Thanks to bollywood, Switzerland has become the most sought after
foreign destination for Indian tourists, specially the nouveau riche.
In no country does Switzerland enjoy as much popularity as it does in
India.
Its amazing why most of us, i.e.-Indian (Asian) tourists go to
Switzerland just for the scenery, and the rest of the world goes to
Switzerland for mountain sports- skiing, sledging, mountain biking,
paragliding etc. Honestly, Switzerland is NOT one of the most sought
after tourist destinations for people outside India.
BACKGROUND
Switzerland has the history of being a tourist destination for the rich
upper class Europeans who sought a peaceful and calm atmosphere or
adventure different from the ordinary.
Today the country boasts of an economy that thrives on banking and
financial services. It’s also an important fashion hub of the west and
home to the headquarters of many UN agencies. Though Switzerland is
land locked on all sides and is
pretty much in the center of Europe, it is not a part of the European
Union and obviously doesn’t use the Euro as its currency. The local
currency is Swiss Francs (CHF) which comes in very colorful notes
(bills).
MY TRIP
ZURICH
I went to Switzerland in April’06 which is the last month of the winter
in Switzerland, as a result the cities were quite warm (temperature was
in the twenties) and the mountains were obviously still covered with
snow. We flew from Dublin to Zurich in a noisy little Swiss Air flight,
arrived mid day in Zurich and stayed at the Zurich Renaissance hotel
which was good. Spent one day walking along the Bahnofstrasse which is
the most expensive shopping street in Europe and is full of designer
stores, I was surprised to see Bata shoe outlets on the Bahnofstrasse.
The next day we traveled to St.Moritz (leaving the rest of Zurich to be
seen at the end of our journey).
ST. MORITZ
St. Moritz was a very quiet place and the beginning of the world famous
pure Engadin climate. St. Moritz is fabled for its sparkling, dry
’’Champagne Climate’’. As we had heard before it was a place for the
rich, it’s an expensive town, we stayed at Hotel Sonne which is a
budget hotel but is very well known, reputed and the location is
excellent. The frozen lake in St.Moritz looked magnificent, especially
at nights. A lot of events take place over the lake in winter, like
playing cricket over the frozen lake! St.Moritz during the winter is
perfect winter wonderland.
From Surlej in St.Moritz we took a cable car that could accommodate 125
people at the same time to Corvatsch. Corvatsch has nice ski slopes.
The view of St.Moritz and the lake from Corvatsch was absolutely
stunning. As part of celebrations there, skiing was open until 2am,
which was an awesome experience.
ZERMATT
The third morning we took the Glacier Express from St.Moritz to
Zermatt, it was a beautiful journey but a bit too long (traveling for
eight hours in a slow train across the mountains). We saw some of the
best views while the train went through Oberaalp pass. Zermatt is home
to the famous Matterhorn mountain (also known as the ’horu’) often
called the Toblerone because this is the mountain you see on toblerone
bars. skiing over the Toblerone was another experience full of
beautiful views, the sunshine and the slopes. everything was perfect.
Zermatt is a lovely alpine village and is car free, only some battery
operated minibuses run in this village. It’s a beautiful place. The
Glacier Express is a legendary train running for over 75 years on a
unique track.
INTERLAKEN
From Zermatt we took a train to Interlaken which is a bigger town than
Zermatt and St.Moritz. Interlaken was warm and sunny, with snow clad
mountains surrounding it, looked very touristy with souvenir shops,
multi cuisine restaurants and a reasonably good nightlife. Like most
other tourists, we took a train excursion to Jungfraujoch (top of
Europe); it was nice to see an Indian restaurant called bollywood at
the mountain top. Again that’s because the maximum number of tourists
there are Indians. The cogwheel train that goes up to Jungfraujoch
(meaning virgin peak, pronounced-yungfrau yokh) was a marvel of
engineering, the train goes through unbelievably steep slopes and long
tunnels. At no single tourist spot in the world have I seen so many
Indians together as they were at Jungfraujoch- entire trains full of
Indians were leaving to and from Jungfrau, it was unbelievable.
GENEVA/BERN
Also visited Geneva which was more cosmopolitan, the shopping streets
were better; there was a big city feel to it with a bustling and
vibrant nightlife. Although, Bern- the capital city was just the
official center of the government, there wasn’t much to do for
tourists. Throughout our journey the weather was good, it didn’t rain
and there was plenty of sunshine everywhere which helped us take some
brilliant pictures.
BACK TO ZURICH
We returned to Zurich and were lucky to witness the End of Winter
Festival there; there are representatives of each age group from each
canton (district) who parade in their traditional dresses. The festival
involves a lot of color and flowers, finally an effigy of a snowman is
burnt to mark the end of winter and men dressed in traditional costumes
ride horses around the burning snowman.
Another good thing to do in Zurich is to take a boat trip to Rapperswil
which is a beautiful village with wooden bridges, grape vines. Just
takes a couple of hours and is very well worth a visit.
SHOPPING
Switzerland is definitely no shopper’s paradise, you would find lots of
designer watches, clothing and jewellery which are also overpriced as
compared to the rest of Europe. But I’d say that’s Switzerland in
general-expensive!
TRAINS
As everyone mentioned in their reviews, the Swiss train system is
excellent, there are plenty of frequent trains running in every
direction, buying a train pass in advance is a good idea as it is much
cheaper than buying separate tickets for every journey. I traveled in
double decker regional trains as well as ICE and TGV trains which run
on international routes (to Italy and France respectively), ICE and TGV
had definitely much better interiors than airplanes in terms of looks,
noise and comfort.
As for every journey, it’s better to plan in advance what activities
you will be doing, what places you’d visit and how much time you’d
roughly spend on each thing. Of course Swiss chocolate is famous, I’d
recommend everyone to buy some local handmade chocolate instead of the
bigger brands which are available elsewhere anyway. The people are
quite hospitable, crime is low as compared to the rest of Europe.
All in all Switzerland is a good place to visit if you crave for
natural beauty-mountains, snow, lakes and beautifully preserved
countryside, its worth a visit but if I had to go skiing again, I
wouldn’t go to Switzerland, I’d prefer Switzerland’s neighbor Austria
because its more scenic, has the same sporting facilities and is a lot
cheaper.
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