Narcissus of Les Avants
Fly to Montreux
The “May snow”, which whitens the slopes above the town.
At the end of May, above Montreux, the meadows turn white although winter ended long ago. It isn’t snow: it is narcissi, in their thousands, so closely packed that from a distance the slopes look dusted with powder. The locals call it “May snow”. The species, the poet’s narcissus, has a pure white crown around a small yellow cup edged in red, with a heady scent, on a stem thirty to sixty centimetres tall. It grows in damp meadows at altitude.
From the heights of Mont-Pèlerin to Les Avants, the region has always been full of them. In the last decades of the 19th century, the town turned them into an attraction: a special train carried visitors from Basel to Les Avants to pick them, farmers sold bunches far beyond the country, and from 1897 to 1957 the town held a big festival every year with a parade of flower-covered floats.
Today the May snow is melting away. According to the canton of Vaud, the narcissi have lost between 60 and 80% of their numbers. Cows graze earlier, from April, on fields that used to bloom; the forest is winning ground back, and so are buildings. An association was set up in 1999 to protect them and replant them. If you climb up to see them, admire them where they stand: better not to pick any.
Sources: State of Vaud, intangible heritage inventory, “Narcisses”; Wikipedia, “Narcisse des poètes” (French, German and English).
Finding the chest
Its chest appears near Montreux once you have discovered all its sites on the map.
Sites discovered: 0 of 8
Every site of Montreux is discovered: the chest is waiting for you near the town.
