At first glance, Switzerland is a country that makes no sense. Its three ethno-linguistic groups—the Germans, French, and Italians—have spent most of the last 400 years elsewhere in Europe ripping each other to shreds. Much is made of the isolation of the plateau in the country’s interior, but there are no natural, culture-defining barriers separating Ticino from Italy, Geneva from France, or Basel from Germany. And it’s not as if the citizens who make up the three groups particularly like each other. Yet the Swiss have held together in their more-or-less current borders through centuries of strife and invasion.
One method by which the Swiss have preserved their union illustrates another eccentric contradiction. A country that has made its name synonymous with world peace and international understanding has also provided Europe with some of its fiercest warriors. The Papal Swiss Guards and the Swiss Guards who defended Marie Antoinette down to the last man in 1792 weren’t selected for their pretty, colorful uniforms. For centuries, the Confoederatio Helvetica made an enormous financial profit by exporting these extremely efficient and hyper-violent mercenaries all over the continent.
Which naturally brings us to that other favorite Swiss topic—money. But first...
At the age of 11, our Ben spent a summer in a classic Swiss chalet outside the village of Beckenried on the southern shore of the Vierwaldstättersee (Lake Lucerne). Every morning at eight sharp, he brought Mom’s stainless steel pail to the local dairy shop, where the kindly woman who lived upstairs ladled fresh, un-homogenized milk into it. Some days, she carved a thick slice off the massive wheel of Emmental cheese in her front window. One morning, over a cup of very hot Swiss chocolate, she asked her teenage son to show off the rifles and uniforms he and his father were legally obligated to store in their front closet in case of invasion.
These days, you don’t see too many 11-year-old American children waiting by themselves on the village dock for the ferry to take them into the secret fingers and hideaways of this gorgeous, storybook lake. Even in safe, pristine central Switzerland, times have changed. With a peaceful Europe, the paranoia implicit in the historical Swiss war footing has receded, only to be replaced by the social malaises that have afflicted the rest of the globe. Still, it comes as a shock to find needles in a park in Zürich or graffiti on a wall in Geneva.
Everything is relative, of course, and if you stay out of the major Swiss cities—basically Zürich, Basel, and Geneva—you can imagine yourself in a throwback, rural idyll without compare—because that’s exactly where you’ll be.
Now, about all that money…
La Svizzera Italiana—Ticino and the Southern Grisons
Dad retired to Lugano in southern Switzerland because he liked the vaguely Italian feel of the place—vaguely, because even this part of the country buttons up tight the instant you cross the border. No loosey-goosey Italian traffic enforcement for these folks, no tolerance for any other form of misbehavior. The bureaucracy here works like a Swiss watch, with zero bribery, zero mistreatment, and zero empathy. After Italy, it can be quite refreshing.
The tax system for expatriates is a particularly apt example. You set up a meeting with the Canton and show them more than you want to. You agree to a more-or-less equitable tax. That tax remains fixed regardless of fluctuations in your income—forever. And yes, the Swiss do disclose every bit of income and assets to your friends back in America. Like everything else, it’s all cut and dried.
We’ve written about Lugano and its Black Money before. But you can’t describe Italian Switzerland without reference to the glorious alpine passes that join the region to its fellow Cantons. There are 20 of these natural wonders scattered about the country as a whole, and we’ve made it our mission to drive them all. Our favorite might be the Saint Gotthard, on the road north from Italian-Swiss Lugano to German-Swiss Luzern. Some years, we get all the way over the 2,106 meter pass, and some years we’re forced back to the road tunnel (1,175 meters). Either way, this is some of the most romantic—and ambitious—driving anywhere.
La Suisse Française—Jura to Fribourg to Geneva to Valais
We’ve spent less time in French Switzerland than in the other 22 Cantons. Geneva has its history and its grand hotels, its Michelin star restaurants and international boutiques, but if we want Paris, we head for the original and not its buttoned-up Swiss version. The villages, lakes, and river valleys are seriously beautiful, but then that describes all of Switzerland. This isn’t a strong preference of ours—as you might expect, the French boast by far the most sophisticated cuisine, not to mention all those shiny clocks and watches. But in our case, it’s just the way things have panned out. And neither of us even owns a watch.
Die Deutsche Schweiz—the Central Plateau
A quick geography lesson here: The three original (German) Cantons that signed up to the founding Swiss document, the 1291 Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, were Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden in Central Switzerland. Later on, Unterwalden was divided into Nidwalden and Obwalden. The four resulting Cantons cover the Vierwaldstättersee (literally the Four-Canton Lake, or Lake Lucerne) and its surrounding valleys and mountains. This is the rural heart of the Alps and the very soul of Switzerland—and the source of so many of its legends and stories.
At the southern tip of the lake, there’s Altdorf, where Wilhelm Tell supposedly shot the apple off his son’s head. In the north, there are villages like Weggis, Küssnacht (another version of the apple legend), and Vitznau, with its cog railway up to the towering summit of the Rigi. The southern shore boasts peaks like the Bürgenstock, Stanserhorn, and Mount Pilatus, where the Swiss believe the disgraced Pontius Pilate ended his days.
Knitting all of these together with the city of Luzern are the superb ferries of das Schifffahrt des Vierwaldstättersee. Your mission, should you accept it, is to take the ferries all over the lake, then climb as many peaks as possible in the cable cars, funiculars, ski lifts, and cog railways. One per day minimum, pausing at each summit for a spectacular lunch.
Die Deutsche Schweiz—the Eastern Alps
The eastern half of German Switzerland…
up the Inn River from Lugano to St. Moritz
on to Chur or Davos
on to Zürich and St. Gallen (with a brief detour into Liechtenstein)
and finally (with another detour to Lake Konstanz in Germany) landing in Basel
…can easily consume a week of driving along our favorite 10-hour route. Check it out on Google Maps and find your own eccentric pathway.
The point being that this is how you tour any part of Switzerland—with dozens of little side trips and detours to climb this alp or follow that hidden waterfall, to randomly discover where this lane or that track takes you. We’ve come out of a copse of woods to find a lonely bench atop a cliff dedicated by a loving sister and brother to their departed parents. We’ve stumbled onto an ancient, gated Jewish cemetery, hidden away in a thick forest for safety. We’ve climbed so many alps, discovered so many hidden valleys, and accumulated so many months of happy—and occasionally rueful—chuckles and reminiscences, that we can’t count them all.
But no, we don’t recommend that you climb that narrow track to the summit of your new favorite alp with twilight approaching—even though we still do it every chance we get. And if you really have no idea where you are or how to get back to somewhere else, then you know you’ve finally arrived. Because Switzerland is a country made for you to get lost in.
Four Favorites:
Off the tops of our heads…
Hotel Schweizerhof, Luzern. In an article extolling the quiet, rural life, there’s nothing like leading off with the ritzy, old Grande Dame of Luzern. But our Jewish step-mother was interned here as an Austrian refugee in World War II, and they still serve up great champagne and lake views.
Hotel Lugano Dante, Lugano. If the Dante isn’t available, we usually keep going. We practically lived here one summer. No views, but quiet luxury and superb service on a hidden square off a walk street with great restaurants. And odd as it sounds, there’s the Sassellina funicular next door to take you up to the Stazione di Lugano and some of the best basic food in town [Dad always claimed that the best restaurants in Switzerland were to be found in its train stations, and who are we to disagree?]
Hotel de la Paix, Geneva. The Ritz-Carlton chain has taken over this gem directly across the lake from the famous geyser, le Jet d’Eau. And crazily enough, our favorite room (Princess Grace’s favorite too, we were told, where she came to hide out from her chronically irritating husband) is featured on the front page of their website! How’s that for good taste?
The Mt. Pilatus Aerial Cable Car. There are dozens of these cable cars and funiculars, all of them worth trying. The photography is world class, but the best part is sitting in the bar or cafe on the summit gazing down past your shoes at… the entire world?
And now, about all that money…
We haven’t much covered the subject here, because if it’s not yours, you never see it. Even in Zürich, with some of the ugliest, most intimidating banking architecture anywhere, you never get a sense of penetrating the metaphorical vault that is the Swiss financial system. All that Mafia loot, all those African and South American dictator fortunes, all that stolen Nazi gold, lies buried deep underground where no one will ever find it. The surface banking sector consists of glassy-eyed gnomes in drab little office buildings punching endless numbers into their computers and calculators—hardly the stuff of a wanderer’s dreams. So, as Dad used to say [for the Swiss], bring ten million dollars, and we’ll talk.
When the good ol' US and A finally sent me away from Vietnam in 1971; I fully expected to be sent to Germany, bwhere I could roam and explore (when Uncle Sugar could spare me).
Alas, 'twas not to be. Oklahoma - where the wind blows free - was to be my home for the next 13
months, training Israeli and
Egyptian soldiers to shoot great big guns...not at each other THIS time...Hopefully.