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Category: Switzerland

Le Suchet

Le Suchet


Le Suchet is a mountain of the Jura range, located south of Baulmes in the canton of Vaud. The summit of Le Suchet can be reached easily by several trails and a road culminating at 1,489 metres.

You can have an amazing view 360 of Yverdon and Swiss Alps and French Alps (Savoie) and French Jura at the west. You can easily drive untill a cafe there park the car and walk 30 mn.


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Switzerland The canton of Geneva refuses to allow baptisms on the lake

Switzerland The canton of Geneva refuses to allow baptisms on the lake

Switzerland Geneva Capital of so many international organisation like UNO UHCR red cross etc…  City of reformation and freedom of religion. Today the autority do not allow  baptism in the lake.

Two evangelical churches in the canton of Geneva have had their requests for authorization to celebrate baptisms on public beaches on Lake Geneva refused by the authorities. They have filed an appeal with the Administrative Chamber of the Geneva Court of Justice, the Swiss Evangelical Network (RES-SEA) said in a statement on July 8. The organization, and its cantonal section of the Geneva Evangelical Network, « express their solidarity with the two churches. [They are dismayed that Geneva, the capital of human rights, would adopt such a restrictive and exclusive approach to religious freedom.
The freedom to manifest one’s beliefs in common and in public

The issue of religious gatherings in public spaces has not been completely resolved in the canton. Here, the state is invoking the February 2019 Law on the Secularity of the State (LLE), which allows such events, but only exceptionally. However, the canton had said that the traditional baptisms at the lake would remain authorized, reports RES-SEA. In January of this year, the Federal Court ruled that the LLE in Geneva was « contrary to religious freedom ». In May, the authority confirmed this position in a ruling.

« Such a practice (this regulation) is […] contrary to international standards of religious freedom: indeed, the exercise of religious freedom, including the freedom to manifest one’s beliefs in common and in public, is a fundamental right », says the evangelical umbrella organization. A joint report by RES-SEA and the German Freikirchen.ch on religious freedom, including access to the public domain in the canton of Geneva, was sent on July 8 to the United Nations Human Rights Council. It should be examined during the Universal Periodic Review of Switzerland in 2023. The European and World Evangelical Alliances support this approach.

 

 

 

Castel of La Sarraz

Castel of La Sarraz

Built on a rocky spur, the Castle of La Sarraz was built in 1049. Unlike most other castles, it has always been the residence of the barons of La Sarraz and never changed hands until the death of the last chatelaine in 1948. This particularity makes its interest and its richness: it has kept the character of an inhabited residence and the objects which it shelters were acquired during the years.

If you want to see inside

 

 

More information https://chateau-lasarraz.ch/

Wine in Switzerland

Wine in Switzerland

Switzerland has good wine but they are not exported abroad. This is a shop window that show where we produice wine.

Samnauen part 2

Samnauen part 2

Curon near Austria and swiss border in Italy. A village under water
Natural park East Switzerland
In Grisons canton people speak a local language Reto romache. Here A revair similar to Au revoir means see you later
View of the Samnauen Valley
In the house where we was was an impressive decoration
Swimming pool
Pride of this photo. A curious marmot
Altitude restaurant
View from a cable car
An other view from a cable car with orange filter due to the color of the window
Swiss and austrian border
The other valley is Ischgl Austria
This hous use to be the border
En of June lot of snow left
Samnauen part 1

Samnauen part 1

Samnauen is at the far east of Switzerland. If Switzerland looks like an yes, Geneva is at the left corner Samnauen is at the right corner near Austria. It is a free zone. You have duty free shops because in the past there was no road to go there from Switzerland.

Samnauen valley
A typical chalet
manual tools
mountain vehicle
Cable car
Tunnel in Austria
view from Austria to Switzerland
Tine de Conflens

Tine de Conflens

The Tine de Conflens is an impressive waterfall, where the Venoge and the Veyron meet in a magnificent rocky place.

The tumultuous waters of the Veyron and the Venoge have shaped canyon-like gorges in the limestone of the Tine de Conflens. Magnificent waterfalls are visible.

The Helvetians, contemporaries of the Romans, built a « châtelard », a fortified camp, of which the remains of the enclosure remain.

A signposted path leads to the bottom of the gorge where you can admire the perfect torrential « marmites » that « play » with the water.
Let us note finally that the word Tine means barrel and Conflens comes from the word confluence.

Zad de la colline

Zad de la colline

In Eclépens there is a hill which is located exactly on the watershed between the Mediterranean Sea and the North Sea, it is the Mormont. Holcim has a quarry. But Holcime wants to keep digging more and more on this hill. It will disappear.

In Éclépens, just a few kilometres north of Lausanne, the international cement company LafargeHolcim has been exploiting 2800m2 of the Mormont hillside for nearly 25 years. In 2022, the already well-advanced quarry will reach the limit of its authorised operating perimeter, which is why Holcim Switzerland is seeking to obtain new permits as soon as possible to continue the unbridled exploitation of the Mormont hill. If this is not stopped by 2029, the entire Birette plateau will have disappeared. But that’s not all: Holcim plans to further extend the quarry in the future to the point of destroying the summit of the Mormont, located in an area listed in the federal landscape inventory. This area is considered to be one of the richest areas of flora in the Central Jura. Holcim’s new project to extract 8.4 million cubic metres of limestone is the result of an appeal by the NGOs fighting against the extension of the mine (Association for the Protection of the Mormont Hill, Pro Natura), which failed at the cantonal level. However, the fight is not over. The appeal at the federal level has been launched, but if it doesn’t succeed, we risk seeing this hill overlooking Eclépens and La Sarraz destroyed forever.

In addition to its listed and documented biodiversity, the hill is also an important archaeological site classified as a European heritage, which contains ancient ritual sites and probably Celtic dwellings.Holcim even welcomes its fruitful collaboration with archaeologists thanks to the « dynamic support for the archaeological work on the Celtic site of Mormont. This is reflected in the excellent cooperation between the management of the cement works and the Cantonal Archaeological Service, as well as in the financial contributions without which the excavation work could not have been carried out in the Canton ». Holcim is also tries to greenwash itself with the idea of financing the protection of wild orchids on the hill. Since it is known that the company´s sole objective is to progress in exploiting the area, this statement is nothing but hypocrisy.

The site concerned by Holcim’s cement plant extension project affects 22 plant communities, half of which are among the list of habitats worthy of protection according to Annex 1 of the OPN. In 1998, the Mormont was included in the Federal Inventory of Landscapes, Sites and Monuments of National Importance due to its biological wealth. This wealth comes from the diversity of the source rocks present, as well as from the diversity of exposures that create a unique climate. The site we protect, with its unique trees and various plant species, is part of the precious set of environments that the Mormont represents. A hotspot of diversity and rarity, it has seduced botanists such as Pascal Kissling, but also French-speaking authors such as Jacques Chessex or Gustave Roud, who fought to save the Mormont from a road project in 1975. And despite all these arguments, Holcim dared to justify the extension of its mine by asserting that the Birette site « is essentially made up of agricultural plots and contains no particular natural wealth ». In an open letter, Pascal Kissling wrote that « even if we only recognise the decorative value of natural environments, we should give future generations the opportunity to rethink their relationship with the living environment. However, these possibilities will only survive in the few shreds of intact nature that we will be able to pass on to them. Thus, the conservation of environments such as the Mormont is not a gift to nature, it is an act of foresight and a civil duty. « Finally, this destruction of ecosystems is being carried out in favour of cement production, which is the industry that emits the most CO2 in Switzerland (see the article « Concrete: Ecological? »).

Holcim’s actions not only destroy valuable ecosystems, but also aggravate the effects of global warming by daring to claim that concrete can be « zero carbon » in the future, even though CO2 emissions are directly caused by the industrial process of cement production. But what alternatives to cement are possible? You will find all the links under the concrete tab. Today, as an extension of the struggles of the last decades to save Mormont, in echo to the climate strikes, the ZADs, and the ecological actions that are spreading around the world before it is too late, we are committed against this mine extension project.

We are defenders of life on earth, concerned and committed to a sustainable future; as Kissling said, we are fulfilling our civil duty: we are defending the hill. Against Holcim’s concrete, we will defend the wild orchids and what they represent: the possibility of a sustainable future. Orchids against reinforced concrete! For more details, the association for the defence of the Mormont created in 2013 offers a wide range of information.