold in Zurich
Cern's Alice experiment, particle collisions
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A giant stinky flower in Basel, ring fingers that mean true love, thrilling women’s ice hockey world finals – the international population in the Lake Geneva region disappears during the spring holidays, heading off on travels near and far, but the news doesn’t stop.
Here’s a brief roundup of what you might have missed:
Phew! but beautiful to behold, Basel’s corpse flower
Switzerland was on the world news map, with hundreds of articles about the amophophallus titanium, aka the “corpse flower” that pulled in an estimated 25,000 visitors to Basel. Key facts: it is one of the world’s largest flowers (technically: “largest unbranched inflorescence in the world” according to wikipedia), it smells of rotting flesh, and it grows in the wild only in Sumatra, Indonesia. The first cultivated flowering was at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London in 1889 and since then there have been few sightings of the rarely-blooming flower. Basel’s Botanical Gardens‘ two-metre high plant bloomed this weekend, for the first time in its 17 years, and the first such plant to flower in Switzerland in 75 years.
Check out his length, dear
A man’s ring finger length gives clues to his masculinity, researcher Camille Ferdenzi at the University of Geneva in Switzerland shows in her research on 2D:4D, the name for the ratio comparing second and fourth digits. Her work was published 19 April in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biology Letters. For an easier explanation, LiveScience unravels the mysteries of sex and the ring finger.
God or no god particles, Cern is intense
Update, 06:50: questionnaires are being handed out this morning, Thursday, on the A1, the lake road, in trains
Expect delays for the regional travel survey, but take time to contribute
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Commuters and other travellers beware: build in extra time if you are travelling into Geneva, no matter how you are getting there, because of the major regional traffic survey getting underway early Thursday morning 24 March, the group responsible for the survey has told GenevaLunch.
DON’T try to avoid the surveys, authorities beg: this is your opportunity to influence regional travel solutions.
Drivers in particular should expect slowdowns from 06:30-20:00 on the days the survey moves to highways and roads into Geneva, from now until mid-April.
Motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians will also be stopped.
Each road will be surveyed just one day.
The survey is being carried out jointly by French, Geneva and Vaud authorities to obtain a clearer picture of transport needs today and in the future, in order to accurately plan a regional transport programme. They are asking travellers to allow time to help with the survey in order to get a cross-section of the population that is as broad as possible with answers that provide a wealth of information.
Motorists taking the A1 autoroute into Geneva will be pulled over shortly before Founex and drivers on the lake road can also expect to be stopped, but the exact area has not been announced. People taking trains and buses into the city will also be handed surveys.
Police warn that pulling drivers over for the survey will cause traffic delays on roads. These will not be as bad as in 2005 and 2002 when similar surveys were done, police note, with more reinforcements this time to get traffic moving again quickly.
Earlier, detailed announcement, GenevaLunch
Traffic in front of the WTO, heading into Geneva: expect delays (photo, Jared Bloch)
Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - People travelling into Geneva by any method can expect to be stopped and handed a questionnaiare between 21 March and mid-April.
Vaud, Geneva and neighbouring France are pooling their efforts to better understand commuters’ and others’ transport needs in the region by organizing a vast survey of current needs.
Three weeks, 30 border crossings, 100,000 questionnaires:
“The questionnaires will be handed out on all of Geneva’s borders to everyone going into Geneva, whether they are on foot, using two wheels, in a car or bus or train, between 06:30 and 20:30,” says Geneva’s Mobility Office, which is coordinating the work with five other government agencies from the region.
“Each area will be covered for just one day,” it notes.
Swiss law requires drivers to have clean windshields and the snow brushed off the car
Update 10:55 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - There has been so little snow this winter it is easy for drivers to forget to check their routes, but snow has returned, Thursday morning 24 February, with the snow line on the lakefront in the Lake Geneva region.
TSR’s road information (Fre, map) and the federal truck road alerts (Eng, map) provide current state of traffic information. The Lausanne-Pontarlier area has slowdowns due to snow, and traffic is restricted in several mountain areas.
There is icy snow at 700 metres.
Reminder: you are legally required to have snow tires in Switzerland when travelling under snowy conditions and if you’re taking a mountain pass you should have chains in the car.
Morges train station: shorter waits on the Lausanne-Geneva line by 2013
Geneva, Switzerlamd (GenevaLunch) – Train travel between Geneva and Lausanne should start to improve, especially during rush-hour, starting at the end of 2011.
The CFF rail company will add 13 double-decker trains, one a month, to increase capacity on the line by 33 percent by 2013.
The new regional trains will travel faster, cutting four minutes off the Neuchatel-Geneva route and 13 minutes between Valais and Geneva.
The regional express trains will run twice rather than once an hour, and Geneva-Lausanne connections will be increased from five to six an hour for the 2013 timetable, according to ats/TSR.
Diableret, with its glacier, good snow and large domain, is one of the Lake Geneva region's most popular resorts (click on image to view larger)
Update 4 February / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Hungarian man in his fifties died after crashing while sledding late at night Wednesday 2 February in Diablerets, canton Vaud, cantonal police have confirmed.
He is the fourth sledding fatality of the year in Switzerland and the second in canton Vaud.
A group of some 50 co-workers were at a restaurant above the slopes and left around 22:00 to sled 7 km down, with forehead lamps to light the way. The man left the Route du Col de la Croix, closed to traffic and used for sledding, and headed off down the Vioz ski trail for unknown reasons.
The group discovered when it arrived at the bottom that he was not with them.
Swisster will stop publishing 23 December 2010
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swisster, the English-language online news service set up in 2008 by Edipresse, the largest media publisher in French-speaking Switzerland, is shutting down after two-and-a-half years, effective Thursday 23 December.
Swisster was launched in March 2008 during the boom phase of Internet media, but shortly before the financial crisis hit the industry. In a statement published 22 December in Cominmag, a publication for the communications industries in the region, Edipresse noted that the site was not able to “take advantage of synergies to develop optimally and thus reach a point of critical mass” during a difficult economic period and in an extremely competitive niche market, despite having doubled its readership between January 2009 and December 2010.
The statement by Edipresse makes no mention of its own imminent takeover by Tamedia, a process that will be completed in January 2011. Tamedia is one of the country’s largest publishers.
Swisster joined what was a growing number of English language media in 2008, with at least seven newspapers, magazines and radio stations in the Lake Geneva region, including GenevaLunch, a volunteer daily news service set up in 2006. GenevaLunch wrote at the time, of Swisster, that “the real “newness” lies mainly in the business model, with Edipresse selling bulk subscriptions [for CHF300] to multinationals and EPFL.
This content will be largely unavailable to the public.” In early 2009 the editorial staff at the online paper changed, with Marcus Berry, who had earlier managed World Radio Geneva before it became World Radio Switzerland, taking over as chief editor and product manager, working under the name Mark Oliver.
The 22 December edition of Swisster makes no mention on the home page of its closure, but editorial staff Wednesday sent out a message of thanks, “to express our warm appreciation to all our readers, partners and sponsors for their wonderful support over the past three years”.
The 11,000 articles published by Swisster in its nearly three years will remain available online, as part of the Tribune de Geneve’s and 24 Heure’s archives.
Christmas holiday traffic is upon us! Weather forecast, resort updates, traffic planning alerts
Skier Lara Gut signs with new sports agency
Photos by Keepps on flickr, Nyon 17 December 2010 set
Nyon, early Friday morning 17 December (photo, Keepps on flickr)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – School ends for the Christmas break in neighbouring France Friday 17 December and in some German states, while Vaud and Geneva finish at the end of the school day Thursday 23 December (complete list of Swiss school vacation dates) – note corrected dates. The mountains have snow; the snow cover is not deep, but more is promised. Expect traffic on the roads! The women’s World Cup ski season will see some chilly racing this weekend in neighbouring France’s Val d’Isère resort, with temperatures at -10C Friday morning and -14 at nearby Tignes. The snow is in good condition, with 103cm at the top and 40 at 1,850 metres.
Swiss skier Lara Gut announced Friday noon that she has signed a contract with a new Swiss agency, Pool Position, to help develop her reputation nationally and internationally. “This close collaboration, coordinated by my private team, will ensure how my reputation is built, both as an athlete and a private individual.”
Pool Position is a recently developped partnership, based in Zurich, between Ringier, Switzerland’s largest media company, and the German firm Kick-Media AG. The company advises clients in several fields: film, TV, theatre, fashion, music, sports and show business.
Gut was suspended for two races at the end of December for repeatedly ignoring warnings about wearing team clothing and for publicly criticizing the Swiss women’s team coach. She performed well during pre-race runs Thursday, coming in 8th overall and first for the Swiss. She is making her comeback this season after a hip injury followed by surgery last season. Val d’Isère is where Gut charmed the sports world in February, winning two World Cup silver medals at only age 17.
Weather forecast
Snow that began falling 16 December is expected to end by noon Friday in most areas, continuing a bit longer in the Jura and Swiss Alps. Saturday: changeable weather, but cold, ranging from -8C to a high of -1C on the plain and -16C to -7C in mountain resorts. Sunday: warmer, highs around 0C, with snow starting again, but the snowline gradually rising to 500-800 metres. GenevaLunch weather page
Winter resort news
City’s 31 cm most snow in 30 years, followed by frosty temperatures
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva’s Cointrin International Airport re-opened Thursday morning 2 December at 06:00 and by 08:00 flights were mostly back to normal. Airport officials warn passengers to arrive two hours early, nevertheless, and suggest taking public transport rather than driving.
The city is still digging itself out, as is most of the region on the west and north sides of Lake Geneva, after heavy snow Tuesday night and Wednesday 1 December. Geneva had 31 cm of snow, the most it has seen since 1979, when 23 cm fell 4 January. The record snowfall for one day for the city was in 1895, 25 February, when 58 cm of snow landed on the city.
Temperatures fell to nearly -6C in Geneva in the early hours of Thursday.
Few ventured out early Wednesday morning (Saint Prex, canton Vaud)
An aptly named street Wednesday morning
Update 09:30 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The overnight snowfall throughout the Lake Geneva region is causing major traffic disruptions Wednesday 1 December. Cointrin Airport in Geneva is closed until at least 14:00 and travellers are being advised to check with their airlines.
The TPG in Geneva decided early in the morning not to run any of its buses and trams until further notice. The Tribune de Geneve is providing regular updates on the city’s public transport situation, as is RSR, which says some trams are running in the city, at 08:00.
Geneva, with 20 cm of fresh snow overnight, and more falling, has been the hardest hit area, according to MeteoSwiss reports.
Roads are considered moderately dangerous, with icy conditions, from Geneva to Lausanne and up the hillsides to the Jura. Road conditions in Valais are good, with less fresh snow than around the lake.
Everyone's new best friend, on a topsy-turvy snowy morning (Saint Prex, canton Vaud)
Lausanne’s public transport is running, with relatively minor delays, after 10 cm of snow fell overnight.
The CFF Swiss train system is operating, but with some delays: details for delayed trains and a map are updated frequently. Passengers were stranded Tuesday evening along the Lausanne-Geneva line when the Intercity train had a technical problem from about 18:00-20:00, but the problem was not weather-related.
The Swiss highway department’s truck info road updates and TCS (Touring Club Suisse) provide details of congestion and closed roads, with traffic in the Lausanne-Geneva area slow Wednesday morning, but with fewer people than usual on the road before 08:00, reports one commuter.
Schools are open in Geneva and neighbouring France, but with limited public transport, some children will not be making it to school.
Lake Geneva area and plains expected to get 10cm fresh snow Wednesday
Cosmos prediction, snow during 24 hours starting Wednesday 1 December, Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The cold air dominating regional weather Tuesday 30 November is setting the stage for what is heavy snow by Lake Geneva region standards, with the forecast calling for 10-20 cm of fresh snow Wednesday.
Lausanne and Bernese Alps, seen from Lavigny, canton Vaud, 29 November 2010
MeteoSwiss‘s warning bulletin says snow will start Tuesday during the night and will fall throughout the day Wednesday.
Highs of -1C are expected in most of western Switzerland.
Click on images to view larger
Snowman Monday in Etoy, canton Vaud, Switzerland: he'll soon get a new white cape, warmer and thicker
Lussy-sur-Morges, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The clocks adjusted to a new time, the temperature began to drop, then changed its mind. The wind started to blow from somewhere north of Lausanne, then forgot to continue. The sun and heavy black clouds held a debate. This is the russet-toned season in the Lake Geneva area, a prolonged mild autumn after the grapes are harvested and before nearby ski slopes beckon. If you spent the day in the office you missed the magic.
click on images to view larger
Lussy, canton Vaud, Switzerland
Villars-s-yens, canton Vaud, Switzerland
View of Lake Geneva, distant jet d'eau, from Signal de Bougy 20 October 2010
Wineries, autumn colours, Leman Expat Fair, marathon are Lausanne area highlights
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – October 2010 has given us chilly hands, so this weekend put on your gloves, don’t forget your umbrella and head outdoors to see the wonderful autumn colour displays.
Expect temperatures up to 13C Friday with sunshine, slightly cooler Saturday with some rain and a high of 9C Sunday, with sun and showers at the eastern end of the lake. In canton Valais, expect temperatures ranging from freezing to 17C during the day at the start of the weekend.
The unstable weather is great for photography, so put your camera in your pocket. If you want to see where it’s been raining in the past half hour, Meteoswiss has a map that shows you.
Sugar-beet harvest in Pizy, canton Vaud, next to Signal de Bougy, with Lausanne in distance
Parents or anyone with visiting relatives should consider a walk, playground time and lunch at Signal de Bougy (7/7 from 09:00-22:00) near Rolle/Aubonne, where summer crowds are gone, but the view of Lake Geneva is arguably one of the most beautiful in the region. It’s a 20-minute drive from the centre of Lausanne, 35-40 from Geneva: autoroute exit Aubonne, next to Ikea.
The restaurant, bakery and shop close after Sunday 7 November, until February 2011. The park, owned and run by Migros, offers families 31 October Halloween festivities and costume parade for children, which are free.
Building permit applications are down in Zurich and Geneva, pushing housing prices yet higher
Houses, apartments for sale in Lausanne and Geneva: Q3 median prices published
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Housing prices in some parts of the Lake Geneva area are described as “vertiginous” in the latest edition of Immo-Monitoring, published twice a year by Wuest & Partner. Switzerland’s housing market overall is stable, but prices have risen so rapidly in some 60 communes, according to the latest report, that there is a risk of a real estate bubble bursting: house and apartment prices have doubled in the past 10 years to CHF10,000/m2 in many cases.
Rent prices are generally stable in the region, but will continue to rise.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - ‘Tis the season for electricity companies to tell us what we should budget for electricity for the next year, and the answer throughout Switzerland is: the price is rising.
ElCom, the Swiss Federal Electricity Commission, announced 7 September that on average Swiss households (family in a 5-room apartment, annual consumption 4,500 kWh) will pay 2o.2 kWh (kilowatt hours), a 2 percent increase, while small companies can expect a 3-4 percent increase for an average price of 19.7 kWh. French-speaking Switzerland generally has higher electricity costs than northern Switzerland.
Seventy-five percent of electricity companies have raised their prices, 20 percent have reduced them slightly and for 5 percent, there is no change.
The country’s 450 electricity suppliers had until the end of August to announce their 2011 rates to the government. The main reason for the increase is a 5-8 percent rise in the cost of raw electricity, says ElCom.
Swissgrid, the association of electricity suppliers, in May 2010 announced a price increase of 8 percent across the board, but the federal electricity commission intervened to temporarily freeze the prices of suppliers for 2011, saying they appeared to be unjustified. Swissgrid said at the time that “the main reason for the rate increase is that a considerably larger proportion of auction revenues for the long-term reliability of supply are to be used for essential investments in the transmission system than in the prior year – and less will be used for a short-term reduction in tariffs.” Swissgrid was created in 2007 to liberalize the Swiss electricity market.
Check out your rate increase and the explanation for it, compare with 2010 rates
ElCom in 2009 set up an online consultation site that lets consumers check prices in their communes for a variety of types of homes and businesses, compare these to villages and towns throughout Switzerland and see the breakdown of costs for the rates for each town.
Travel bargains, solar panels, antimatter detectors, flying boats and an all-new old solar system!
Hydroptere.ch unveiled near Lausanne: prototype for world's fastest sailboat (photo ©2010 Gilles Martin-Raget)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Lake Geneva region has been showing its mettle in science and high tech areas this week. The world’s fastest sailboat project unveiled its new prototype, an entrepreneur has won a major award for his travel bargain’s online database, the region’s largest solar panels park has begun soaking up the sun and an unusual new solar system has been found by a team led by Geneva scientists. And Cern packed off a hulking antimatter detector to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will join the final shuttle in the US space programme.
World’s fastest sailboat, Hydroptere, unveils new prototype, soon sailing on Lake Geneva
Alain Thebault, Hydroptere founder, pilot (photo ©2010 Gilles Martin-Raget)
Hydroptere.ch was unveiled 23 August in Ecublens. The sailboat is a water-borne lab that will soon be put into Lake Geneva. It is a prototype for Hydroptère maxi “whose purpose is to beat the most famous oceanic records and to follow Jules Verne’s vision: Flying around the planet”, says Alain Thébault, founder and project pilot. The project is working closely with EPFL, the polytechnic institute in Lausanne.
Hydroptère made sailing milestones in 2009 when the 60-foot trimaran became the fastest sailing craft in the world, beating two absolute sailing speed records: 51.36 knots (95 km/h) over 500 metres and 50.17 knots (93 km/h) over one nautical mile.
Thébault told a press conference early in the week that “The objective of this hybrid sailing boat is versatility. Sailing nearly as fast as Archimedean traditional boats and achieving higher speeds in flight. First on Lake Geneva, then in the Mediterranean and abroad, l’Hydroptère.ch should give answers to precise questions related to flight dynamics and she will be an ambassador of the cross-frontier collaboration.”
Unusual new solar system found sparks “a new era in exoplanet research”
The planetary system around the Sun-like star HD 10180 (artist’s impression)
An international research team led by astronomers at the University of Geneva Observatory in Versoix announced Tuesday 24 August they they have uncovered a new solar system with several intriguing features. It has the smallest exoplanet (a planet that orbits a star other than the Earth’s sun) found to date and it has a configuration of planets never seen before, with five Neptune-like planets.
RSR public radio and Couleur 3 provide podcasts and downloads of several of the concerts
Crosby Stills & Nash were among the big hits at Paleo (photo: © 2010 Paléo / Boris Soula)
Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – And the bands played on! The Paleo Festival closed Sunday, yet again, on a happy note for its organizers, a sold-out event, no major crises, and generally happy concert-goers. The only damp notes were problems with parking lot closures when heavy rains fell at the end of last week, just as the five-day event reached its peak, but given the encouragement the green festival gives to using trains and buses to reach it, this might have a positive result, prompting more people to reconsider driving in 2011.
Many of the concerts are available online from RSR and Couleur 3, depending on rights negotiations with the performing artists.
Big hits for 2010 were old favourites, starting with Crosby Stills & Nash, Johnny Clegg and Iggy Pop, but the Tribune de Geneve argues that hip-hop was the real star this year, performing in every corner of the festival.
The mix of music pulled in 230,000 fans, according to Paleo.
Paleo in 2011: mark your calendars now, 19-24 July.
Click on images to view larger: split-second series showing gusting winds in Saint Prex, canton Vaud, Thursday evening, in less than one minute
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – After central Switzerland, the weather demons turned on western Switzerland’s Jura mountain range and La Côte, with windy storms late Monday afternoon 12 July. Winds gusted to well over 100 kph in several areas, according to MeteoSwiss, the national weather service.
Vaud police say they received 122 emergency calls between 17:00 and 19:00. Several people in pedalos near Ouchy/Lausanne and amateur sailors were rescued by lake emergency teams and staff from the Compagnie générale de navigation (CGN) when winds on the lake suddenly whipped up to 90 kph. Shortly after, emergency teams rescued others on Lake Neuchatel. Several pleasure craft on Lake Geneva were tossed from their moorings and police evacuated the VD 8 campground at Cheseaux-Noréaz after trees fell on some of the caravans and some 100 campers’ tents were threatened by other trees.
Campers at the Morges TCS campground on the shore of Lake Geneva held onto their wildly flapping tents. British campers Pat Stevens and her husband Bob said they repegged their tent when they saw red dust from the nearby tennis courts rising in one-storey high clouds.
The CFF trains were badly disrupted by a tree blowing over on the rail line at Rolle: between Gland and Allaman, on the heavily travelled Lausanne-Geneva tracks, rail service was halted from 17:55 to 18:55. Intercity and Inter-regio trains from Lucerne remained out of service for longer, with traffic limited to one track while the tree was removed and repairs were made.
Hot days with evening storms are expected to continue for the next week, a boon for swimming pools in the region, which suffered from under-attendance during the first cold month of the season, but which are now packing the crowds like sardines during the day.
The storms also swept other parts of Switzerland. News service ats reports that 24 people were rescued by boat and helicopter from the banks of the Kloentalersee when their cars were trapped between two mud and rock slides during a violent storm that began abruptly and caught them by surprise. Two passes, the Albula and Susten, were closed until Tuesday to clear up rock slides set off by heavy mountain storms.
Links to other sites: 20 Minutes, GenevaLunch weather forecasts from the national weather service
Heavy rain falling on fields in Valais, taken through open window Sunday evening
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Château d’Oex, canton Vaud, was one of the worst hit areas Sunday evening 11 July, when thunderstorms broke out in the Bernese Oberland and other parts of Switzerland. High temperatures in recent days have resulted in early evening thundershowers, often with high winds that have caught sailors by surprise and interrupted train service in parts of German-speaking Switzerland. In Château d’Oex the Eau Froide river filled rapidly and spilled over its banks, causing a rockslide that carried away a car, with no one in it. The national weather service clocked 3,900 lightning bolts in Lucerne and 900 in Zurich. On Lake Zurich winds reached 155 kph.
Meteo Swiss offers a page of explanations and advice on how to behave in thunderstorms, in French but with easy-to-follow sketches of right and wrong behaviour.
More high temperatures, in the low- and mid-30s, with late afternoon thunderstorms are expected.
Note: GenevaLunch offers five-day forecasts provided by Meteo Swiss.
Links to other sites: Meteo Swiss, TSR
Geneva cools off at the beach (photo, ©2010, Peter Brodbeck)
Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – There’s no excuse for being bored or lonely this weekend, with the weather hot and sunny and crowds hitting the lakes and swimming pools, as well as concert halls and outdoor arenas.
Two of the biggest and best music events in Switzerland are taking place: the Montreux Jazz Festival (ticket information) in canton Vaud and Zurich’s Zuerifaescht 2010. See our Geneva Living guide to surviving Montreux for all the practical tips, plus a host of freebies, and if you’re heading for Zurich, seriously consider taking the train because parking will be at a premium in the packed-out city.
Weather forecast: hot hot hot and more sunshine – be sure to check the national weather service forecasts on the GenevaLunch weather page, and pack some sun lotion and water bottles into your bags. Highs between 31 and 33 throughout Switzerland, for the next five days.
Swimming: the swimming pools by the lakeside are one of Lake Geneva’s best vacation features, and there are plenty of beaches around the lake, so check out our list and head for the water to cool off.
Wind-surfing on Lake Geneva, Lausanne in the distance: hard work this week
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The weather is warming up, but beware the wind, still blowing hard around the region. Three days into summer, officially, it finally looks like temperatures will actually rise to something closer to the season’s norms, in the high 20s all weekend, with sunny skies.
The first day of summer, 21 June, saw snow closing several mountain passes and leaving sheep, who normally are sheared by that day, wearing their warm coats just a bit longer, in many areas.
Click on image to view larger
Be sure to check the weather on GenevaLunch before you leave home this weekend.
Jet d'eau in Geneva, viewed from Genthod, rain falling
With the American International Club of Geneva, for member’s only and friends, a patriotic and fun-filled 4th of July celebration for the family – children’s activities, inflatable games, live music, prizes and much more. Free of charge; contact the club, admin@amclub.ch.
Location: Hotel Intercontinental, Geneva
Link out: http://www.amclub.ch/index.php
Date: 4 Jul 2010
