Ponton du Casino

April 1964: the Rolling Stones under the Ski Nautique Club sign

During their visit of 20 April 1964 the Rolling Stones posed at length by the lake. Several of the most widely circulated photographs of that Swiss trip were taken here, on the pontoon, under the Ski Nautique Club sign.

Those images travelled far: most of the forty collector cards issued that year for fans come from them, as do the photographs in the band’s first official songbook.

Queen posed there in turn

Twenty years later Queen were photographed on this same pontoon, in front of the Casino, in the years when the band owned Mountain Studios in the adjoining building.

The place has hardly changed its purpose: the Ski Nautique Club sign has given way to Water Sports Montreux, but one still stands there between the Casino and the lake.

The club now offers wakeboarding, water skiing, wakefoiling and towed tube rides, on what its instructors describe as one of the safest stretches of water on the Riviera to learn.