Visiting Vevey, Switzerland: Top Sights on Foot

The best things to do in Vevey include exploring museums, historic churches, a nineteenth-century theatre, and the famous Fork of Vevey on Lake Geneva. This lakeside town in the canton of Vaud combines art, food, photography and local history in a compact setting. Neywo also offers a free audio guide for Vevey, with 15 narrated places.

What to See in Vevey

Aile Castle

Aile Castle, also known as Château Couvreu, is a historic château in Vevey and a Swiss heritage site of national significance. The alternative name comes from the Couvreu family, local political figures who once owned the estate.

Vevey Photography Museum

The Vevey Photography Museum, or Musée suisse de l’appareil photographique, traces the development of cameras and photography through optical and photographic equipment and accessories. Its permanent collection is complemented by temporary exhibitions focused on individual photographers and their work.

A permanent exhibition dedicated to smartphones, created in 2021, explores how these everyday devices became part of modern photography.

Théâtre Le Reflet

Théâtre Le Reflet is Vevey’s main theatre and is also known as the Théâtre Municipal de Vevey. The nineteenth-century building has around 700 seats and has hosted performances for well over a century.

Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church, also called the Church of Saint Megalomartyr Barbara, is one of Vevey’s most distinctive religious buildings. Built in 1878, it reflects the town’s connections with Russian visitors and residents who came to the Lake Geneva area.

The church is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance. Its French names include Église Sainte-Grande-Martyre-Barbara and Église Russe.

Musée Jenisch

The Musée Jenisch is a fine arts and print museum housed in an elegant neo-classical building. It opened on 10 March 1897, following a legacy of 200,000 francs from Fanny Henriette Jenisch, the wife of a Hamburg senator.

The collections focus on works on paper, including drawings, engravings and prints. The museum also houses the Cantonal Cabinet of Prints and the collection of the Oskar Kokoschka Foundation. The building was designed by Louis Maillard and Robert Convert.

Saint-Martin Reformed Church

Saint-Martin Reformed Church rises prominently above Vevey and is one of the finest examples of late Gothic architecture in western Switzerland. The present church was built in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries on the site of an earlier Romanesque church.

An expansion in the nineteenth century gave the building its current form. Saint-Martin belongs to the Evangelical Reformed Church of the canton of Vaud and is one of two churches serving the Reformed parish of Vevey.

Church Sainte-Claire

Church Sainte-Claire is a Reformed church on Rue Sainte-Claire with roots reaching back to the Middle Ages. It originally formed part of a Catholic convent of Poor Clares, also known as Colettines, before becoming a Protestant church in 1536.

Inside, its Goll organ dates from 1898. The instrument was restored in 2016 and 2020 and was featured in a specialist calendar in 2023.

The Fork of Vevey

The Fork of Vevey, or La Fourchette, stands in Lake Geneva directly in front of the Alimentarium. Created in 1995 by Swiss artists Jean-Pierre Zaugg and C. Toda, it marked the tenth anniversary of the museum.

The stainless-steel fork is 8 metres tall and 1.3 metres wide. It was removed in 1996, but a public petition led to its return roughly a decade later. Since 2014, the Guinness Book of World Records has listed it as the world’s largest fork. The Alimentarium maintains the landmark, which has become one of Vevey’s most photographed sights.

Alimentarium

The Alimentarium is a museum devoted entirely to food. Its exhibitions examine the science, culture and everyday habits connected with what people eat.

The museum occupies what was once the Nestlé administration building, linking the story of food with an important part of Vevey’s corporate history. Its position beside the lake, opposite the Fork of Vevey, makes it one of the town’s defining attractions.

Musée de la Confrérie des Vignerons

The Musée de la Confrérie des Vignerons explores the history of the Confrérie des Vignerons and its famous Fête des Vignerons, or Winegrowers’ Festival. It is located inside the historic Château de Vevey, which also houses the Musée historique de Vevey.

Catholic Church Notre-Dame

The Catholic Church of Notre-Dame is a neo-Gothic landmark in the centre of Vevey and the seat of the local Notre-Dame parish. Its pointed arches and strong vertical lines reflect the medieval Gothic forms that inspired the neo-Gothic style.

All Saints Church

All Saints Church is an Anglican church on the Route de Blonay. It serves Vevey’s English-speaking community.

Église évangélique de Réveil de Vevey

The Église évangélique de Réveil de Vevey is a church in the town and forms part of Vevey’s varied religious landscape.

A Short Trip from Vevey

Vevey is the administrative capital of the Riviera-Pays-d’Enhaut District, a region stretching along Lake Geneva and into alpine landscapes. Nearby Montreux offers another lakeside destination in the same district, while Lausanne is another major city to consider when planning a trip through the region.

Corsier-sur-Vevey is also closely connected with the town’s cultural history. The municipality lies between the Veveyse River valley and the slopes of Mont Vuarat, extending to Lake Geneva. It is best known as the place where Charlie Chaplin passed away in 1977.

Explore Vevey with a Free Audio Guide

A Vevey self-guided walking tour is an easy way to connect the town’s museums, churches and lakeside landmarks. Neywo’s walk, “Forks, Cameras and Russian Domes: Vevey from Castle to Lake,” covers 2.65 km in around 98 minutes and includes 12 narrated stops.

The route visits Aile Castle, the Vevey Photography Museum, Théâtre Le Reflet, the Russian Orthodox Church, Musée Jenisch, Saint-Martin Reformed Church, Church Sainte-Claire, the Alimentarium, La Fourchette, Musée de la Confrérie des Vignerons, Catholic Church Notre-Dame and All Saints Church.

Download Neywo to explore Vevey with its free audio guide. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages, so you can discover the town independently while walking through Switzerland.