Dwight Peck's personal website

A few views of downtown Vevey

'Go to Vevey, visit the countryside, examine the sights, walk by the lake and tell me whether Nature has not made this beautiful area for a Julie, for a Claire, and for a St Preux' (Rousseau's Confessions, referring to his characters in the novel Julie).


You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Vevey is a small Swiss town on Lake Geneva in the French-speaking canton of Vaud. There were stilt-houses along the lake in the 2nd millennium BC; the Romans were established here under the name Viviscus, and later it was an important stop along the medieval pilgrim route to Italy, the Via Francigena. It's presently got about 20,000 inhabitants, more than 40% of them foreign nationals.

This isn't a proper photo essay on the town, merely a few snaps from a brief visit whilst running a few errands, 29 May 2017.

Along the Quai Perdonnet on the lakeside, near the Grande Place

The Château de l'Aile across the way, a neo-gothic private home built between 1840 and 1846

The Grande Place and Place du Marché marketplace

The marketplace and the neo-classical La Grenette 'granary', built in 1803

The Fontaine du Guerrier, Fountain of the Warrior, in the old town. The fountain dates from 1576, but the original statue of the god Mars from 1678, showing its age, was taken down and moved to the city's historical museum in 2014; this careful replica was installed in September 2016.

In the Place Scanavin

In the Ruelle de l'Ancien-Port returning towards the lake

The Place de l'Ancien-Port

The Rue du Lac from the Place de l'Ancien-Port

To the lake

One of the Belle Epoque paddlewheels loading up at the dock

We'll see in a moment which one it is.

"Gogol slept here." Nikolai Gogol lived here for a bit in 1836 on his way to his 12-year sojourn in Italy. Other well-known writers that lived in Vevey at one time or another include Dostoevsky, Graham Greene (I was introduced to him just before his death in 1991), Victor Hugo, the historian J. L. Motley, Rousseau, 1905 Nobel Lit Prize winner Sienkiewicz, and singer/songwriter Shania Twain.

La Fourchette, the Fork, made in 1995 for the 10th anniversary of the Alimentarium, the 'museum of food' devoted to the history of Nestlé, whose world headquarters is just farther along the shoreline. Taken down after the anniversary, it was restored permanently after petitions from the public. According to Wikipedia, the 8-metre 'Fork of Vevey is a Guinness World Record holder as the world’s tallest fork'.

The Alimentarium, the 'Food Museum', and a statue of Charlie Chaplin (from 1982), who lived here in Corsier-sur-Vevey from 1953 to 1977, and the Chaplin's World museum was opened there in April 2016.

The Belle Epoque steamer Vevey, built in 1907 and no longer a steamer, powered by electric moters after renovations in 1913.

Not too crowded today

The small commuter boat Valais


Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 17 August 2017.


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