New Year lakeside vigil

Last night, I left Church House at ten minutes to midnight and walked along the lack promenade as far as the Market Square. The skies were clear and there was an unusually mild breeze, making it a very pleasant night time stroll. The first kilometre was almost deserted. It was only when I reached the Casino that a handful of New Year revellers were sitting out on the lakeside wall, drinking beer or bubbly, phoning home or taking selfies with their mates. Most of the socialising was taking place in hotel ball rooms, clubs and the Casino, or else in apartments, on balconies overlooking the lake.

At midnight, people high up shouted "Bonne Année" to people walking below. Few walkers greeted greeted anyone outside their circle of friends. Best of all, church bells rang out for a quarter of an hour. In some communes with older traditions they also ring daily, morning and evening, thanks to a timer and ringing mechanism which makes this automatic. But at midnight, the custodian or the pastor would need to be there and use the manual override switch. No change ringing teams here!

There was no a public countdown with musical animation and no municipal fireworks in the Market Square. It's not surprising, given that the entire area is still occupied by empty wooden chalets and stalls of the Christmas Market, waiting to be dismantled and removed. Many districts around the lake, from Vevey to Villenueve as well as the French side at St Gingolph had displays of their own.

Looking across at the French Alps, I couldn't help wondering what it would have been like to stand here at night in the year before I was born, to look across the lake, with the explosions and fires of battle coming across from the other side as Haute Savoie was being liberated by Savoyard partisans with Allied support. There'll be life long Montreux dwellers some years older than I who remember those times, and the impact it made on the whole lakeside region.

The noise and distant sparkle of fireworks, went on for more than half an hour, and night-time quiet returned by the time I reached Territet. I was so glad to have made the effort to go out and see in the New Year, far from home, and ate a dozen grapes, Spanish style at New Year, before going to bed.