New story out: This time the Swiss one

I had been never to Switzerland before. So I did not understand why Swiss people are so proud of their small, little, tiny country. People think that it is the land of expensive watches, banks and tasty chocolates. But this is only the tip of the iceberg.

As one of my Australian colleagues said: “your life savings will disappear in a very short time there”. That is how expensive the place is, even for Australians. But beyond this, there are thousands of mountains to climb, hundreds of ski resorts to try and four different languages to speak. Yes indeed, Switzerland comprises three main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, and Italian, to which the Romansh-speaking valleys are added.

I had mostly explored the capital, Bern: the place where Einstein did his research about his relativity theory, a place which does not really give the impression of a busy, industrial capital. It simply is not, but is rather a cute touristic and historical place. An even better description of the Swiss capital is: a fairytale. You can even see bears which can be found right in the city center, they are the mascots of the capital.

Bern

During my visit I had the opportunity to taste the culinary side of la Suisse. One of the tastiest things which I ever tried was the cheese fondue. In simple words it is melted cheese served in a communal pot over a spirit lamp, and eaten by dipping long-stemmed forks with bread into the cheese. Yummy. And they even have beers: not as good maybe as the Czech or Belgian one, but still beers. And the bakeries, oh my goodness, the most delicious bread and croissants! Another thing which I observed was that the food really tastes food: they are trying to import as few products as possible so everything is locally grown or made, that’s why everything is so fresh.

So let’s get on a train and have a ride back to the Alps: simply amazing. I had the opportunity to do sleighing down from 2200m altitude, Europe's longest sledge run. It was fifty minutes of pure fun (and snow in my faceJ). It also worth mentioning the various sky resorts across the country: it is normal to bump into people on the train station wearing as an accessory a snowboard or skies. During summer people are doing more biking and mountaineering, but hey, nobody is perfect.

Generally speaking people are kind and very polite, usually speaking several languages. Never been in a country where they inform the passengers in three different languages, which also gives the unique multicultural aspect of this region of Europe. Oh, and I realized that the country is so clean that they are daily cleaning the public phones at the station - seemed a bit ridiculous to me.

You simply have the feeling that everything works like a Swiss watch, and everybody knows his job. Trains are running on time even in heavy snowfall. People are smiling, or at least I had the feeling that their life is happy. Still, even today, we have a good example to follow on how cultural aspects are treated, and how things are being done, in Switzerland.