Switzerland

Visited: July 1991, August 2004, July 2022

Duration of visit: 12 days

Capital city: Bern

Population: 7.4 million (2022)

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

• Hitchhiking as a teenager around Europe and getting a lift in a luxury BMW Series 7 to arrive in stile to Geneva.
• Window shopping and chocolate tasting in perfectly organized and decorated shops in Zurich and Geneva.
• People-less countryside and Swiss flags hanging on every house.
• Bern – fabulous capital with UNESCO-recognized Old Town, surrounded by turquoise Aare river which offers a unique opportunity to swim and chill out.
• Bathing in exclusive Therme Vals – a monument of bathing culture by an award-winning architect Peter Zumthor.
• Fondue tasting at the heights of on the Prés-de-Cortébert.

The country with 4 official languages is famous for luxury watches, cheese and cows, Nescafe, Nestle and Swiss Army knife, land of Red Cross, the largest nuclear shelter in the world and Swiss Alps.

It is relatively small, always on the side of powerful organizations, but not member of them (NATO, EU). Switzerland always stays neutral. Maybe this is the reason why it is so rich, safe and secure, but also extremely expensive for visit.

I have traveled to Switzerland on four separate occasions:

• As a backpacker, hitchhiking around Europe in 1991.
• Travelling by my own vehicle in Western Europe in 2004.
• Business trip in 2012.
• In 2022, I had the opportunity to explore it thoroughly with my partner using my own vehicle.

I got in touch with Switzerland for the first time at the end of my hitchhiking trip around Europe in 1991. I was hitchhiking with my friend in Bad Bellingen in Germany and trying to get a lift to Switzerland. I wasn’t picky about the final destination, so when a black BMW735 stopped and picked me up I didn’t mind the direction any more. I had never been riding in such a beautiful and comfortable car, therefore I took an advantage of it and travelled all the way to Geneva.

When I was dropped off with my traveler companion in downtown, we only cared about the lake and famous water jet.

Water soaring straight up from the lake surface in a 145-meter plume was already visible from far away. There are thousands of beautiful lakes to explore in Switzerland, but Lake Geneva is the largest. We walked around the lake, gardens and old town during the day and later spent the night on a bench with a wonderful view over the lake.

We were completely broke and not very convinced to pick up a tent in the park, so we switched sleeping and guarding shifts between ourselves every 3 hours until next morning, when we jumped on the train back home to Slovenia.

In 2004 I was in a different position exploring Europe by my own car. It was not BMW7, but an old Renault Megan, with 4,000km driven in the last month, travelling through Italy, France and Spain. Instead of sleeping under the sky, I was fully equipped for comfortable camping in harmony with nature.

Camping grounds in Europe are generally in very good conditions with variety of facilities that offer comfortable stay in outskirts of big cities or in the middle of nowhere. Since most of the tourist target beach, I always found enough space and could accommodate myself in a good area not too far from the toilets and under trees to avoid strong midday sun. This was the case also in Switzerland.

Switzerland is one of the most expensive countries in Europe and any luxury was out of the question. Window-shopping and free chocolate tasting in downtown Zurich was great entertainment.

Swiss are very correct, professional, organized and polite, as long as you respect the local rules. I didn’t care too much about speed limits, therefore, the automatic speed cameras were taking photos of me, but they couldn’t deliver me a ticket.

I usually stop on petrol station to fill up the tank and use toilets, eventually ask for information. In Switzerland I was still able to buy gasoline at very high price, but there were no toilets, nor people. Most of the petrol stations, especially on the countryside were fully automatic, self-service. I couldn’t find a decent place to pee or anybody to talk to. Fortunately, I was driving through the countryside, so I could stop along the way on a meadow or in a forest.

Finding people along the road was much more challenging task than hearing cows or counting Swiss national flags, displaying a white cross in the center of a square red field. I don’t know if it was any particular celebration, but I got a feeling that a Swiss flag was hanging from the porch of every house in rural areas.

In 2012 I visited Switzerland on a business trip. The most productive outcome was finding my new favorite chocolate – Ragusa. Classic or dark chocolate with smooth praline filling, whole hazelnuts and the original rectangular shape. Delicious!

With so many good brands of chocolate and sweets is no wonder Swiss are the world’s biggest consumers of chocolate, eating approximately 10 kilograms per year per person.

Businesswise I found out that Swiss are very proud and locally orientated in order to support domestic production and consumption. If they can’t find a local supplier they would probably work with German or French and later with others. When mentioned products of Slovenian origin, they were politely explaining that the transport takes too long, the currency risk is too high and the language barrier is a problem.

In 2022, I visited Switzerland during a 5-day trip, driving around Zurich, Bern, Luzern, Vals and countryside north of Lac de Neuchatel. With my own car I got a chance to explore places I probably couldn’t so easy with public transport.

The road system in Switzerland is perfect: a mix of highways and local roads, which are in perfect conditions, entwined with tunnels that allow smooth traffic at any time of the day.

A special sticker, called vignette, that permits to drive on highways, is actually one of the very few bargains in Switzerland, at only CHF 40 for the whole calendar year.

Switzerland is a country of tunnels. Tricky topography with a large proportion of mountains, the high degree of mobility and the effort to provide good infrastructure to all parts of the country, while protecting residential areas from car pollution and noise, are the main reason for the best tunnel network in the world.

There are roughly 1,300 tunnels and galleries with a total length in excess of 2,000 kilometers to be found in Switzerland and they are continuing to be built.

The capital of Switzerland is Bern with less than 150,000 inhabitants. I visited it on Sunday, when parking is free in dedicated blue line parking lots, which allowed me to station very close to the car-free old town zone. Walking from the northern site and crossing the bridge Kornhausbrücke, I noticed a beautiful outline of UNESCO-recognized Old Town, surrounded by turquoise Aare River, which offers a unique opportunity to swim and chill out.

Clean and nicely shaped Aare River has strong, but stable and consistent current, which allows people to enter it at well-marked places, navigate it for considerable distance and exit it a few kilometers lower in another part of the city.

Due to my injured shoulder I couldn’t participate in the activity, but so many people were having fun to swim, navigate, even surf and flow along the river. Some of them using sup, boats, canoes or inflatable pillows, while others simply jumping from a bridge, packing their clothes and valuables in a waterproof dry bag.

The Old Town was rather quiet on Sunday, with most of the shops and many restaurants closed. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was positive, with picturesque buildings, monuments, colorful flags and pleasant pedestrian friendly zone. The old city clock tower, clock tower Zytglogge, The Cathedral, Münsterplattform and Bundesplatz with the Parliament building are the highlights, yet bears in Bären Park the main symbol of Bern.

While exploring the grass at Rosengarten, I was thinking what was better: the perfect grass and garden or the view over the old town and Aare River. Rose garden and perfectly green, weed-less grass looked so flawless, reminding on UK based gardens.

Most of the restaurants are closed on Sundays. Swiss cuisine is heavily based on meet products and usually offering only limited options for vegetarians. Asian, especially Thai cuisine, seems to be very popular and widespread around all Switzerland. In a simple Thai restaurant, I ate one of the best pad Thai in my life; simply flavored, not spicy and just the right level of stickiness made it a perfect lunch in calm atmosphere of Bern pedestrian zone.

Zentrum Paul Klee was the last stop during the visit, but unfortunately the museum was already closed. The building itself, designed by an Italian architect Renzo Piano, was completed in 2005 and immediately became a new landmark of the capital.

It takes the form of three undulations blending into the landscape. In addition to holding the most significant collection of Klee’s works in the world, the center offers diverse programs, recreational opportunities, an attractive event location and a lively cultural scene.

Bern turned out to be one of my favorite small cities in Europe.

My favorite Swiss chocolate is Ragusa; a simple, quality chocolate, that stands out for its perfections, three different flavors that haven’t changed much from the origins in 1942 and colorful rectangular packaging.

The name Ragusa originates from the town of Ragusa, now Dubrovnik, in Croatia, which delighted the first owner during summer holidays. I visited the factory of Camille Bloch family in a small town of Courtelary. Today Ragusa still possesses all its original characteristics: the same recipe, the same method of manufacturing with traditional confectionery quality and, of course, the same rectangular shape.

The exhibition shows development of chocolate industry through the years, production process, tasting and a souvenir shop with Ragusa products. I was tasting my favorite chocolate so much, that I almost got sick when leaving the factory fully loaded with chocolate gifts.

This is exactly the area, where I tried my first fondue, dipping bread into the cheese using long-stemmed forks, observing the countryside and listening to the tinkling bells from grazing cow’s in nearby meadows.

Melted cheese dish, served in a communal pot over a portable, heated stove can be complemented with meat. Beside cheese, the most important ingredients are wine, garlic and seasoning.

A cheese fondue mixture should be preserved warm enough to keep the fondue smooth and liquid, but not so hot that it burns.

The most important instructions we got from the waiter was to avoid cheese being burnt. The easiest way to prevent burning is to dig the bread deep to the bottom of the caquelon – fondue pot, made of stoneware, ceramic, cast iron, or porcelain.

Zurich is the biggest Swiss city, a global center for banking and finance, transport hub with exciting history, beautiful parks and green spaces in the middle of the Old Town. Rainy weather did not promise a nice afternoon, so the first stop was a cafeteria with free wi-fi. Slowly drinking tea, checking the latest news and analyzing the surroundings, helped the rain to come to an end.

I was ready to explore the breathtaking views from the numerous overlooks to experience Zurich’s true character and beauty with innumerable churches, museums, a well-preserved old town filled with medieval and Renaissance buildings, located on the shores of Zurich Lake.

Niederdorf area is one of the medieval streets and squares, a lively place to visit, with boutiques, restaurants, and cafés. The busy pedestrian street Bahnhofstrasse, stretching from the main train station to the Bürkliplatz at the head of the lake is one of the most attractive shopping streets with department stores and high-end shops, interesting buildings dating from the turn of the 20^th century.

The best part of shopping in Zurich and general in Switzerland is that I didn’t bother at all to buy anything, since the prices even with super rebates and discounts are much higher than in the rest of Europe. A magnet at 5 euros and Ragusa chocolates satisfied my consumerism during the whole trip.

Lindenhof is a quiet tree-shaded area that rises over old town between the Bahnhofstrasse and the left bank of the Limmat River. It is a very important historical area where the Romans built their fortified settlement in the fourth century to defend against migrations from the North. These days Lindenhof offers the best view over the Old Town.

The most outstanding structures that are seen from far away, raising above surrounding buildings are: Grossmünster (Great Minster) – iconic twin-towered Romanesque cathedral and Fraumünster, with its famous windows. A square of Paradeplatz is one of the most expensive pieces of land in the whole Switzerland, where headquarters of UBS and Credit Suisse banks are located. In the past the area was used as a livestock market and was known as the scene of clashes between insurgents and cantonal troops during the 1839 Züriputsch.

I had no need to visit the banks, but preferred shopping in one of the branches of Confiserie Sprüngli – a Swiss luxury confectionery manufacturer internationally known for its signature macarons called Luxemburgerli.

The offer of chocolates, pralines, the iconic Luxemburgerli, cakes and desserts is splendid and there is no way to leave the shop empty handed.

Visiting Vals, was an idea of my partner – an architect by profession. One of those remote and peaceful ski regions, offering hikes opportunities in the summer, but also marked by 30°C thermal source, that enabled development of thermal tourism. The village square is still surrounded by original houses roofed with stone tiles made of Vals quartzite, that defined the architecture of the whole valley.

The terms of Vals – 7132 Therme – are described as a monument of bathing culture.

An award-winning architect Peter Zumthor built a temple to the bathing ritual in Vals, offering bathing in its thermal baths as a deeply spiritual experience.

The idea was to create a form of cave or quarry like structure. Working with the natural surroundings, the bath rooms lay below a grass roof structure half buried into the hillside. Visiting 7132 Thermal Baths is a serious event – for your eyes, body and wallet. It is probably a unique experience of appreciation of nature, architecture, local materials, bathing and relaxing.

It is not allowed to take photos or filming to protect the privacy of famous and less famous visitors. Excess in noise, unnecessary equipment, personal stuff or wrong movements are supervised by security guards. The water itself is not as hot as it can be in other thermal spas, but the highly mineralized water that comes out of the St. Peter spring at a pleasant 30°C made the time I spent in the thermal baths a deeply relaxing experience.

My last stop before crossing to Italy, was the city of Luzern, squeezed amid snowcapped mountains on Lake Lucerne. Famous for rowing competitions, the town is recognized for its well-preserved medieval core, elegant historic buildings and a big range of cultural events including annual summer music festival.

The most outstanding site is Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge), a covered wooden bridge running diagonally across the Reuss River. The bridge was built in 1333, being the oldest covered wooden bridge in Europe. A fire caused by discarded cigarette in 1993 destroyed a large part of the bridge and, among other things, 78 of the 111 famous pictures.

The picture cycle originally comprised 158 picture panels. It was created during the time of the Counter-Reformation, when the city leaders in a Protestant-Reformed environment propagated loyalty to the Catholic Church.

The bridge marks the beginning of the Old Town on the right bank of the Reuss River, which still preserves many old burghers’ houses and little squares with fountains.

All in all, Switzerland is a unique and special country, where the quality of life is one of the highest in the World … if you can afford it. Having a great opportunity to visit Switzerland for business and travelled around it by my own vehicles in various stages of my life, enabled me to perceive it deeper and better than just visiting the main country’s attractions.

From relax atmosphere in the miniature capital of Bern to the Old Town of banking center in prestigious Zurich, tasting fondue in the remote mountains and observing sunset over Grand Canyon of Switzerland … I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Delicious chocolates, numerous tunnels connected by perfect roads with strict speed limits to prohibitive prices in regular supermarkets.

Switzerland offers a unique experience that is unfortunately limited to people that can afford it.