Burgundy comes to Sierre's sunny Vinea: Colline de Cortons wines were guests
Sierre, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – For the 16th year in a row, Vinea, the main wine fair for Swiss wines, managed to order sunshine for its two days of wine-tasting. This is the first year that the fair, organized originally by Valais winemakers to promote their own wines, has been opened to bottles from throughout Switzerland. Some 1,200 wines were on offer, and more than 10,000 people from around the country showed up to sample them.
Switzerland produces 1.12 million hectolitres of wine, a little over half of which is red wine, and Swiss consumers drink 37 litres per inhabitant a year.
The foreign wine guest of honour was the Colline de Cortons region in Burgundy, France, which brought 2006 bottles from several of its producers, providing a good basis for comparison within the region.
St Prex clock tower, covered street, during St Prex Festival 2009
Stars Le Riche, Osta, spinning magic in St Prex
St Prex, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The main street of the medieval village of St Prex was graced Tuesday night 25 August with star dancers from the Paris Opera Nicolas Le Riche and his wife Clairemarie Osta in Prokoviev’s “Romeo & Juliet” as part of the St Prex Festival.
For the second night running the storms that have dumped heavy rain on the region held off long enough for the performers to enchant the crowd. The festival is an open-air one, but an awning covers the main street, where the audience is seated.
Weather forecast: more rain Thursday, but weather is expected to turn sunny and warm again Friday
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lakefront, Saint Prex, August 2009
Saint Prex, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Prepare for a weekend of 18-25C temperatures and sunshine alternating with some cloud cover – a change from this week’s sweltering heat, with Geneva recording its hottest day of the year, over 36C, Thursday 20 August. But before the great Saturday and Sunday weather, prepare for late Friday highs closer to 30C and local thunderstorms with wind whipping up in some areas. MeteoSwiss map and forecast
Weekend entertainment highlights: St Prex Festival starts, wine & chocolate for the family in Romainmotier and music at dawn in Geneva
This is the final week-end before Vaud students return to school and among the week-end entertainment offers featured on the GenevaLunch events page is the Saint Prex Festival which takes place in arguably one of the prettiest villages along the lake (also the home of GenevaLunch). The festival opens Friday evening 21 August and runs to 29 August.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two fires in Lausanne Monday 17 August caused considerable damage but no victims. One started in the upper floors of a building on Avenue du Cour around 16:00, and required the assistance of 10 fire trucks and the police. The second blaze started in the top floor of a building on rue du Simplon, not far from the first fire. The fire department had both under control quickly.
Related: 20Minutes
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Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The unemployment rate in the city of Lausanne touched 7.5 percent at the end of July, according to official city figures. Several other towns, such as Yverdon-les-Bains and Vevey in canton Vaud have similarly high unemployment rates.
Yverdon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The driver of a Suzuki Duro quad was hit by a military truck at a roundabout on the Mathod to Montagny road, near Yverdon early 11 August. The quad driver was taken to the Chuv university hospital in Lausanne where he was reported to be out of danger. Two people died in quad accidents in Vaud in 2008. Quads are street legal, but built for off-road use. In Switzerland there are very few places where quad owners can legally ride off-road.
Related: 24 Heures
Vevey and Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Food and drink giant Nestlé 12 August announced results down 1.5 percent in the first half of 2009 to CHF 52.3 billion in group sales worldwide, compared to the first-half 2008. The Vevey-based company reported that organic growth was up 3.5 percent in the period, with a positive real internal growth rate of just 0.5 percent. Citing a “challenging business environment” worldwide, including a strong Swiss franc, the company nevertheless said it had significantly improved cash flow and reduced debts, improving over-all capital efficiency.
Swisscom announced a drop in revenue of 1.2 percent to CHF 5.9 billion in the first half of 2009, 12 August.
Alinghi 5 flies away, Photo ©Carlo Borlenghi's/Alinghi
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The giant catamaran Alinghi 5 took to the skies and bid farewell to Lake Geneva. A Russian military helicopter Mi26 took the catamaran towards Genoa, Italy where it will continue its training towards the America’s Cup.
Alinghi “flew” along the Rhone River before gaining altitude at the Great Saint Bernard Pass in the border with Italy. The helicopter and sailboat landed safely in Genoa at 14:30.
Crowd at the Malley sports centre in Lausanne waits for the Dalai Lama to begin Wednesday conference
Dalai Lama, listening to Tibetan music group in Lausanne
Update 14:20 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Sellout crowds of 12,000 for two days of conferences offered by the Dalai Lama, in Lausanne and briefly in Geneva 5-6 August, heard the Tibetan spiritual leader talk about “Understanding our minds and the causes of happiness” but he reserved for the media, whom he met with at length, his appeals to have more light shed on the violence in Tibet in March 2008.
Image: © 2009 Fina championships, Rome
Lausanne, Switzerland and Rome, Italy (GenevaLunch) – Swimming records continue to tumble at the Fina World Championships in Rome but the main issue has been “When is a swimsuit “performance enhancing?” Professor Jan-Anders Manson at EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Tecnnology) in Lausanne is leading a group of scientists to provide guidelines on acceptable materials. His group will ultimately decide what is a “textile” and what is not for new rules that ban non-textile swimwear, which go into effect in 2010. The Rome championships are the last major competition where polyurethane swimming suits are allowed, following a decision 28 July by the Fina (International Swimming Federation) to accept recommendations four days earlier by its Congress to change the rules at the start of 2010.
Olympic superstar Michael Phelps has threatened to stop racing until the ban on polyurethane suits is introduced, after seeing Paul Biedermann, an unknown German, beat him into second place and smash his 200-metre freestyle record by almost a second.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – All is ready for the Swiss leg of the Beach Volleyball World Championship in Vevey. The Market Plaza in Vevey, Vaud will be transformed into a beach town from 12-16 August.
A GenevaLunch feature on the new sailing marvel, Alinghi 5: the boat, the technology, the view for Lake Geneva area viewers
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Alinghi 5, 90-foot catamaran - photo, E Wallace
Alinghi 5 sailing first time, 20 July 2009 - photo, © Carlo Borlenghi/Alinghi
Le Bouveret, Valais, and Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - There are sailboats, and then there is Alinghi 5: at 90 feet (27 metres) far larger than anything else on Lake Geneva, technologically astonishing and a delight to the eyes, but also exciting in terms of the sailing challenges it presents. The catamaran, built at great expense and specially for the next America’s Cup race in 2010, was presented to a mostly-charmed group of international journalists Thursday 23 July, but the weather was not cooperative. “We took it out into the harbour Wednesday and hit 31-knot winds,” said Alinghi’s president, Ernesto Bertarelli. It was forced back to shore, where the Alinghi team then kept busy with shoreline duties for the next two days. “Lake Geneva is a challenging place to sail. Yesterday was a real test for us,” he said of the failed outing.
Alinghi 5, a giant among sailboats at Le Bouveret, Lake Geneva - photo, E Wallace
A heavy mix of high winds, hail, thunder and lightning made it impossible to hoist sails, but the weekend weather was decent Saturday and is predicted to be beautiful Sunday 26 July: sunshine and good breezes on Lake Geneva. (Ed. note: Twitterati can follow Alinghi on the water via Twitter at alinghiteam)
Lake Geneva area: Alinghi 5 now on the lake
For the next two weeks people who live along Lake Geneva or who are visiting the area will see the new America’s Cup Swiss boat as it runs tests and the team gets used to handling it, working first from the base in Le Bouveret, at the Valais/Vaud end of the lake, then from Geneva.
The Alinghi team will sail the length of the lake, from Lausanne near Le Bouveret to Geneva and its home port at the Société de Nautique de Genève for the first of August Swiss national holiday.
Bertarelli and his team are inviting all interested sailors in the region to accompany them in a public flotilla of pleasure boats, which should create a spectacular sight (cameras ready!).
Paleo crowd, 2009
What it is: The largest outdoor music festival in Switzerland, started in 1976, with over 4.3 million concert-goers since then. In 2008, the audience was 227,000 strong, and there were 146 performances on six stages.
Volunteers, all 4,062 of them, helped to make the experience a great one for all. According to a survey in 2008, 59 percent of concert-goers came from the Lake Geneva region.
