Festival of Lights weekend event, January 24 – 26, 2024

Join AIC Geneva and Zurich weekend event in charming medieval Murten/Morat, named the Swiss Village of 2024!

Dates: Friday and Saturday night, the 24^th and 25^th of January 2025

Theme:  Festival of Lights, Castle Hotel, and Fondue/Raclette!

Organizers:  John Moetteli and Robert Race of the respective clubs

Join members from both American International Clubs in a joint event on the weekend of the 24^th and 25^th of January, 2025 at beautiful Schloss/Chateau Muenchenwiler, a converted monastery.  Here’s their website: https://schloss-muenchenwiler.ch/.    If you go “Full Monty”, you will enjoy two evenings of the incredible Festival of Lights as well as fondue and raclette, a meal at the castle restaurant, a museum tour, a walk along the town’s medieval walls as well as community games!  Murten/Morat is exactly the same distance from Zurich and Geneva so is the ideal place for a joint event!  Join us and we promise: it will be unforgettable and enchanting!

The hotel needs a list of participants and with that list, they will tentatively reserve the corresponding rooms.  To prime the pump, John Moetteli of the AIC Zurich and Robert Race of the AIC Geneva are committing to going.  Do join us as the old adage is true: the more, the merrier!  The castle currently has 40 rooms available, 120 CHF for a single room, and 190 CHF for a double room.  Room sharing is possible after discussing with hotel management.   Make your own reservations but know you can cancel at least 4 days before the event and get a refund!  Once you reserve, please send John Moetteli confirmation so that he knows who is attending and so we have a number to help plan other events.

The castle hotel has a game room.   It also has a nice restaurant (https://schloss-muenchenwiler.ch/restaurant/), and so we would recommend reserving a table there for Saturday night, but early, say at 6PM, so that we can escape to the Festival des Lumieres (see https://www.murtenlichtfestival.ch/ ) afterwards.  There are special offers related to the festival posted on https://fr.murtenlichtfestival.ch/angebote .  

So, here’s a tentative weekend schedule:

FRIDAY. Meet at the castle hotel at 8PM to gather for a visit to Murten for a Friday evening view of the festival (optionally, those who can make it to the hotel restaurant for dinner can reserve separately, but preferably starting around 6PM).  We walk down hill to the festival, which is an easy 20 minute walk.  We spend Friday evening at the Festival, until 11PM and return to the hotel.  Those who drive let us know so that those who join us that have difficulty walking can catch a ride.

SATURDAY:   morning breakfast, included with your hotel room.  So, breakfast together to plan the day. We would do the walk around the old city walls and then a fondue/raclette lunch together somewhere in Murten.   Afterwards, we’d visit one of the museums in Murten.  See https://www.museummurten.ch/en/  or https://fribourg.ch/fr/regionlacdemorat/.  Murten was elected the Swiss Village of the Year in 2024 by the way!  See https://fribourg.ch/fr/regionlacdemorat/actualites/morat-morat-a-ete-elu-village-suisse-de-lannee-2024/.   We’d return to the hotel for an early dinner in the castle restaurant, and then give people two options:   go to the festival again and find a bar to have drinks and walk around or go to the game room in the castle and play games. We retire for the evening around 11PM.

SUNDAY, breakfast together at the castle hotel.   People would be free to return home at any time on Sunday respecting the hotel’s checkout time.

The schedule allows for some to spend the night only Friday or only Saturday and even just come during the day on Saturday and contact John personally at 079 406 6254 to learn where the group is at any given time.

As for guided tours, this is indeed possible (see https://www.swissactivities.com/en-ch/city-tour-guided/murten-city-tour/?s=search&f=cat&lang=en-CH&currency=CHF&product_id=432&option_id=option-7645-101491&ads_source=&redirected=true).   If anyone would like to do a tour, please let us know if you are interested so we know how many people will divide the costs.  In any case, the goal is for everyone to try to stick together, despite the fact that some may elect to share the costs of a private tour.  Here’s general tourist information about Murten:   https://www.touringswitzerland.com/visiting-murten-switzerland-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ and https://switzerlanding.com/visit-murten/. 

We look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones across the Rüschtigraben!

Best regards,

John Moetteli & Robert Race

AICZ and AIC GE

Phone: +41 71 230 1000

Email: moetteli@davincipartners.com