Possible dancing

1st of August РF̻te national Suisse in St Prex

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The First of August, in Switzerland is a national holiday. This is the day when Switzerland celebrates its own existence. The Swiss are celebrating the Pacte Fédérale from 1291. I saw a tweet saying that Switzerland is about 725 years old. They have only been celebrating this since 1891 when the confederation was 600 years old.

On this day rafts covered in firewood are brought out on the lake and placed next to cities. The raft that you see in the image above is covered in fireworks. The Sauvetage boat would do another two or three trips that I noticed.

This year I was able to swim and go sailing once again. Sailing on the lake is a pleasant and fun activity although as usual for this time of year there is a lack of wind so you spend a lot of time waiting for it to pick up and looking for any sign of wind from other parts.

In theory since there is no wind you might as well get your inflatable boat out with some fishing lines and justify being stuck in the doldrums with fishing. If I want to see fish I usually go scuba diving. They look more natural underwater and lake waters in summer are nice and pleasant. When you get to the surface you feel warm again. In Summer you want to take off your dry suit and have a barbecue.

A sport that we see more and more frequently is paddle boarding. I was looking at the price of paddle boards in Switzerland and you would expect to pay between 790 CHF to 1000 CHF. It is not a cheap sport but compared to scuba diving it’s affordable. It also provides you with a full body workout. (I had to sneak in some fitness didn’t I?)

Of course the sport with the lowest barrier to entry is Swimming. In St Prex they have a structure in the middle of water you can swim to and then climb. You can jump or dive from any height with no risk of hitting the ground.

If you were looking for something a little more formal

If you were looking for something a little more formal then on the Lausanne side of St Prex you could go under the white tent, get some saucisse frites, sit down eat and then dance. Once those forms of entertainment were finished with you could head out and watch the raft covered in wood burn while waiting for the fireworks to start. On this day you can see fireworks fly up and make patterns around the lake. It would be interesting to see from the top of the Jura or some other mountain. In fact I’d like to see the 1er Aout from a place like Moléson. From there you could see three or four cantons celebrating.