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16 | THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
travel
I arrived in Vevey, a small town that
hugs the northeastern coast of Lake Ge-
neva, so jet-lagged that I thought I
might be hallucinating. I saw a human-
size starling posted on a bar stool drink-
ing a beer. A cow wearing a crown of
flowers that would rival Carmen Miran-
da’s most flamboyant headpiece lum-
bered in my direction. Screaming at the
top of their lungs, a gaggle of children
dressed in the overalls of 18th-century
farmhands ran in circles.
Vevey’s Fête des Vignerons, or wine-
growers’ festival, is a big deal, though
most of the people under 30 that I spoke
to in the days leading up to my arrival —
including those from the German-
speaking region on the other side of
Switzerland — had no idea it existed.
That could be because the last time it
happened, we were 10 years old.
The celebration of local winemaking
traditions prides itself on happening
only “once in a generation,” roughly ev-
ery 20 years, the exact date determined
by a mysterious group called the Con-
frérie des Vignerons (Brotherhood of
Winegrowers) that has been organizing
the festivities since 1797. The quiet town
of Vevey, usually a stopover as part of a
tour of what is known as the Swiss Rivi-
era, becomes the place to be for 25 days,
not only for tourists but locals coming in
from the surrounding cantons.
This year, organizers built a 20,000-
capacity stadium, enough to fit the en-
tire population of Vevey, smack dab in
the center of town for the sole purpose of
the daily show that is the festival’s main
draw. The bottom of the arena is covered
with the largest LED floor ever made,
and the “stage” extends up and around
the audience so that during the show, no
matter where you’re looking, you’re see-
ing something. After Aug. 11, the last day
of the festival, the city will begin the
three-month process of tearing down
the stadium.
A WINE SPECTACULAR
Though I speak no French, I was able to
glean the basic narrative of the three-
hour proceedings. A grandfather sits
with his daughter, explaining the life cy-
cle of vineyards and what it takes to
make wine. Along the way — and this is
where I got a little lost — there are dance
routines by playing cards and bugs;
people dressed as starlings, foxes and
rabbits; Swiss mercenaries in their me-
dieval best; and one number that in-
volves giant fish and an airborne fairy
swooping across the arena. The 5,
performers are mostly volunteers and
are joined by brass bands, an orchestra
and a 950-strong choir.
It’s like the Olympic ceremony of wine
— except it happens daily for almost a
month. And it’s no coincidence that it
brings that other spectacle to mind: The
show’s director, Daniele Finzi Pasca,
was responsible for the closing ceremo-
nies at the Sochi and Turin Olympics.
But the mind-warping spectacle is re-
ally only a part of the festival, as I dis-
covered over the course of four days.
Most of the fun and the same heavy
dose of psychedelic weirdness happen
outside the arena. Things tended to get
going around noon, and by midafter-
noon, parades filled the street running
along the lakeshore, blocked to traffic,
with marching, halberd-carrying sol-
diers in full armor looking as if they had
just fallen out of some wormhole from
the 14th century. Vendors sold food from
across the world and I dug into more
than one decadent baguette, hollowed
out and filled with molten-hot fondue.
Every day of the festival, a different
canton of Switzerland is represented —
a crowd of wizard-looking men in cork
top hats from Geneva one day, steam-
punk marching bands from Fribourg the
next. One evening, I followed a fife and
drum group from Basel as they
barhopped across town, breaking into a
musical march after each stop.
Everything is transformed for the du-
ration of the festival. You can grab a beer
to go at the local bike shop, or mill
around what is usually a furniture store
sipping on white wine. Elsewhere,
caveaux, underground wine cellars,
have been converted into night clubs
where after dark, the performers party
while still in costume.
It wasn’t long before I realized that
the Fête is about far more than wine. In
fact, the wine itself is an afterthought:
Most bars served only two white vari-
etals, either from Lavaux, the UNESCO
World Heritage region that includes Ve-
vey, or the adjacent La Côte. It’s a wine-
growers’ festival not a wine festival,
with vintners recognized for the way
they maintain their vines, fight diseases
and pests and keep up with pruning. It
isn’t even about tradition, though the
throwback costumes seen on every cor-
ner are pivotal to the celebrations.
As Blaise Duboux, a member of the
Brotherhood of Winemakers, and a 17th-
generation winemaker, put it, it’s as
much about keeping with the times as
keeping the old ways alive.
“The Fête des Vignerons is on the UN-
ESCO list of intangible cultural her-
itage,” Mr. Duboux said. “To be intangi-
ble it can’t be stuck in history — it has to
be alive, constantly changing. You can’t
just think about the old ways. You have
to be thinking of what maintaining the
vines will look like in 20 years.”
And the festival is changing with the
times, despite some resistance from
some of the more traditionally minded
members of the Brotherhood. This year,
in the award ceremony, a woman won a
gold medal and an organic wine
producer won a silver medal, both firsts
in the Brotherhood’s history.
A BREAK FROM THE PARTY
When I needed a breather from morn-
ings filled with parades and nights that
ended at 3 a.m., I learned what else is
worth celebrating about this part of the
world. For starters, there’s Lake Ge-
neva, also known as Lac Léman. In the
summer, it’s a giant, always-open swim-
ming pool, the chairs built into its rocky
shore an open invitation for the public to
take a seat and watch the afternoon
pass. I beat the heat the way the Swiss
do, jumping into the lake’s crystal clear
water and floating amid the swans.
One afternoon, I took the funicular up
to the peak of the 3,500-foot Mont Pè-
lerin, which looms over Vevey. For two
hours I strolled back to town, through
dense forests and into open grazing
lands where the gentle clanging of cow-
bells was the only sound. Eventually I
hit the Lavaux vineyards around the vil-
lage of Chardonne. Rows of vines were
stacked up on steep terraces and pedes-
trian paths wound through and around
them, bringing me close enough to pick
the grapes had I wanted to.
In the distance, I could see the arena,
improbably rising out of the medieval
skyline of Vevey’s old town. It was hard
to imagine that just there, walking dis-
tance from this serenity, tens of thou-
sands of people were having the times of
their lives.
Once-in-a-generation Swiss eccentricity
THE 52 PLACES TRAVELER
BY SEBASTIAN MODAK
A steampunk brass band from the Swiss canton of Fribourg paraded along the shore of Lake Geneva during the Fête des Vignerons in Vevey, Switzerland.
SEBASTIAN MODAK/THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Raffles Hotel stands for all the fables of
the exotic East,” said the English play-
wright and novelist Somerset Maugham
in the early 20th century, when he was a
regular guest at the Singapore hotel.
Since his time, the cadre of glamorous
names who have hung their hats at the
famed hotel include the comedian and
actor Charlie Chaplin, the actresses
Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner and
heads of state and royalty from all over
the world.
On Aug. 1, the Raffles Singapore, the
oldest still-operating hotel in the island
nation, reopened after a nearly two-year
renovation, an upgrade that brings a
classic travel destination, known for its
rich history and architecture, into the
modern era.
“The Raffles Hotel is an institution
and icon with a wealth of stories which
far surpass the actual building,” said Dr.
Lilian Chee, an associate professor and
deputy head of the department of archi-
tecture at National University of Singa-
pore. She completed her doctorate at
University College London on the Raf-
fles’ history and architecture.
Situated on a corner of Beach Road
(which once faced the sea), the Raffles
was created and run by the four Sarkies
brothers, from Armenia. The hotel’s res-
ident historian, Roslee Bin Sukar, said
that two of the brothers, Marin and
Tigran, were walking on the beach one
day when they spotted a 10-room bunga-
low.
“It was the golden age of traveling,
and everyone wanted to see this part of
the world,” Mr. Bin Sukar said. “They
had a sense that the bungalow’s location
would appeal to international travelers
and leased it from its owner with the in-
tention of turning it into a world-class
property.”
The Sarkies named their hotel after
Singapore’s founder, Sir Stamford Raf-
fles, and soon after the December 1887
opening, it became the spot where well-
heeled, glamorous travelers clamored to
stay the night.
In 1889, the brothers expanded Raf-
fles by taking over the two adjoining
buildings. They eventually razed the
original bungalow and hired the British
architect R.A.J. Bidwell to design a new
building. His ornate neo-Renaissance
structure opened in November 1899 and
received international attention be-
cause it had electricity, including lights
and ceiling fans in every room, then un-
heard-of luxuries.
Raffles became a mecca for all of Sin-
gapore, according to Dr. Chee, and the
place where society came to see and be
seen. In the early 1900s, the Sarkies
opened Tiffin Room, an Indian restau-
rant at the hotel, and a watering hole,
the Long Bar. It’s here where the Singa-
porean bartender Ngiam Tong Boon in-
vented the gin-based cocktail the Singa-
pore Sling.
The Sarkies owned the hotel until the
Great Depression, when they were
forced to declare bankruptcy and sell
the property. In 1987, Singapore’s gov-
ernment designated the hotel a national
monument, and its first major renova-
tion, in 1991, transformed it into a com-
plex of corridors, courtyards and low-ly-
ing buildings, and added a new shop-
ping and dining arcade.
“Its architectural style was and con-
tinues to be a stark contrast to the rest of
Singapore, which has many high rises
and is very dense,” Dr. Chee said.
In its previous incarnation, Raffles
Singapore was stately and reverent,
Christian Westbeld, the hotel’s general
manager, said. The goal of its most re-
cent renovation was to make it welcom-
ing and social.
“Raffles has always been an instru-
mental part of Singapore’s history, and
we wanted to remain a talking point,”
Mr. Westbeld said. “It was time to mod-
ernize the property and be less elitist
and more approachable to everyone, es-
pecially to the locals.”
The French hospitality company Ac-
corHotels acquired the property in 2016,
and the New York City interior design
firm Champalimaud was asked to give
the hotel a more updated look. Jon Kastl,
a partner with the company, said their
team wanted to recognize the hotel’s his-
tory, but also didn’t want to be bound by
it. (The hotel would not disclose the cost
of the project).
The hotel’s main bungalow, now re-
stored, stands as it always did, but
there’s no longer a front desk near the
entryway. Arriving overnight guests are
led to the back of the lobby for check-in,
while the main front lobby is an airy
lounge where guests can order small
plates and drinks. The space still has
white marble floors and walls, but the
new custom-made furniture is contem-
porary, with colonial references and in
shades such as sage green, off-white
and burgundy.
“The lobby was dusty,” Mr. Kastl said.
“We wanted to make it a vibrant social
space.”
Contemporary paintings by global
artists hang in the public spaces and em-
phasize nature, a nod to the hotel’s sev-
en gardens.
Dining and drinking are a big focus in
the new Raffles, Mr. Westbeld said, and
the 10 options range from affordable to
extravagant. Long Bar and Tiffin Room
are both back. Writers Bar, a homage to
the notable writers who have fre-
quented Raffles, has expanded to a full
bar.
And there are three new restaurants:
yì by Jereme Leung, serving modern
Chinese; BBR by Alain Ducasse, a Med-
iterranean eatery (opening in Septem-
ber) from the three-Michelin-starred
French chef; and La Dame de Pic, which
serves contemporary French food from
the three-Michelin-starred French chef
Anne-Sophie Pic.
Reflective of the overall renovation,
the 115 new rooms are a juxtaposition of
the past and present. They have their
original Tasmanian oak wood floors, and
nearly every room still consists of a sit-
ting area, sleeping area and bathroom.
Mr. Kastl said that the new décor in-
cludes British colonial-inspired furni-
ture, abstract contemporary art and
modern accents. The ceiling fans re-
main, but the rooms have been upgrad-
ed with central air conditioning as well
as other modern conveniences, includ-
ing flat-screen TVs and key cards.
“The hotel has been able to reinvent
itself over time, and we want to see how
it will capture the imagination of the
next generation as it has done with past
ones,” Dr. Chee said.
Raffles Singapore gets a makeover
BY SHIVANI VORA
Nightly rates start at $790. rafflessinga-
pore.com.
The Raffles Hotel in Singapore dates to the late 19th century.
RAFFLES SINGAPORE
“It was time to modernize the
property and be less elitist and
more approachable to everyone,
especially to the locals.”
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