That is the capital city? Are you sure? (Jan'10)

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.

...and they came tumbling after (Jan'10)

Apparently once you learn cycling, you never forget it. They say the same is true for skiing too. Bullshit! (pardon my French). I learnt this the hard way on the ski-slopes exactly a year after I could effortlessly (over optimistic recall of events?) negotiate the blues pistes. But not so this time - I was surprised by how much my ability to ski had regressed in a year’s time.

My aforesaid skills and talents were being tested in Torgon / La Jorette which is part of the Portes Du Soleil region between Mont Blanc and Lake Geneva. Apparently, there are 650 kms of ski runs in the region. Of course I wasn’t able to test by tumbling skills over all of them.

Our instructor, Giuseppe, was neither French nor Swiss but Napolitano. We found it easier to address him as Pepe - it saved time when we were desperately trying to attract his attention (as in 'Pepe, I’m stuck’ or ‘Pepe help!!!!!!!’). He tried (quite hard) to make us lose our dependence on the ‘Snow plough’ and instead try to turn and stop with parallel skis (his shouts of ‘Ski Parallel ! Ski Parallel !’ still run through my ears).

For the first few days I struggled immensely with the slopes (even the not-so-steep ones) as I developed a fear of being ‘stuck’ on top. And it was not easy seeing the 3-4 year old kids negotiating the slopes with such ease (maybe it has something to do with their fearlessness or the fact that we adults think that we’re shouldering the burdens of the entire world and cannot afford to fall or break bones).

Every evening, après the après-ski, we would head down to the nearest town, Montreux (which was about 15 kms away). Montreux's landmark is the Chateau de Chillon (apparently made famous by Byron in his poem, The prisoner of Chillon), but the town also has a couple of Rock-music connections.

Queen (not Charles’ mother) recorded an album here in 1978 and Freddie Mercury liked the town so much that he bought an apartment there. His stay here is immortalised by an oft-photographed statue of his on the shores of lake Geneva.

The other rock-music connection is thanks to Frank Zappa.

He was performing at the Casino in 1971 when the casino caught fire and the members of another rock band, Deep Purple, saw the fire spreading over Lake Geneva and were inspired to pen ‘Smoke on the Water’. Apparently the fire had started when someone fired a flare gun into the ceiling (this intelligence-challenged gentleman is the ‘some stupid with a flare gun’ in the song).

Ok back to skiing. I finally got over the fear of getting stuck on the pistes (not easy at all to put the skis back on if you lose one of them on a steep slope). This loss-of-fear happened quite inadvertently - once when I got stuck on the slope and had just finished my wee picnic (whenever I fell on the slopes – I would just take out my provisions of chocolates and enjoy the scenery). So that day, I took off my other ski and walked down the slope. After that I lost all fear of falling on the slopes. And the rest as they say, is whizzing history. Whistler (Gold medal and all) here I come (Winter Olympics, duh!).

The skiing (or rather my attempts not to fall face down) was rewarded with body aches and pains, which were best tackled by a visit to the spa-town of Leukerabad known for its thermal springs (apparently in use from Roman times). We visited the biggest of these baths (apparently there are 22 thermal pools) at Burgerbad. These springs, though not as elaborate as the ones at Budapest, had something else going for them. The view! Sitting in the warm outdoor baths (with sub-zero temperatures in the air) one got a 360° view of the snow-clad mountains. No better way to forget ones aches, pains, and failures on the ski slopes.

Slipping / Sliding on the slopes (Jan, 2009)

Travelling a bit frequently does bring with it the same complacency that i've noticed in spouses who have been with each other for too long. I also take my preparations for granted – I use a checklist to pack at what can be considered dangerously last minute. And then just before travelling I prepare a list of my flights / hotel details to keep in my pocket. As I was doing it this time I was quite excited - was travelling to Geneva and then moving to the Grand Massif region in France to try my feet at a bit of skiing. And on the way back, I was planning to hang around a bit in Geneva and Zurich.

Whilst preparing the 'hotels detail' list, I wondered why the Hotel in Geneva had France written at the end of its address (I had booked the hotel a few weeks earlier). On a bit of investigation I realised that I had booked a hotel with the correct name I was looking for, but the only hitch being that it was in a French village some hundreds of miles away from Geneva. Imagine the look on my face (and that of the hotel staff in Geneva) when I would have brandished the printout of the hotel booking only to be told that I was about 200 kms away from where I should have been. Fortunately, I discovered this faux-pas while in the warm confines of my flat in Edinburgh rather than at the hotel lobby in Geneva.
But that was not the end of the frequent-traveller-fouling-up story - In the shuttle on my way to Edinburgh Airport, I was remembering the four girls throwing up when I was on the shuttle the last time - and laughing at how stupid some people can be when I realised that I was going to the Airport four hours in advance of the flight time (instead of the required two). In my over-enthusiasm and oh-i-travel-frequently complacency, I subconsciously subtracted two hours twice from the flight time.
As I was checking-in (after twiddling my thumbs for two hours at the airport), I noticed that I was the only one who didn't have skis or snow-boards. The entire plane seemed to be filled with downhill, slalom, and snow-boarding experts. I pretended to have the look and confidence of someone who has a pair of skis waiting for him at every port. But I think my being Indian must have given me away.
Travelling in Europe by public transport can be extremely inefficient - after a two hour train journey from Geneva to the French 'town' of Cluses, I took a 30 minute taxi ride to get to the village of Samoens (which is probably only 50 miles from Geneva). The Taxi driver, encouraged by my attempts to make conversation in French, decided to have a discourse with me (in his mother tongue, naturellement) about the etymology of the term 'Indo-Europeans' (I had no idea) and why Red Indians are so called (atleast I knew that one). Then he wanted to know what we Indians think of Monsieur Sarkozy and Madame Bruni. For me, the 30 minutes passed extremely slowly.
The village of Samoens (in ze French Alps), with a population of around 2k, would be missed by most people were it not been for the fact that it lies below the Grand Massif Ski area (which has over 260 kms of pistes). Despite the fact that there was snow all around, the weather was rather good with the Sun god smiling on me for most of my stay there (as opposed to his perpetual anger with me whilst I am in Scotland). To reach the pistes, one needed to take a cable car (tele-pherique) upto mille-six-cents ('1600': a referent to the altitude). From there, one could get a 360- view of snow clad mountains. But once on the ski slopes, the panoramic view was the last thing on my mind – getting a sense of balance and trying not to tumble over was priority numero un.
Since I had done skiing ('done' is probably an optimistic overstatement) only once earlier, the instructor made me start with the 'green' slopes - the level of difficulty is denoted by colours - green (obviously, the easiest), blue, red, and then finally black - I harboured no misconceptions how much my skiing 'skills' would increase over the 6 days I planned to be there. But I surprised my instructor, and myself, when, by the end of the week, I managed to handle the intermediate blue slopes as well. My instructor, unable to pronounce my name, started calling me 'Jean Paul'.
The instructress had a typical 'I am fransh' accent and whenever she said something I had to keep a straight face - my biggest test came when she was teaching me how to get up if one falls down - she said 'keeeep yourgh aind naixt to yourgh buim' (the last word was said in an extremely Inspector-Clouseau-esque fashion). I burst into laughter when I pictured Peter Sellers with the 'BuimB' in his hand and a puzzled expression on his face. My instructor fortunately didn't understand why I was struggling to hide a giggle.
What really scares novices like me are the skills which the youngsters there had. Children as young as 3 or 4 years zip down the slopes with ease while those like me tentatively slide and crash their way down. During winters, the school kids of the area come for skiing twice a week as part of their school curriculum – a bit different from where/when I was growing up. Having no fear of falling, or the concomitant embarrassment, these kids learn very fast while elders (and I think I just about fall in this category) struggle to pick up the sense of balance and turn on the slopes.
But it is also fun to see the instructors leading the children in a neat row (like a mother-hen or mother-duck leading her ward in a file). And at every turn one (or two) of the little ducklings tumble over. It is difficult for them to get up also and I think the instructors don't help them to get up (so that they learn to do it on their own).
After 'skiing' down to the bottom of the slopes (in my case the verb should be 'tumble' or 'slide'), one takes a tele-ski (pulled by a rod), tele-siege (seat), or a tele-cabine (duh!) to get back to the top. Using the first two is not at all easy and requires just about as much skill and confidence as one does to ski. The tele-ski is the trickiest as one has to let go of it at the right time when one reaches the top. If you let go of it a bit early, or a bit late, you are in for trouble. And heaven forbid, if someone falls in front of you - because there is precious little you can do - you cannot let go of the tele-ski because you will slide / tumble down again - not a pretty sight.
So, on my last run on one of the days, when I was feeling rather good about having survived a day without having broken anything, a little child in front of me toppled over. Not yet possessing adequate skills to avoid the child, I also toppled over and then two other children behind me also crashed into us – and then the four of us slowly started to slide down the slope. It did give all the others a funny story to tell around the fireplace.
Getting up after one has fallen down is probably the toughest thing to do. I had to undergo all sorts of permutations and combinations – toppling over with the skis still on, toppling over on a steep slope with one ski having fallen about 10 painful metres away, falling on level ground with the instructor at hand to help me get up, stumbling with both skis off. Again there is little novices like me can do apart from wait for some samaritan to stop. Once, on the reddest of the blue slopes, I struggled for over 10 minutes to get to my ski which was about 5 metres away – but then I couldn't get the ski to snap on. That is when an extremely stunning looking French lady came and helped me – obviously amused to find me there. I didn't know whether to thank her (for saving me) or to thank God (for sending a beautiful angel from his/her repertoire!)
Given the cold weather and the calories I burnt, I could obviously be forgiven for perpetually consuming Fondue and Raclette - both of which are specialities of the Savoie region. In Samoens, I also went for an extremely traditional meal in a cute family-run restaurant where the house speciality was 'Soup Chatree' (?)– roughly translated as 'castrated soup'. Before your imagination ventures into a painful flight, let me clarify – the soup is made of cheese (naturally) and bread crumbs and slowly solidifies as one is eating it - which is why it needs to be cracked. Hence the castration. It was probably one of the heaviest meals I have had in a long while, Fondue notwithstanding.

After a week of skiing, in which I didn't break anything, apart from my pride on my numerous falls, I moved to Geneva. I can safely claim to have seen quite a few cities / towns in Europe by now – and I can equally confidently say that Geneva is the least inspiring of all of them. It does have a lake (Lac Leman) and a river (Rhone) and the iconic Jet d'eau (which, btw, throws up 500 litres of water every second, and at any point in time more than 7000 litres of water are in the air!). But that is about it – the rest of Geneva is all about expensive jewellery, antique, and watch shops (none of which I could even think of entering). The St. Pierre Cathedral is comme-ci comme ca (as ze locals would say) and the view one gets of the city from atop (154 steps) could have been nice if there was something nice to look at. The only thing of interest in the city was the was the 'Palais des Nations'(which used to be the headquarters of the League of Nations, and now houses various offices of the UN - Some of the conference rooms were really spectacular. My big disappointment was that I was not able to go onto a guided tour of CERN (one has to book months in advance - which, obviously, I didn't have the foresight to do).
I, however, did manage to have a meal at an Indian restaurant - replete with Kingfisher beer and tasty naan. I had gone at an odd time so I was the only customer. The 3 Indian boys who were serving plied me with copious quantities of daal and questions about what I was doing there. After a while we broke into Punjabi – they were watching a Punjabi movie (with French subtitles!) that was rather amusing. When I asked them who the hero of this 'cinematic masterpiece' was – all of them looked hurt. "Tussi Baboo Mann noo naee jaande?" ('You don't know Baboo Mann?') all of them said in a rather insulted chorus. Due apologies to Mr. Mann (whoever he is!)
From Geneva I moved to Zurich, before heading back to Edinburgh. Zurich initially seemed to be as uninspiring as Geneva – a Champs-elysee type street 'Bahnofstrasse' which had all the ridiculously expensive watch and jewellery shops and the banks. But the 'old part of town' with its three churches (one of which has extremely beautiful stained glass windows, and another has Europe's largest clock face - 8.7 metres diameter) did do a lot to salvage the pride of Zurich. By the end of it, I quite liked the feel of the town. It is also situated on a lake (Zurichsee) and the river Limmat cleaves the town into 2 quaint parts. The local museum 'Kunsthaus' did have an extremely nice collection of paintings (including Monet, Renoir, and Degas). For lunch, I walked into the highly recommended 110 year-old vegetarian joint HILTL (never could figure the name out) where I got to eat an extremely tasty Indian thali along with their organic beer. I got myself a nice table by the window and watched all the frenetic, well-heeled and chic shoppers amble by, while I dug into the food and beer.