Montreux Christmas Marché

 

We met our friends at Freddie Mercury's statue in Montreux, Switzerland. People still leave flowers for him. 

The rain and snow earlier in the week had been replaced with cool, crisp, clear air. The lake and the mountains were their usual postcard beauty.

 

All up and down the lake were chalets, most decorated with boughs, ornaments and filled with everything imaginable. I'm not sure how many. I've heard 160.

Rick quickly located the chalet with Canadian poutine, something he had grown to love when he lived in Montreal, where the vendors came from. Next to impossible to find in Switzerland or Southern France.

There were all kinds of good things to eat from roasted chestnuts to Swiss specialties. Many were being prepared within the chalet.

I spied the place where a few years ago, I'd found a pretty red bowl. The potter was from the village next to ours in the South of France. This market has an international flavor.

Despite being a minimalist, I was able to add another handmade wooden pen and bookmark to my collections. 

Part of the marché is to have Pére Noël  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBWVrgbpSf0 fly his reindeer-driven sleigh across the lake. This year we left before the first flight at 17:00 but I remember it from earlier years.

My first Christmas marché was in 1962 in Stuttgart, where I was living with my ex-husband, serving his Army time in a band. I wondered into the square near Breuniger's department store to see it filled with about 15 chalets. They sold everything from würst to handcrafts. Years later I went back to Stuttgart for it's marché to find it had expanded to most of the center of the city.

It was there I found a poster of an Underwood typewriter bordered by news articles. It was during my no-buy year, but this was too personal to pass especially for 15 Euros. My father had an Underwood franchise in the later 1940s. I learned to type on an Underwood. My mother insisted I learn, saying if I could type, I would always have work. Change that to word processing today, and it was/is true. The poster hangs in my Nest a reminder of my youth, my family and the marché.

One year my cousin and her photographer husband had an assignment to photograph different Christmas markets. I joined them in Frankfort. A great family reunion with all the pleasures of Germany.

Our little village of some 2500 people also had a one-day market where local artisans displayed their wares.

Each market has its own buzz. The one we went to this week was even better because we shared it with good friends.