There will be a Christmas market from the 30th November until the 4th December at the Château of Coppet. For more details click here There will also be a Christmas market in the Grand-Rue in Gland on Saturday 4th December from 08:00 -17:00

Living in the Know - December 2016 The Living in the Know December podcast is now out. Living in the Know is a collaboration between Catherine, the editor of Living in Nyon and Lisa, the editor of Know-it-all passport. With Christmas just around the corner December’s podcast gives you some hints and tips on posting Christmas cards, including last delivery dates to send them to friends and family here and abroad. Lisa describes a creative way of making your own stamps which are valid for postage in Switzerland and shows you how to save money if you are sending a lot of cards. She also explains about the charity stamps you can buy in Switzerland. If you are busy at work and don’t have time to get to the post office, then find out what Catherine has to say about La Poste’s new 24-hour terminals where you can receive and send parcels at all times of day. Lisa rounds off the podcast by telling us about a festive reddish coloured drink that you will often see in bars and restaurants around the country. Lisa and Catherine wish Season’s Greetings to all their listeners. They will be back in 2017 with more hints, tips and French expressions.

There will be a "full moon" fondue by Nyon lake side organised by the bains3jetees on Saturday 10th December from 19:00. The price per person for the fondue is CHF 19 (16+) and CHF 12 (12-15 years) children under 12 are welcome to dip into the fondue of their parents for free! Reservations essential, these events are popular and sell out fast! Click here

The poster for Paléo festival 2017 was revealed today the 30th November. The poster was designed by two young students, Catia Ferreira Barreiras and Nausicaa Planche who are in the second year of a visual communications degree at the Geneva School of Art and Design (HEAD – Genève). The design has already been incorporated into the Paléo website and will be seen in many forms next year on T-shirts, on bags, on screens on the programme and in merchandising. Inspired by the lights of Paléo The students explain where the inspiration for their design came from “The idea of representing the Festival’s lighting in graphic form came to us quite spontaneously. By plunging into memories of our own experiences of the Festival, we realised that we had both been struck by the colours, the forms and the contrasts that emanated from the Festival’s stages, both by day and by night. We wanted to illustrate what for us represented the soul of Paléo: the concerts, the artists and the public. The lighting, spots, beams and projectors reflecting off the audience and playing on the artists inspired this visual universe, made of geometrical forms and flashy colours.” The 42nd edition of Paléo Festival Nyon will take place from 18th to 23rd July 2017 .The line-up will be revealed on Tuesday 28th March and tickets will go on sale at midday on Wednesday 5th April 2017.

A Welcome with Welsh cakes! Living in Nyon will be in the public area of Nyon tourist office from 15:00 -17:00 on Thursday 1st December for readers of this site to come and say "Hello" and ask the editor any questions they may have about living in the Nyon region. It's also a good opportunity to chat to the tourist team about current promotions and events etc. The tourist office is situated at Avenue Viollier 8 which is very near to the Place Perdtemps car park in the centre of town. There will a small apéro offered along with delicious Welsh cakes from local business Te Bach!

Music, Markets, Pantomime in English, A Christmas Carol and Snowden at the Cinema - Events coming upMusic - Classical, Folk, Jazz, Rock, Metal The Temple in Nyon has been closed for over two years for restoration and renovation and this weekend, the 25th -27th November 2016 it will re-open in style with lots of activities planned to celebrate the occasion. On Friday at 20:45, 1,000 candles will light the Temple and the sound of Vivaldi will drift through the restored building, there will also be folk music with British singer Michael Chapman and jazz played by the Colin Vallon Trio on the Saturday night, organ music on the Sunday, guided tours and much more, For full details click here There will be more classical music with a recital at the Conservatoire de l'Ouest Vaudois as part of the Sunday afternoon classical concerts at 17:00. Details here On Friday 25th November at 21:30 there will be music from Israeli Band "The Angelcy" at the Usine à Gaz. Tickets here On Saturday 26th there will be rock and metal music as part of the Nyon's on Fire festival. Details in poster below At the Parenthèse, Swiss band Al Pride will play on Saturday 26th November at 22:00 Details here See video below Markets Christmas Market in St-Cergue There will be a Christmas market in St-Cergue at the centre du Vallon on Saturday the 26th from 11:30 - 18:00 and Sunday the 27th from 10:00 -17:00. See poster below Art at the Château of Aubonne There will be a bazaar at the château of Aubonne on Saturday 26th November from 10.00 - 20:00 and Sunday 27th from 10:00 -19:00. Art, ceramics, sculptures and more. See website hereFlea Market in Nyon It's the Monthly flea market by the lake side in Nyon on Sunday from 08.00 - 18:30 English Pantomime There will be a traditional English pantomime (oh yes there will!) from the 2nd to 4th December at the Théatre du Léman in Geneva. Details and tickets here Also, on December 1st there will be a performance in English of a Christmas Carol at 14:00 and 20:00. Tickets and more details here Cinema The film Snowden is showing in English at Nyon cinemaon Thursday 24th, Friday 26th Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th at 18:15

The Château of Prangins has just officially opened two new exhibitions to the public: Best Swiss Press photographs 2016 and World Press Photo 2016. This year as in previous years, there is a fascinating and interesting selection of photos, from the photo of a man holding up a bed sheet in front of the rear entrance to a hotel in Zurich (in an attempt to hide someone from the public gaze), to the photographic reportage on the inhabitants of a new town built close to the contaminated zone of Chernobyl. This latter photo won first prize in the Swiss Press Photo 16 for Geneva based photographer Niels Ackermann. For the World Press Photo 2016 almost 6,000 photographers sent in their work from over 128 countries and the jury selected the overall winning image "Hope for a new life" by Australian photographer Warren Richardson. Taken at night on 28 August 2015, this picture shows a refugee passing a child through a barbed wire fence between Serbia and Hungary. Sanne Schim van der Loeff, the project manager of the current touring exhibition explained that each year there is often a common theme that emerges when photographers send through their work, unsurprisingly refugee issues was the main topic that materialised in the press photos of the recent year. Amongst the other categories there are some stunning photos, check out the photo of the turquoise panther chameleon entered under the "Nature" category, this was taken by Christian Ziegler of Germany for National Geographic or the extraordinary night image of an erupting volcano in Mexico by Sergio Tapiro. Important note: the World Press photo exhibition will only be displayed in Prangins until the 11th December 2016, the Swiss Press photo exhibition will stay at the château until the 26th February 2017. Full details here

The Canton of Vaud has recently printed "Welcome to the Canton of Vaud" in 13 languages: French, German, English, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Portugese, Serbo-Croat, Somali, Tamil, Tigrinya, Turkish and Albanian. This useful information booklet contains a map which divides the canton into zones (Nyon and Morges are in zone 2) this is done to help find the right info for each area. There is information on Swiss schooling, obtaining a residence permit, learning French, getting married in Switzerland, how to find accommodation and much more. See table of contents in illustration at the end of the post. Each brochure in each of the 13 languages is downloadable or can be read online. Just click the link here

Did you know that there is a webcam situated near the lake in Nyon enabling you to watch the sun rise (if it's a clear day!) and to see a great bird's eye view of the old town from your computer? These two screen shots were taken around 08:40 on the 16th November from the Nyon webcam. This webcam was put in place thanks to the support of l'Office de Tourisme Vaudois, La Ville de Nyon and Régionyon. Morges also has a webcam situated near the harbour, this screen shot below was taken just a few minutes after the Nyon image. Much further afield, here is a shot from the webcam at the Top of Europe webcam at the Jungfraujoch Many other towns, ski resorts and villages have webcams, check to see if there is one in your area!

A giant mirror has recently been installed behind Nyon railway station. This is part of a Mirrors exhibition in conjunction with HES (the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO). More details here Please note - Living in Nyon will now be taking a short break and the next post will be on Tuesday 2nd May.

Two films that are currently being shown at the Visions du Réel film festival are completely opposite in terms of length and location. Up or Out is 46 minutes long and is set in the heart of Amsterdam in an area called the Golden Bend, one of the most prestigious parts of the city, the other film, Alptraum is 88 minutes long and is set thousands of metres up a Swiss mountain. Yet both films superbly capture the emotions of two men in vastly different surroundings and situations, and are well worth watching. Photo above - Up or Out - courtesy Visions du Réel Up or Out is a business story. Two brothers have founded a financial start up around a software programme that they have designed that is supposed to take the emotion out of buying stocks and shares. The camera focuses on the brothers as one of them pitches for investment, the other buys and sells. In their smart blue suits, open necked shirts we seem them in meetings discussing strategy and discussing the monthly results in their grand, elegant office. Apart from the opening and closing shots of the canal outside the company's windows, the camera never ventures outside, it focusses purely on the trading room, the computer screens and the board room. In this limited setting the director Jona Honer director captures an entire world of emotion in the every nuance of the two brothers, the panic when stocks they have bought start to drop in price, the euphoria when they rise. One of the brothers casually pushes his expensive watch out from under his cuff for the camera to see it more clearly and it doing so, it speaks volumes. The brothers and the software developer eat a simple lunch of plastic wrapped sandwiches around the board table, they discuss the DAX, and their day's trading. But trouble is brewing. Although trying to appear calm for the camera you sense there is a world of unchecked emotion swirling around in both brothers when the company's future is discussed. There is a twist in the tale to this film. An unexpected gift for the director which ends the film magnificently. Emotions aren't supposed to play a part in their financial software programme, but ultimately, the "long and short" of it is, emotions end up playing a large part of the companies future. Screening Tuesday 19th April at 14:30 at the cinema Capitole Fellini in Nyon - Tickets here Note: this film is screened directly after the previous 29 minute film "I don't want to sleep with you" (featuring the girls who work in the Kyabakura clubs in Japan). The ticket price covers both films. Photo above - Alptraum - courtesy Visions du Réel The film Alptraum also features two men, two childhood friends who decide to spend the summer working high in the Alps herding cows from pasture to even higher pastures. It turns out not to be the idyllic adventure they had imagined, the conditions are harsh, the weather is even harsher, they confront the realities of dealing with life and death in nature. But they also have to confront their own emotions. Just like the cows around them who ram their horns in to each other to claim territory, the men begin to mark their own territory and fight to the attention of a neighbouring shepherdess that works in a hut nearby. Tensions run high, the rain is incessant and the adventure turns sour. As in the previous film there is also a twist to end of this tale, which makes the film even more poignant. An epic, "must see" film showing a side of mountain life that many of us in urban settings don't often get to observe. Screening Tuesday 19th April at 16:00 at the Théâtre de Marens Tickets here. Trailer below.

There are two classical concerts on the local agenda this weekend: the Conservatoire of Western Vaud will be performing a Sunday afternoon concert at 17:00 in Nyon on the 22nd May, see poster below and link here. Also, the prestigious Ansermet Ensemble will be playing at the Salle du Vallon in St Cergue on Friday 20th May. Discover Nature in the Town Day - Family Fun On Sunday 22 May, it's “Nature in the town“ day. Discover the nature to be found around Nyon and the village of Prangins through an organised walking tour/ treasure hunt. Tours depart from 10:00 through till 15:30, beginning at the Morache park (behind Nyon railway station) or from the park in the Château of Prangins. Full details here. Electro-Funk music Friday 20th May at the Usine a Gaz in Nyon American Singer Madafi Pierre and Swiss producer Rocobelly form the band Maddam described as “an electro-funk-retro futuristic-new wave-soulful duo“, will be performing at the Usine a Gaz on Friday 20th May. Doors open 21:00, concert at 21:30 Click here to hear their music. Also, DJ Set Burning Beggars will be playing at the Parenthèse on Saturday 21st May. Details hereExpat Fair - Sunday 22nd May Also on Sunday May 22nd, the Leman International Spring Fair will take place at the Lausanne Palace & Spa. Information on Summer camps, wine courses, hotels, golf resorts, thermal baths, and information relevant for long-term residents. Click here