Venues & stages
Mines de Sel de Bex
- Type
- Salt mine and concert venue
- Address
- Route des Mines de Sel 55, 1880 Bex
At Bex, at the foot of the Vaud Alps, lies a maze of galleries dug into the mountain since the 17th century. You go down on a miners’ little train, at a constant temperature, to discover more than three centuries of salt mining. In recent years, music too has found its place here: concerts given underground make the stone vaults resound.
The Bex salt mines, music underground
Music under the mountain
The Bex salt mines are not just for mining salt: they also serve as a concert hall. For the Musique des Mines event, singers and percussionists go down into the heart of the galleries, where silence and stone shape a unique acoustic. You reach the underground stage on the miners’ little train, then the music rises between the walls of salt, sometimes fading very gently away. A listening place like nowhere else on the Riviera.
The only salt mine in Switzerland
Bex salt has a story going back centuries. Spotted in the 15th century, the deposit was dug in depth from 1684; over time, miners drove more than fifty kilometres of shafts, stairways and galleries into the mountain. To this day it is the only working salt mine in Switzerland, supplying thousands of tonnes of salt each year. Underground, the temperature stays at 18 degrees all year round, summer and winter alike.
The visit
The visit begins with the miners’ train, which plunges into the rock for several hundred metres. Along the way, a museum, large chambers and old machines tell the story of salt; some stretches are walked, well wrapped up. It is an outing for all ages, about thirty minutes from Montreux, which can be rounded off with a raclette or a tasting at the mouth of the galleries. An unusual excursion at the far end of the Riviera, to combine with the nearby Bex Music Festival.