New Years Resolution

December 19, 2023By 12

Visiting Switzerland would be an excellent New Year’s Resolution for many of you. Whenever I meet new people, I ask, “Have you been to Switzerland?” 90% of the time, people say no, they go to France and Italy. 

Maybe we, Switzerland, are not doing enough to promote the beauty of this country.

This blog, then, is intended to do that. It’s a picture book from our last visit to Switzerland, this past September.

Beautiful Landscape and picturesque towns

Switzerland has three official languages – German, French, and Italian. In the Engadine, St. Moritz area, people speak Romansch. But that’s less than 1% of the population. 

When you travel to the French part of Switzerland, you feel like you are in France. When you travel to the Italian part of Switzerland, you think you are in Italy. While in the the German part, you experience Austria & German.

Hiking

Do you like hiking? If so, there isn’t any other country in the world that has such a sophisticated hiking system as does Switzerland. It doesn’t matter where you are; you will always find the yellow Wanderweg (Hiking) signs. They tell you the time it takes to walk and what to expect based on color codes. Yellow is easy (T1); Red & White is medium to difficult (T2, T3); Blue & White are very difficult hikes & mountaineering (T4, T5, T6).

Something else is unique, and so Swiss-like. When you hike, all you need is a bottle of water. For food, you don’t have to worry. All over, even high up in the Alps, there are places you can eat and drink. They serve on porcelain, and you drink your wine, beer, or soda out of a glass. Plastic does not exist.

Public Transportation

Do you like Public Transportation? If yes, then it is Switzerland you should visit.

To give you a taste of what a day without a car could look like, listen to this. Cindy and decided to go the Rigi, for spectacular views, and hike for 10km (6.6 miles). See picture above.

  1. To get there, we took the train from Rotkreuz to Luzern. 
  2. From there, we walked 2 minutes over to the Lake of Luzern and boarded the steamboat. Of course, the boat was waiting for our train, and a few minutes later, we were on the water to Vitznau, stopping at a few towns.  We arrived in Vitznau, 
  3. and the train to the Rigi mountain awaited us. Once on top of the Rigi, we walked for miles and ended up at 
  4. Chräbel, where there was a gondola leaving at 16:05 (4:05 pm). It had to leave the station at 16:05 because it connected to a 
  5. train bringing us down to Goldau.  
  6. In Goldau, we took a train to Zug, and changed the platform
  7. to take another train back to Rotkruez, where we started.

Swiss Railway Clock  –  Video Clip

In other words, the schedule of all trains, buses, and boats are sychronized. When the train schedule says 10:07, it is 10:07. Once in a while, even the Swiss trains are late. They might leave at 10:08 or 10:09. 

This brings to a conversation about the Swiss Clocks. I attached a short video showing the unique Swiss Railway clocks. Notice that the second-hand stops precisely 1.5 seconds before a new minute is reached. To some, it does appear you can stop time.

Back in 1944, Hans Hilfiker was part of the Swiss Railways. The inventor wanted to ensure that Swiss trains run with that world-famous punctuality for which Switzerland is known. But there was one issue: despite the focus for being on time, trains and dispatch did not quite work by the second. The Hilfiker station clocks still faithfully run these days with that “two-heartbeat stop” at the end of a minute cycle, making it easier to start the engine precisely on time.

Food

Is food the most important part of your trip? Well then, you have international cuisine in Switzerland and, of course, original Swiss dishes. There’s more to Swiss food than Fondue and Raclette.

Driving your car

Before I end, there is one more great fact to highlight about Switzerland. Everything is close together. Zurich and Luzern, for example, are just one hour apart. You can travel very easily by train or car. Like in other countries, we have a highway vignette (tax) that costs CHF 40.0 (close to $40.-). Once you have it attached to your car, there are no tolls for the rest of the year—no tolls for bridges or tunnels. 

We have hundreds of bridges and tunnels. The longest car tunnel. is the St. Gotthard, with 10.5 miles of 16.9km. For trains, it’s the  Gotthard Base Tunnel, with 57.1 (35.5 miles). In 1992, the Swiss population (64%) voted to build this tunnel knowing it would take until 2011 to complete the project.  

Did “Trip to Switzerland” move from the bottom to the top?

I will see you in Switzerland next time.

Click Image To See Slideshow

Click Image To See Slideshow

 

 

 

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