"We all came out to Montreux, on the Lake Geneva shoreline..."

One of the places I always wanted to visit since I heard those starting lyrics of a famous rock song was Montreux (pronounced with a silent 'x'). I got my chance on the week of April 22-25 2009.

Most people know the famous guitar riffs in "Smoke on the Water". But many may not know that it was about a real fire (and smoke on the water) that happened in Montreux. Check out the story and hear a audio sample of it in Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_on_the_Water

Also, a rare photo of the actual fire and smoke can be found at :

http://www.songfacts.com/songimage.php?id=1284

So where is Montreux, Switzerland. It's at the opposite end of Lake Geneva. This MSN Virtual Earth map should help :

ITC (International Trade Centre) held the MLS-SCM Global Network Roundtable 2009 in Montreux, where almost a hundred people from over 40 trade support institutions from all over the world attended the two and a half day conference, sharing, listening, discussing, networking & participating in a multitude of keynote, plenary & workshop sessions on the Modular Learning System (MLS) in Supply Chain Management (SCM), ITC programmes and company presentations.

Fortunately, I was in Geneva at the right time (3 weeks before) to be able to help in the organising and coordinating of this very successful event, with my co-team members, our Advisory Board members and Swiss Government officials :

And here's our MLS-SCM organising team :

It was a lot of hard work and long hours, but everyone participated enthusiastically, whether in the conference, breakout rooms, along the hallways, over meals or in the social events. The cultural night was a kaleidoscope of costumes, singing and dancing from the four corners of the world (Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe).

All this, admist the serenity and beauty of Montreux and the Alps.

The bathroom window view from my hotel suite, greets me every morning :

Everyday, it got clearer and clearer (compare the last two photos of the same view).

The hotel is just beside the lake. So are the Alps mountains.

You can see green trees, and pure white snow from a distance..

and the grandeur of the mountain tops (if you can zoom your 10 Mega pixel camera 12x optical)

In Vevey, a town nearby (home to the international headquarters of Nestlé) , the lake and mountains turn into a mystical place (like 'Smoke on the Water')

with seahorses and mermaids, merman and swans.

The flowers are in full bloom,

framing the beauty of the mountains,

presenting Nature's palette of colours.

As the hours went by, spectacular sunsets closed the day,

beckoning the flowers to rest...

so that they will be fresh and bright for another day.

To top it off, I found out that the restaurant where the Deep Purple band sat, watching the fire at the old casino was Hotel Eden Palace au Lac, where I and the hundred other people worked and stayed in, 37 years later.

http://www.gillan.com/wordography-17.html

What a great way to get what you wished for....