© Swiss National Museum
Throughout 2015, the Swiss National Museum is reappraising three dates in Swiss history in the light of recent research: 1315 at the Forum of Swiss History in Schwyz, 1515 at the National Museum in Zurich, and 1815 at Château de Prangins.
As part of this reappraisal, the Swiss National Museum – Château de Prangins is presenting a new temporary exhibition entitled “Switzerland reshaped. From Napoleon to the Congress of Vienna”. Running from 13 March to 13 September 2015, the exhibition is using innovative and original materials such as vox pops and specially recorded interviews with historians, to explore the creation of a new Switzerland at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). It also links to issues of contemporary relevance, such as the meaning of neutrality and independence for a Switzerland at the heart of Europe.
Would you like to relive great Olympic moments? Feel the pulse of the champions? Discover the creative flair of the host cities?
The world of the Games with its many facets is now open up to you at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. If you haven’t visited the museum since it was closed for renovations just over a year ago, then now is the time to see it. With a major new temporary exhibition opening on 19th February 2015, entitled The Olympic Games: Behind the Screen, visitors now have the unique opportunity to find out what goes on behind the scenes, when images from the Olympic Games are broadcast all around the world.
New temporary exhibition, The Olympic Games: Behind The Screen
19.02.2015 – 26.01.2016
Every edition of the Olympic Games has its innovations and unique aesthetic. The temporary exhibitions at the Museum are designed to show the Games in all their diversity – and the latest exhibition, The Olympic Games: Behind The Screen, is no exception.
If you are looking for an interesting activity to do with family and friends at the weekend, then a trip to La Maison du Gruyère may be just what you had in mind.
Every Sunday between the 21 December 2014 and 29 March 2015, this popular cheese-making dairy (fromagerie) in Pringy, famous for producing Gruyère AOP, will demonstrate how cheese can be made using a wood-burning fire located within one of its outbulidings, the Chalet de la Confrérie. The public will have a chance to see all steps in the production process, right from the moment milk is poured into a cauldron, through to its final transformation into cheese more than two hours later.
Taking place between 12h30 and 15h00, the free demonstration will also provide visitors, both young and old, with a wonderful opportunity to taste “le petit lait”, “le cailler”, and the delicious Gruyère AOP cheese in its most popular forms: doux, mi-salé and salé. In very cold weather conditions, the cheese-making process may not be able to take place, so you are advised to ring the dairy before leaving home to check.
There are many services in this region designed to help expats integrate within their local communities – indeed many of them are listed in our Know-it-all passport guidebook! Networking groups, for example, provide a wonderful opportunity for people to meet others and make the most of their time living in this region as expats.
One networking organization, which is benefiting from the global popularity of social media platforms is InterNations. Set up in 2007 with the sole aim of making life easier for expats, InterNations now claims to be the largest expat social media platform in the world. With 1.4 million users, InterNations communities can be found in 390 cities across more than 195 countries – with 9 cities in Switzerland, including Geneva (about 15,000 members) and Lausanne (about 5,600 members). France also has a number of communities of which the two closest are in Lyon and Grenoble.
The best way to capture what InterNations does for expats is to give a brief overview of the services it provides for its members:
Couldn’t get enough of the summer? How about extending the holiday feeling by organizing a party with friends, family or colleagues? For many, that's easier said than done! Where can you go to find a different, fun and memorable venue? How do you go about booking the most appropriate, reliable and mouthwatering caterer? How do you pep up the event with an original animation or special decoration ?
These, and many more overwhelming questions, were raised by two entrepreneurial friends, Valérie Overdick and Katja Dutruy, when tasked with organizing a birthday party last year. This revealing experience convinced them both of the need to create a website that facilitates the organization of small to medium events. Their challenge was to make organizing an event fun and easy. Persuaded that sharing experiences, addresses and tips would save time and lead to a successful party, they set about collating many addresses, which would offer party organizers a large variety of options for all budgets. A year later, www.partybooker.ch was launched!
