The last time I was in Switzerland, I sightsaw (had sightseen?) in Zurich and Geneva. This year I decided to step out and broaden my knowledge about the Swisscape. My first stop was Gstaad – the train route from Geneva to Montreux hugs the Lac du Leman (Lake Geneva) which, that day, was covered with a hazy mist (smoke on the water?) that gave it a very surreal feel. But that was not the ‘memorable’ bit of the journey - it was the fact that the train was about 2 minutes late. The Swiss railways are getting a bad name!
From Montreux I took the Golden Panaroma Pass to Gstaad – a very comfortable train passing through a scenic turn on every corner – white mountains, sunlit clouds, snow-covered wooden bridges, and gently rising mist over the fields and valleys. The train journey was definitely livened up when we approached the station of MontBovoc. The announcer was not French speaking, so it sounded as if he was calling the village ‘Bobobo’ which got plenty of deep-throated laughs in the carriage (ofcourse, since they make the announcement three times – in French, German, and English, our chuckles went on for quite a while).
Gstaad (pronounced ‘Shtaad’) is one of the most exclusive and expensive ski resorts in the world – this is where the rich, famous, and jet-set strut their stuff (what was I doing there you might ask?). The names associated with Gstaad include Elizabeth Taylor, Ecclestone, Johnny Hallyday, Roger Moore, George Soros, Grace Kelly, Michael Jackson, Lady Diana, Valentino, David Niven, Peter Sellers….I decided to add my name to this illustrious list even though it, as expected, turned out to be a totally-out-of-my-reach window shopping experience. Thankfully there were some surprisingly affordable coffee shops - needless to say, I saw no rich (or famous) people there. But out on the gold-paved roads I did manage to spot women in oversized sunglasses (even though it was raining that day) and fur (faux hopefully) coats daintily trying to cross the streets with their poodles whilst avoiding puddles and horse-drawn carriages clip-clopping by. Did anyone say cliché?
At the Gstaad TIC, I asked the lady which would be a nice place to visit nearby and she suggested the ‘village’ of Thun for which I had to take a train. She obviously had a softer-than-required corner for Thun when she referred to it as a village (even my usually-soaring imagination could not envisage that). And obviously her concept of ‘nearby’ was also different from mine. Anyways, after another stunning train journey I reached Thun armed neither with a map nor the knowledge of that to see / not see there. So I decided to play it by the ear and just walked around. It was pretty town with the usual Swiss town features – river (Aare), Lake (Thunersee), Old town, New town, Rathaus (Town Hall), castle, and a Schloss (palace). The favourite pastime of the locals seemed to be a walk along the lake – so I also did a ‘when in Rome…’ and enjoyed view of the snow-clad mountains that surrounded the lake.
The next morning, while deciding where to visit, I was torn between going to Jungfraujoch and Bern. The tourist in me was crying ‘the former, the former’ but the contrarian in me took me to the train station in Bern. It turned out to be nothing of the capital city I had expected (a princely population of 1,30,000. Capital city?). Yes, there was the large Parliament building, but overall Bern was a pleasant, medieval, and extremely colourful town. The most notable sight in the town is the Zytglogge, which is a colourful clock tower with elaborate moving figures that announce the hour. Unlike the astronomical tower at Prague under which it is impossible to find place to stand, there were only 3 people waiting for the bells to chime at the hour here in Bern.
Bern is littered with a number of fountains with elaborate statues (including one of a bagpipe-playing gentleman and another of an ogre happily devouring children). I quickly swung by Münster (15th Century cathedral) and the Rathaus before heading for the recommended sights in town – Einsteinhaus where our friend lived from 1903-05 (apparently this is where he figured out E=mc2, which most of us still can’t figure out!).
The bear is a symbol of Bern and naturally one of the attractions in town is the Bärengraben (bear pit) where you can see these gentle (from a distance!) but lazy animals enjoying the limelight of the camera flashes.
I also visited the town of Lucern (Luzern in German) which is on the banks of the lake Vierwaldstättersee – Lucern is cleaved by the river Reuss River into the old and new bits of the town. The unmissable sight here is the Chapel Bridge (Kapellbrücke), a wooden bridge originally built in the 14th century (but replaced recently after it was burnt in the 1990s – apparently by a carelessly-left cigarette). Inside the bridge are a series of paintings from the 17th century depicting events from Lucern's history.
And that brought me to the end of my Swiss sojourn (for this year, anyway!)
Prejudices:
- On the train from Gstaad to Thun, I saw the most stunning-looking TT whose gently-cascading chestnut hair caught my eye as she was checking everyone’s ticket. One ‘youth’ had a young persons ticket and she demanded to see some sort of identification for it. He showed her a card which she promptly tore into pieces with the sternest of looks. No messing around with her!
- At the Bern train station, I had some time to kill so I popped into one of the fast-food joints (before you accuse me: No, it was NOT McDonalds). I found a table to stand next to and was biting into my Pizza al taglio when a group of teenagers asked if they could share the table. I don’t stereotype but each of them was wearing a hooded-jacket and their pants were hanging at least one foot below where they should be (how that qualifies as fashion, I have no idea!). Anyway, I now nervously started to munch into my Pizza when one of them tapped me on my shoulder and in the politest possible voice asked me if he could smoke. Normally, when someone asks me that question I always say ‘No’ but this time I was so taken aback by his politeness that I agreed to a spot of passive smoking.
