Féchy, Switzerland, and the Fête du Raisin 2013

Dwight Peck's personal website

Féchy, Switzerland, is a wine village, and today's the long-anticipated day of the 16th annual Fête du Raisin ('Grape Festival'), 21 September 2013, a major event in the Saturday social calendar of this part of La Côte, the lakeside villages between Lausanne and Geneva.

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.

We missed the speeches and entertainment behind the old village school this morning -- a bit of a Saturday lie-in, in fact -- but now the throbbing boom of marching drums through the windows propels us down into the street.

The marching band is forming up, with the flag of Féchy proudly waving.

The guest country, come to contribute its own vines to the Vignes du Monde collection in Féchy, is Austria, and the guest town is Rohrbach in the canton of Berne. Rohrbach, in blue shirts, seems to have brought its own antique fire engine.

Crowds are forming in the main street of Féchy-Dessus (the street is named "Féchy-Dessus")

The speeches and schoolchildren's choral performances are all over, and the parade will process down to the lower part of Féchy for an all-day wine tasting extravaganza, with fish-and-chips also on offer and musical and folklorique activities all day.

Our friend Uschi and her enormous camera

Ten times more people than Féchy-Dessus has seen since last year's Fête du Raisin

Chris is on the organizing committee and takes his responsibilities seriously.

Get ready. Get set.

Ooompah!

More folklorique people processing past our door

And a men's choir, it seems

And the tourist train rented for the occasion

An attractive Dotto F87 model

The more relaxing way to get down to the wine-tasting

More views of Féchy in autumn 2013

Our comfy livingroom ("mind your head")

A comfy work station ("I said, mind your head")

The Rue du Pont leading down to the lower town, and the entrance on the left to a town abri, or bomb shelter . . .

. . . which doubles as a party venue for the Jeunesse or town youth group, and as a . . .

. . . car park. That's Dieter, our silvery VW break, on the left. (Having long ago mastered, under duress, the art of constructing wooden bunks all over a bomb shelter like this in Roche, I'm a certified chef d'abri.)