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CULTURE

10 unmissable events in Switzerland in July 2023

From free access to the Federal Palace to Switzerland’s biggest music festivals, and enticing water shows to city runs, here are all the events you shouldn’t miss this July in Switzerland.

Published: 21 June 2023 16:16 CEST
Freddie Mercury Montreux
Freddie Mercury statue in Montreux, Switzerland. Image by Yves from Pixabay

Zuger Seefest

The canton of Zug’s largest festival with some 20,000 visitors each year, takes place on Saturday, July 1st.

Though this year’s iconic Zuger Seefest will not feature an air show nor fireworks, visitors will instead be able to enjoy the ZugMAGIC, a magic water show on Lake Zug in addition to the usual programme featuring live music, refreshing drinks, and unique atmosphere.

Federal Palace

This year, Switzerland celebrates 175 years since it signed the first modern Swiss constitution in 1848. To commemorate this, visitors will have the unique opportunity to peek behind the curtains of the Swiss Parliament on July 1st and 2nd July for free.

Openair Frauenfeld

Summer is the season for music festivals in Switzerland and the Openair Frauenfeld 2023 promises to deliver a musical act for every hip-hop taste. The festival takes place from Thursday, July 6th, through to Saturday, July 8th, with headliners such as Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, Wizkid and Stormzy.

Montreux Jazz Festival

Switzerland’s iconic jazz festival returns to Montreux from June 30th through to July 15th with acts such as Seal, Sam Smith, and Juliette Armanet. The programme of the festival’s free stages features more than 400 concerts, DJ sets, and activities.

During the festival, a box office, located at the entrance hall of the Music and Convention Center (2M2C), floor B4, will be open every day from 4 pm until the end of the concerts.

Paléo Festival

While you’re in French-speaking Switzerland, we suggest extending your festival stay for another week as Nyon’s Paléo Festival – the country’s biggest open-air festival – will be well worth your time and money. It takes place from June 30th to July 15th.

Every year, around 250,000 festival goers flock to the six-day music event to rock out to more than 300 concerts across seven stages and browse its 150 stalls and bars.

BernPride and EuroGames

Bern’s annual Pride Festival will be held on July 29th, but it is far from the only Pride highlight in Switzerland’s capital city.

If you’re in Bern hoping to wave your rainbow flags even sooner, then we have good news. The city will launch the EuroGames, the largest queer sports event in Europe, from July 26th until July 29th, and you can even take part in the 5K/10K PrideRun – if you can handle the heat, that is.

POLLEN Festival

Sion’s POLLEN Festival takes place on not one, but two summer weekends in front of the Théâtre de Valère. Visitors can head to Sion’s Old Town on July 1st and 2nd, and between July 6th to July 9th to enjoy a diverse programme combining music, performing arts, and visual arts.

Züri Fäscht

Following a three-year break, the Züri Fäscht is back to take over the city in full force. This summer, the festival, which attracts around two million visitors take over the streets along the River Limmat and around the lake basin, will take place from July 7th through to July 9th 2023. The event features the very Swiss Chilbi, a multitude of food stalls, music and fireworks.

Sommerfest Iseltwald

Iseltwald is often referred to as the pearl of Lake Brienz, and rightfully so. The fishing village is located on the left bank of the river and is one of the smallest communities in the canton of Bern.

The quaint Swiss village was recently forced to limit the number of tourists after fans of a South Korean Netflix hit show flocked to the region in droves sparking a backlash from locals.

So, if you are among the horde of visitors headed to the village for its annual Sommerfest between July 7th and July 9th, make sure to read our article on the steps you need to take in order to be permitted ‘entry’ to the village:

Swiss village forced to restrict visitor numbers after Netflix success

Swiss National Day

While August 1st marks Switzerland’s National Day, festivities to celebrate the day usually start across Swiss villages, towns, and cities on July 31st. For instance, Basel kicks off its annual Swiss National Day celebrations with a must-visit festival on the Rhine from 5pm on July 31st.

You can find similar events in other cities by browsing MySwitzerland’s events page, or simply checking in with your local municipality for any regional festivities on the day.

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SWISS HISTORY

Switzerland’s little known colonial past revealed in Zurich exhibition

A new exhibition at the Swiss National Museum in Zurich is shedding light on a chapter in the Alpine nation's history, in a bid to understand how Switzerland benefited from the colonial era.

Published: 16 September 2024 10:05 CEST
Switzerland's little known colonial past revealed in Zurich exhibition
Switzerland was never a colonial power, yet through its traders, mercenaries, anthropologists and missionaries, it contributed to colonial expansion, sparking debates about how to confront this lesser-known aspect of the country’s past.
“Swiss citizens and companies were heavily involved in the colonial system from the 16th century onwards,” the exhibition explains.

Entitled “Colonial: Switzerland’s Global Entanglements”, the exhibition presents objects and artefacts that bear witness to the landlocked country’s participation alongside the seafaring major European colonial powers.

It includes 18th-century cotton cloth used by Swiss traders as currency to buy enslaved people, sacks for loading goods such as cotton and cocoa onto ships, and a uniform jacket from a Swiss mercenary regiment which served the Dutch East India Company before switching to the British crown.

The regiment fought with the British alongside the future Duke of Wellington in the 1799 Siege of Seringapatam in India that overthrew Tipu Sultan of Mysore.

The exhibition also includes a collection of butterflies assembled by a wealthy merchant involved in a coffee plantation in Cuba cultivated by slaves, and the cap and whip of a Swiss national recruited as a civil servant in the Congo Free State in the early 20th century.

Understanding the debate

“It’s a difficult subject,” the Swiss National Museum’s director Denise Tonella told AFP.

“It’s not easy to tackle an unflattering topic,” but “it’s an important issue for today’s society,” she added.

“Since the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a lot of debate about colonialism and Switzerland,” Tonella said, with the exhibition aimed at providing the means to understand the issues.

In the wake of protests in the United States in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, and the tearing down of a statue of a slave trader in the British city of Bristol, the Swiss city of Neuchatel was shaken by a controversy surrounding its statue of David de Pury, an 18th-century banker and merchant.

A major benefactor of his hometown in northwestern Switzerland, his statue was sprayed with red paint in 2020 and a group questioning his connections to the slave trade launched a petition to have it removed.

A compromise was reached, with the local authorities opting for an explanatory plaque and the installation alongside it of a critical artwork representing the statue upside down, with its head buried in the base.

Theories justifying colonialism

“Different periods elicit different perspectives on history,” professor Georg Kreis wrote in the exhibition catalogue, explaining that these issues had long “been repressed” at the academic level.

Since it had no colonies, Switzerland perceived itself “outside the wider European history, occupying a special status” as an “innocent country”, the historian recalled.

“After the turn of the millennium, however, Switzerland’s focus on its colonial past took a different turn,” with academic study increasing over the past 20 years.

Drawing on this research, the museum set out to reflect on all facets of Swiss involvement, starting with the trade in raw materials and the transatlantic slave trade that saw merchants and plantation owners rack up immense fortunes in the 18th century.

The exhibition also shows how Swiss mercenaries were recruited to suppress uprisings in colonial possessions, and later how geologists took part in oil exploration.

It also sheds light on the Swiss naturalists and anthropologists behind racial theories used to justify colonialism.

The exhibition recalls how in the early 20th century, the universities of Geneva and Zurich were renowned for their work in racial anthropology, where researchers measured skulls to hierarchise populations.

The exhibition, which opened on Friday, runs until January 9th

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