Switzerland: Where Storybook Dreams Come True

     Late one Wednesday night, my ex-girlfriend’s eldest son asked me if I would visit his school for Friday’s International Day.

     I said, “Sure.  I’ll go for awhile.”  Then he told me I had to dress up in foreign type attire.

     Unfortunately, I had very little time to shop around or even look around for a costume.  You know…the usual busy things like my deadline for completing the monthly publication for which I was serving as editor.

     To make a long story into one of medium length, I called my cousin at 8 on Friday morning. I asked her what Switzerland props I left at her house for a play I wrote and directed complete with song parodies for family and friends to fully participate in to celebrate my sister’s milestone birthday.

     I went to the elementary school dressed in lederhosen, a white shirt, shorts, olive green knee socks with red trim, a strange-looking tan cap and a backpack.

     When I got to the school (in the district I had eventually subbed), some of the teachers asked if I had gotten my assignment yet.  Well, I had spent an hour and a half behind a table of souvenirs, telling grade school kids about Hungary and Italy—the countries represented by the memorabilia in front of me…even though I had never visited either.

     Kids then asked me if I was really from Switzerland, was I a real mountain climber, etc.

     Too bad I wasn’t afforded much time to tell them about Switzerland because I truly fell in love with that country during an earlier May visit.

Midway through my family’s 24-day, fly-drive vacation in Western Europe, we entered Switzerland by way of Annecy, France.  Geneva, on the western edge of Lac Leman’s (Lake Geneva to us) north shore, was our entry point into the land of my favorite vegetable—chocolate!

     Many of you probably know Geneva for two things:  long-time European headquarters of the United Nations and Jet d’Eau.  The ‘water jet’ around the lake at Westport Plaza was a replica of that Geneva landmark.  Geneva’s glorious lakeside promenade and English Gardens are also nice tourist sites.    

     We enjoyed our first glimpse of heaven a few hours later, while driving north then eastward along the lake.  What could be more rewarding than munching on Lindt chocolate liqueur candies while viewing spectacular turquoise waters, brilliant flowers, fabulous Roman ruins perched high upon the hillsides of Nyon, and neat vineyards near Vevey and Montreaux?

     After stopping a short while at Chateau Chillon, made famous in Lord Byron’s “Prisoner of Chillon,” we gazed upon true Swiss fairy tale material. 

 We took a very scenic route—by mistake—around hillsides overlooking grazing cattle between Forel and St. Martin before arriving in Bulle.

     Yes. Bulle.  That’s no bull!  Most Americans spend nights in cities like Geneva, Zurich, Lucerne and Basel.  But we wanted to see the Switzerland that only the Swiss and other Europeans know and love.  In this picturesque setting, we drank some of the cleanest, coldest tap water we ever had.

     Our next stop was the charming cheese town of Gruyeres with its beautiful little church, chalet, small hotels and medieval battlements overlooking a deep valley. 

     That was our final pause before reaching Berne, the capital city and one of our Swiss highlights.  We spent two nights there with the most famous site being the Bear Pits.

     Do you see the connection?  Way back in 1191, the town’s founder, Berchtold V von Zahringen was instructed to name the town after the first animal he discovered while meandering through the nearby forest. 

 Well, he caught a bear or ‘ber’ in German; thus the town’s name of Berne.

     The Bear Pits, or “Barengraben,” was charming as bear pits go, but we got more enjoyments from the Prison Tower, Houses of Parliament, the animated Clock Tower and he flower-laden Universal Postal Union Memorial.

     But nothing we saw in Switzerland (for smells, see Appenzell) quite compared to the fountains and statues we spied along our walking tour of this city of just 135-145 thousand inhabitants.  They (the statues; not the people) were quite bizarre!  Some examples were of Samson slewing the lion, the Blind Lady of Justice with severed heads at her feet, Moses and the Ten Commandments, the Bagpiper, and the piece de resistance…an ogre chomping on misbehaving kids. 

     Since some of the highways to the south are only open from mid-June-mid-August, we had previously replaced the Matterhorn (see Disneyland and Disneyworld) town of Zermatt with a visit to Interlaken.  To get there, we drove through the awe-inspiring Bernese Oberland of central Switzerland to view picturesque castles in the towns of Spiez, Thun and Oberhofen on lovely Lake Thun.  This is truly storybook Switzerland!

From there, we passed spectacular Swiss chalets en route to the tourist resort of Interlaken.  Few places I have been can match the scenic splendor of Interlaken.  If this isn’t paradise, what is?  It’s a veritable Garden of Eden!

     In fact, two of the three slides I had taken there were blown up to 11 x 14 and 14 x 20 photos of the Hotel Metropole with tulips in the foreground and also a snow-capped mountain vista complete with a flower-based meadow.    

     We watched horse-drawn carriage rides as we ate a superb lunch at one of the  Metropole’s restaurants, then capped it off with Kirsch tortes, Cassata au Marrasquin, Iglou Caramel and Chantilly at The Top of the Met, overlooking the city!

     None of us really wanted to leave Interlaken, but we already had pre-paid reservations for Hotel Hirschen in Grindelwald.  The nickname of that town is something like “a tiny toenail at the foothills of the Bernese Oberland.”

     Grindelwald undoubtedly offered us the most fantastic up-close mountain scenery we had ever experienced—snowcapped mountains and vastly flowing waterfalls in all four directions!  The view from our hotel balcony was also the likes of which we had never seen.  That’s where I took my other now blown-up slide of Switzerland--cows with huge bells grazing behind a fence just off the side of the ride through town.

     There was heavy rain and dense fog when we left Grindelwald the next morning.  After a brief drive on the Brunig Pass (talk about a winding and climbing road!), we arrived in Lucerne—finally a Swiss tourist town! 

     The poor weather hardly dampened our shopping spirits!  After all, that’s what Lucerne is best known for.  Our favorite stop for hand-made wooden goods was the Casagrande store.  If you think that’s a weird name for French, German and Italian Switzerland, how about the nearby Olga Portmann Gift Shop or Sancho Cohen’s in Madrid? 

     Highlights of the Lucerne walking tour were a few long-standing traditional favorites.  They were the Musegg Towers, a fortification completed in 1406; the illustrious inside paintings of Chapelbrucke (Chapel Bridge); and the classical Lion (of Lucerne) Monument. 

     The only potential disappointment in Lucerne was the scaffolding and ‘Closed for Repair’ sign at the world famous Stadtkeller Restaurant, at which he had confirmed written reservations three months earlier.  Luckily, our dinner at the fairly fashionable Le Mazot Walliser Spycher made us quickly forget the Stadtkeller.

     As usual, the dessert was the highlight.  I had Coupe Raspberry—fresh raspberries, ice cream, whipped topping and sauce.  Mmmmmmm!!!!!     One of us got a green vegetable named fenkel with their meal.  The waiter not only had trouble describing it to us before he brought it, but we still don’t know to which vegetable it’s related.  After dinner, we had loads of chocolate, including Cognac flavored ones.  Sweet dreams were not too difficult to achieve that night!

     The next morning featured a drive through several lengthy tunnels from Siskion to Fluelen en route to Tellskapelle am Vierwaldstattersee.  Translation:  Wilhelm (William) Tell’s Chapel on Lake Vierwaldstatter.  It was somewhat disappointing, walking down, then back up a path of 188 steps for a tiny church with a handful of colorful murals. 

    Our next memory of Switzerland proved that, despite the unparalleled scenic beauty of this small European country, it is not always entirely pleasing to the senses.  This region of eastern Switzerland, known as Appenzellerland (as in the clothing town of Appenzell), is quite charming with its splendid Alpine lakes.  But that smell!

     It was mid-May, and we were told they use human excrements as fertilizer.  I had to walk around with my handkerchief tied around my face.  Then, we had to drive around this entire area with kirsch sticks thrust up my nostrils as nose savers! 

     But we did cap off our Switzerland trip segment in grand style, visiting the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen!  We viewed the falls from five or six vantage points.  The water flow seemed a lot more forceful than Niagara, and since we were allowed to get so close to it, we got drenched on a few occasions! 

     We were ‘all wet’ from visiting Rhine Falls, but certainly not from spending eight days on our own in Switzerland!