Vevey is a town in
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
in the canton
VaudVaud is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and is located in Romandy, the southwestern part of the country. The capital is Lausanne. The name of the Canton in Switzerland's other languages are Vaud in Italian , Waadt in German and Vad in Romansh.-History:Along the lakes, Vaud was inhabited in...
, on the north shore of
Lake GenevaLake Geneva or Lake Léman is the largest natural freshwater lake in western Europe . In addition it is the largest body of freshwater in continental Europe in term of volume . 60% of it comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland , and 40% under France...
., not far from
LausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva , and facing Évian-les-Bains and with the Jura mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located some northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud and of the district of...
. It was historically known as
Viviscus or
Vibiscum. It was mentioned for the first time by the ancient Greek astronomer and philosopher
PtolemyClaudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Greek ancestry. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and a poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under the Roman Empire, and is believed to have been born in the town of...
, who gave it the name
Ouikos.
It is the seat of the
district of the same nameVevey is a district in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. The seat of the district is the city of Vevey.The following municipalities are located in the district:* Blonay* Chardonne* Corseaux* Corsier-sur-Vevey* Jongny* La Tour-de-Peilz* Montreux...
. It is part of the French-speaking area of Switzerland.
It is bordered on the west by the River Veveyse and to the east by the River Oyonnaz.
Vevey is the site of the world headquarters (but not fiscal HQ) of the food giant
NestléNestlé S.A. is a multinational packaged food company founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, and listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange with a turnover of over 87 billion Swiss francs...
, founded here in 1867.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau was a major philosopher, writer, and composer of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, whose political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political and educational thought.His novel, Emile: or, On Education, which he considered his most...
, Swiss writer and philosopher
- Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes....
, Austrian painter
- Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian novelist, humorist, and dramatist. His early works, such as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, were heavily influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing and identity....
, Russian novelist
- Bruno Hoffmann
Bruno Hoffmann was a German player of the glass harp. Hoffmann is widely acknowledged as the virtuoso who reanimated contemporary interest in the glass harp and glass harmonica...
, German glass harp player
- Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, French poet and writer
- Percy Scholes
Percy Alfred Scholes was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music. His 1948 biography The Great Dr Burney was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.He was born in Leeds in 1877...
, English musician and writer
- Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, British writer (Corsier-sur-VeveyCorsier-sur-Vevey is a municipality in the district of Vevey in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It hosts the headquarters of the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles, the international governing body for amateur wrestling....
)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer, essayist and philosopher, known for...
, Russian novelist
- Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, his style went out of fashion, and many of his operas fell into almost...
, French composer
- Paul Juon
Paul Juon was a Germanised Russian composerHe was born in Moscow, where his father was an insurance official. His mother was German, and he went to a German school in Moscow. He entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1889, where he studied violin with Jan Hřímalý and composition with Anton Arensky...
, Germanised Russian composer
- Edouard Jeanneret Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and also painter, who is famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called Modern architecture or the International Style...
, Swiss architect
- Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, KBE was an English comedic actor and film director. Chaplin became one of the most famous actors as well as a notable filmmaker, composer and musician in the early to mid Classical Hollywood era of American cinema.Chaplin acted in, directed, scripted, produced and...
, British director and actor (Corsier-sur-VeveyCorsier-sur-Vevey is a municipality in the district of Vevey in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It hosts the headquarters of the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles, the international governing body for amateur wrestling....
)
- James Mason
James Neville Mason was a British actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Throughout his career, Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry and he is now regarded as one of the finest film actors of the 20th century...
, actor, (Corsier-sur-VeveyCorsier-sur-Vevey is a municipality in the district of Vevey in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It hosts the headquarters of the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles, the international governing body for amateur wrestling....
)
- Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist...
, Polish writer
- Henri Nestlé
Henri Nestlé, born Heinrich Nestle , was the founder of Nestlé S.A., the world's largest food and beverage company, as well as one of the main creators of milk chocolate.-Birth:...
, founder of Nestlé
- Edmund Ludlow
Edmund Ludlow was an English parliamentarian, best known for his involvement in the execution of Charles I, and for his Memoirs, which were published posthumously in a rewritten form and which have become a major source for historians of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. After service in the English...
, general and politician in Oliver Cromwell's government and enemy of King Charles I
- Thabo Sefolosha
Thabo Patrick Sefolosha is a Swiss professional basketball player. He is a currently at shooting guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA. Sefolosha has lived in five countries and speaks three languages...
, basketball player for the Oklahoma City ThunderThe Oklahoma City Thunder are a professional basketball franchise based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association with their home arena at Oklahoma City's Ford Center....
- Peter Cowie
Peter Cowie is a film historian and author of more than thirty books on film. In 1963 he was the founder/publisher and general editor of the annual International Film Guide, a survey of worldwide film production. Educated at Charterhouse School, and an Exhibitioner in History at Magdalene...
, film historian
- Claude Nicollier
Claude Nicollier is the first astronaut from Switzerland and has flown on several Space Shuttle missions...
, first Swiss astronautAn astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
- Henry Philip Tappan
Henry Philip Tappan was an American philosopher, educator and academic administrator...
, first PresidentThe President of the University of Michigan is the principal executive officer of the University of Michigan. The office was created by the Michigan Constitution of 1850, which also specified that the president was to be appointed by the Regents of the University of Michigan and preside at their...
of the University of MichiganThe University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world...
- Olga Baclanova
Olga Vladimirovna Baclanova, or Baklanova, was a Russian-born actress, who achieved notability during the silent film era....
, Russian-born actress.
- Clara Haskil
Clara Haskil was a Jewish Romanian classical pianist, renowned as an interpreter of the classical and early romantic repertoire....
, Swiss Romanian classical pianist
The Confrérie des Vignerons (Brotherhood of Winegrowers) organises the Winegrowers' Festival (
Fête des Vignerons) four or five times each century (one per generation) to celebrate its wine-growing traditions and culture.
Vevey is a town in
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
in the canton
VaudVaud is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and is located in Romandy, the southwestern part of the country. The capital is Lausanne. The name of the Canton in Switzerland's other languages are Vaud in Italian , Waadt in German and Vad in Romansh.-History:Along the lakes, Vaud was inhabited in...
, on the north shore of
Lake GenevaLake Geneva or Lake Léman is the largest natural freshwater lake in western Europe . In addition it is the largest body of freshwater in continental Europe in term of volume . 60% of it comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland , and 40% under France...
., not far from
LausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva , and facing Évian-les-Bains and with the Jura mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located some northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud and of the district of...
. It was historically known as
Viviscus or
Vibiscum. It was mentioned for the first time by the ancient Greek astronomer and philosopher
PtolemyClaudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Greek ancestry. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and a poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under the Roman Empire, and is believed to have been born in the town of...
, who gave it the name
Ouikos.
It is the seat of the
district of the same nameVevey is a district in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. The seat of the district is the city of Vevey.The following municipalities are located in the district:* Blonay* Chardonne* Corseaux* Corsier-sur-Vevey* Jongny* La Tour-de-Peilz* Montreux...
. It is part of the French-speaking area of Switzerland.
It is bordered on the west by the River Veveyse and to the east by the River Oyonnaz.
Vevey is the site of the world headquarters (but not fiscal HQ) of the food giant
NestléNestlé S.A. is a multinational packaged food company founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, and listed on the SWX Swiss Exchange with a turnover of over 87 billion Swiss francs...
, founded here in 1867.
Notable residents past and present
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean Jacques Rousseau was a major philosopher, writer, and composer of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, whose political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political and educational thought.His novel, Emile: or, On Education, which he considered his most...
, Swiss writer and philosopher
- Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes....
, Austrian painter
- Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian novelist, humorist, and dramatist. His early works, such as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, were heavily influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing and identity....
, Russian novelist
- Bruno Hoffmann
Bruno Hoffmann was a German player of the glass harp. Hoffmann is widely acknowledged as the virtuoso who reanimated contemporary interest in the glass harp and glass harmonica...
, German glass harp player
- Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, French poet and writer
- Percy Scholes
Percy Alfred Scholes was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music. His 1948 biography The Great Dr Burney was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.He was born in Leeds in 1877...
, English musician and writer
- Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, British writer (Corsier-sur-VeveyCorsier-sur-Vevey is a municipality in the district of Vevey in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It hosts the headquarters of the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles, the international governing body for amateur wrestling....
)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer, essayist and philosopher, known for...
, Russian novelist
- Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, his style went out of fashion, and many of his operas fell into almost...
, French composer
- Paul Juon
Paul Juon was a Germanised Russian composerHe was born in Moscow, where his father was an insurance official. His mother was German, and he went to a German school in Moscow. He entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1889, where he studied violin with Jan Hřímalý and composition with Anton Arensky...
, Germanised Russian composer
- Edouard Jeanneret Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and also painter, who is famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called Modern architecture or the International Style...
, Swiss architect
- Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, KBE was an English comedic actor and film director. Chaplin became one of the most famous actors as well as a notable filmmaker, composer and musician in the early to mid Classical Hollywood era of American cinema.Chaplin acted in, directed, scripted, produced and...
, British director and actor (Corsier-sur-VeveyCorsier-sur-Vevey is a municipality in the district of Vevey in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It hosts the headquarters of the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles, the international governing body for amateur wrestling....
)
- James Mason
James Neville Mason was a British actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Throughout his career, Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry and he is now regarded as one of the finest film actors of the 20th century...
, actor, (Corsier-sur-VeveyCorsier-sur-Vevey is a municipality in the district of Vevey in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It hosts the headquarters of the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles, the international governing body for amateur wrestling....
)
- Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist...
, Polish writer
- Henri Nestlé
Henri Nestlé, born Heinrich Nestle , was the founder of Nestlé S.A., the world's largest food and beverage company, as well as one of the main creators of milk chocolate.-Birth:...
, founder of Nestlé
- Edmund Ludlow
Edmund Ludlow was an English parliamentarian, best known for his involvement in the execution of Charles I, and for his Memoirs, which were published posthumously in a rewritten form and which have become a major source for historians of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. After service in the English...
, general and politician in Oliver Cromwell's government and enemy of King Charles I
- Thabo Sefolosha
Thabo Patrick Sefolosha is a Swiss professional basketball player. He is a currently at shooting guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA. Sefolosha has lived in five countries and speaks three languages...
, basketball player for the Oklahoma City ThunderThe Oklahoma City Thunder are a professional basketball franchise based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association with their home arena at Oklahoma City's Ford Center....
- Peter Cowie
Peter Cowie is a film historian and author of more than thirty books on film. In 1963 he was the founder/publisher and general editor of the annual International Film Guide, a survey of worldwide film production. Educated at Charterhouse School, and an Exhibitioner in History at Magdalene...
, film historian
- Claude Nicollier
Claude Nicollier is the first astronaut from Switzerland and has flown on several Space Shuttle missions...
, first Swiss astronautAn astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
- Henry Philip Tappan
Henry Philip Tappan was an American philosopher, educator and academic administrator...
, first PresidentThe President of the University of Michigan is the principal executive officer of the University of Michigan. The office was created by the Michigan Constitution of 1850, which also specified that the president was to be appointed by the Regents of the University of Michigan and preside at their...
of the University of MichiganThe University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world...
- Olga Baclanova
Olga Vladimirovna Baclanova, or Baklanova, was a Russian-born actress, who achieved notability during the silent film era....
, Russian-born actress.
- Clara Haskil
Clara Haskil was a Jewish Romanian classical pianist, renowned as an interpreter of the classical and early romantic repertoire....
, Swiss Romanian classical pianist
Festivals
The Confrérie des Vignerons (Brotherhood of Winegrowers) organises the Winegrowers' Festival (
Fête des Vignerons) four or five times each century (one per generation) to celebrate its wine-growing traditions and culture. On those occasions an arena for 16,000 spectators is built in the marketplace — the Grande Place, which is the second-biggest marketplace in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
, after
LisbonLisbon is the capital and largest city of Portugal. It is also the seat of the district of Lisbon and the main city of the Lisbon region...
,
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
).
The festivals date from the 18th century; the last five were in 1905, 1927, 1955, 1977 and 1999.
The
Montreux Jazz FestivalThe Montreux Jazz Festival is the best-known music festival in Switzerland and one of the most prestigious in Europe; it is held annually in early July in Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva.- History :...
is held every July since 1967, in the neighboring town of
MontreuxMontreux is a municipality in the district of Vevey in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is located on Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps and has a population of 23,800.- History and geography :...
.
Landmarks
Grande Place
The Grande Place is dominated by a magnificent granary "La Grenette" built in 1803 in the Neo-Classical "rustic" style. Behind "La Grenette" can be seen the restaurant ("La Clef") in which Jean-Jacques Rousseau used to eat. The table at which he sat is still to be seen in the restaurant.
St Martin's Church, a few minutes' walk away from the Grande Place, contains the bodies of a number of those who condemned King Charles I of
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to death - especially that of Edmund Ludlow who escaped to Vevey after the death of
Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader best known for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland.He was one of the commanders of the New Model Army which defeated the royalists in...
.
The Alimentarium Museum, a modern museum opened in 1985 by the Nestlé foundation, and features a permanent exhibition of cooking, eating, purchasing food, digesting, and a history of Nestlé.
Market
The town is also known for its large market on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. The Vevey folk markets,known locally as the Marchés Folkloriques, normally has up to 2000 visitors each Saturday over a period of two months. (Second week of July to end August). Visitors can buy a wine-glass and drink to their heart's content while listening to brass bands, Swiss folk music, and watching traditional craftsmen at work.
These Folk Markets are organised by the Société de développement de Vevey. (www.sdvevey.ch)
Literary References
Vevey is one of two locations that comprise the setting of
Henry JamesHenry James, O.M. was an American author who expatriated to England, and who acquired British nationality near the end of his life. One of the key figures of 19th century literary realism, James was born in the United States, the son of theologian Henry James, Sr., and brother of the philosopher...
' novella
Daisy MillerDaisy Miller, an 1878 novella by Henry James, portrays the courtship of the beautiful American girl Daisy Miller by Winterbourne, a more sophisticated compatriot of hers...
.
External links