Switzerland

Enjoying the amazing city of Geneva where you can hear most of the world’s language’s as you walk down the streets. I played at a wonderful gathering of the nations. 12 hours of musical expression, praying for the country and it’s people. This is the city where many organisations have their headquarters, including the UN, International Red Cross and World Health Organization’s. I was amazed to go to the church where the International Red Cross was started – a vision in 1863 that now has around 97 million volunteers! WOW!  This weekend is the 200th year celebrations of Geneva joining the Swiss Confederation.

We then visited Gruyères, a beautiful medieval Swiss town overlooking the Saane valley (the name coming from the cheese of the same name), and on to Montreux and Lake Geneva, where a bronze statue of Freddie Mercury can be found by the waterfront.

The other musical story I heard was around Deep Purple’s song ‘Smoke on the Water” – apparently written based on a true story. Montreux Casino was holding a final December concert in 1971 with Frank Zappa (before renovations) when a flare from the audience caused a fire that burnt down the casino. The song title (credited to bass player Roger Glover) came from the smoke spreading over Lake Geneva!