The Switzerland Traveler

I know this isn’t Switzerland, but it really isn’t very far away.
I came across lefrancophoney recently and thought I’d share it with you (although obviously, you’ll only be going to France on a day-trip; we don’t really want you leaving Switzerland).
Annecy is a beautiful town less than an hour from Geneva, and has its own stunning lake. With the backdrop of mountains, it’s an ideal location for a bit of sightseeing.
Take the opportunity to stroll by the lake and then sample the shopping delights of the Rue Royale before a spot of lunch. Although you might care to look at …read more

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Well, nothing like coming back with a bang!
If you plan to be in Switzerland on December 3rd, how about a guided tour round an atomic power station?
I’ve done the tour and it’s fascinating. You get the whole deal, dressing up in white suits like the baddies in Dr No, and they wave Geiger counters at you all the time.
It’s really interesting and the best bit is the cooling water for the fuel rods. The water has to be totally pure and de-ionised and is the most amazing blue I’ve ever seen.
Looking round the control rooms is fascinating if you’re into switches and …read more

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A bit of a light-hearted post to take your mind off the EM.
Apparently in the film “21″ there’s a scene where Ben (Jim Sturgess) is cycling to the MIT, with a blue and white Freitag bag over his shoulder.
In the next scene, it’s slung over his other shoulder, which is a pretty neat trick while riding a bike.
So, either the continuity guys screwed up, or there are some magic bags being manufactured here in Switzerland…
I’ve written about Freitag bags before, look here if you can’t remember
Photo: Flickr Studio Mohawk

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It might not be the Pompidou centre, or even the South Bank, but the citizens of St Gallen have their own feature to be proud of.
Designed by architect Carlos Martinez and Multimedia-artist Pipilotti Rist, the Stadtlounge is a novel way of making a clinical financial area (Bleicheli) seem more people-friendly.
The entire  area is covered in a red surface, a playground surface for pedestrian areas and tarmac for the car areas. Even the Porsche 911 shaped lump that’s supposed to discourage you from parking. You wouldn’t want to come back and find your car has been resurfaced, would you?
At night the …read more

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I’ll apologise in advance for this one.
This weekend sees the 5th annual convention of Swiss-French cartoonists in Champery.
That doesn’t seem like the type of event that needs to be advertised on a national website. Surely there can only be about four of them?
Anyway, if you do happen to be skiing in the Portes du Soleil and see a wild bunch of people communicating by drawing on large sheets of paper, please let me know.
I don’t why I think it’s funny, I just do.
As for the cartoon above, it’s in French, and I don’t think it’s funny, but it does …read more

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I was lucky enough to see the inside of a nuclear power station once.
That’s not something that many people will ever see, which is a shame because the colour of the pure water used to cool the radioactive rods is quite simply the most amazing blue I’ve ever seen.
But! The engineers amongst you need not fret.
Untill April 16, 2008, the nice people at the Grimsel HEP (Hydro-Electric Powerstation) are offering guided tours of their plant.
The power station is located not too far from Interlaken, so is about 2 hours from Zurich, closer if you are in Berne.
It’s open to …read more

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How many times have you heard people talk about flying pigs?
Of course, more often it’s done a bit more subtly, in answer to a request – such as looking out of the window and replying "well, we might be able to do that, if only those darn pigs would stop flying past".
But in Switzerland anything is possible. Well nearly!
A cow-shaped hot air balloon, who’d have thought it?
But maybe a ride in a normal hot air balloon ride would be interesting? HB Adventures offer a range of flights from 300CHF per person.
HB are reachable on +41 56 424 31 44 …read more

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It’s time for another theme day here on the travel and culture channel of b5media. And this time, the theme is time itself.
I think all of us writers on the channel thought "Ha, that’ll be easy" but it opens up soooo many possibilities.
My initial thoughts were of wristwatches and clocks.
Everybody knows there are two types of watch: those that are Swiss, and those that aren’t. And frankly, there’s no excuse for choosing one from the second group! Am I promoting my new home land too heavily here? Fear not, this is not going to turn into an …read more

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The Swiss like cranes. Or to be precise, they love them.
Wherever you go it seems there’s always at least one visible, but somehow it doesn’t seem to distract from the beauty of the place.
Obviously industrial building sites like this one are never going to be pretty, but somehow when used for domestic building work, cranes seem to blend into the Swiss landscape.
Swiss builders need no excuse to put up a small crane, I assume the logic is that their time is expensive and using a crane cuts the time taken to do any job. Having a new garden …read more

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I’ll admit I had no intention of writing about this memorial to a lion (Löwendenkmal) in Luzern, or even Lucerne as it’s usually referred to in English. I just liked the photo, taken as it is from an unusual aspect.
Luzern is a place that you will visit if you come to Switzerland, or take visitors to several times if you live here. It’s the ideal place to get an appreciation of the country, with its bridge, mountains and the lake.
Lake Lucerne, or to give its local name, Vierwaldstättersee, is simply beautiful. But it does highlight the issue of names. Lakes, …read more

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