The Rough Guide to Switzerland 2 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

by Matthew Teller (Author) "Flying is by far the easiest, cheapest and most convenient way to get from Britain to Switzerland..." (more)
Key Phrases: hostels with dormitories, pass holders travel, anything between sixty, New Zealand, World War, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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INTRODUCTION

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love; they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Orson Welles as Harry Lime, in The Third Man (1949)

Never has one throwaway movie line done so much to damage the reputation of a whole country. Even now, despite being one of the most visited countries in Europe, Switzerland remains one of the least understood. The facts are that until national reconciliation in 1848, Switzerland was the most consistently turbulent, war-torn area of Europe (so much for brotherly love), and yet, both before and after it found stability, it brought forth such literary and artistic pioneers as Hans Holbein, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Paul Klee, Hermann Hesse and Alberto Giacometti (so much for the cuckoo clock – a Bavarian invention, anyway).

But two centuries of tourism have left their mark: faced by an ever-increasing onslaught of visitors, these days the Swiss are content to abide by a quaint stereotype of Switzerland that’s easily packaged and sold – the familiar Alpine idyll of cheese and chocolate, Heidi and the Matterhorn – while keeping the best bits for themselves. Come for a "Lakes and Mountains" package, or a week of skiing, or a short city-break, and you’ll get all the pristine beauty, genteel calm and well-oiled efficiency of the Switzerland that the locals deem suitable for public consumption. The other Switzerland – the one the Swiss inhabit – needs time and patience to winkle out of its shell, but can be an infinitely more rewarding place to explore.

Within this rugged environment, community spirit is perhaps stronger than anywhere else in Europe. Since the country is not an ethnic, linguistic or religious unity, it has survived – so the Swiss are fond of saying – simply through the will of its people to resolve their differences. Today, a unique style of "bottom-up" democracy ensures real power still rests with the people, who seem to vote almost monthly on a series of referenda affecting all aspects of life from local recycling projects to national economic policy. The constitution devolves power upwards from the people to municipal governments and up again to the regions (known as cantons), only as a last resort granting certain powers to the federal government.

This kind of decentralized structure means that the cantons – which are, in essence, tiny self-governing republics who have volunteered to join together – have mostly held onto their own, unique flavours. Although Swiss people value their shared Swissness above all, they also cherish their own home-town identity and their differences from their neighbours.

Tensions exist between the four language communities, as they do between Catholic and Protestant, or between urban and rural areas, while regional characteristics remain sharply defined and diverse. Local pride is fuelled by a range of traditional folkloric customs, most of which stem from pagan or medieval Christian festivals. Most prominent of these is carnival, held around the country on or around Mardi Gras, the last day before Lent. The most exuberant celebrations, held in Luzern, Bern and Basel, feature bands, masked parades, street dancing and spontaneous partying that belie the stereotype of a placid, unadventurous Switzerland. A host of smaller events fills out the calendar and it’s still easily possible to stumble on village festivals that have been staged by local people for centuries past.

This sense of cultural continuity sits oddly with the fact that Switzerland has grown into one of the world’s richest countries. Its economy is small-scale but thoroughly modern: traditional industries such as watchmaking and textiles now thrive by focusing closely on the luxury end of the market and have ceded prime position to engineering, pharmaceuticals and service industries galore. Tourism has been a high earner since the mid-nineteenth century, when the Alps became both a fashionable destination for wealthy travellers and a prescribed retreat for sufferers from respiratory diseases needing curative sunshine and fresh mountain air. And yet the country, seized by an increasingly anachronistic national Kantönligeist, still stands alone. In the 1940s, Switzerland was surrounded by hostile Axis powers; these days, it’s encircled by the "friendly" EU. With the end of the Cold War, recent damaging revelations of Swiss collaboration with the Nazi Third Reich, and increasingly close ties amongst Western European nations, Swiss neutrality rings ever more hollow – and yet, far from embracing a wider perspective, the country has collectively taken a step into conservatism. Commentators are noting sadly that Switzerland is only now embarking on the kind of multiethnic social integration that its neighbours began in the 1950s.

Having taken centuries to bolt their country together from diverse elements, the Swiss seem instinctively to return to their sense of community spirit, expressed most tangibly in the order and cleanliness you’ll see on show everywhere. Yet the sterility so decried by Graham Greene (who wrote Harry Lime’s jibe about brotherly love), if it characterizes any part of the country, applies only to the glossy, neatly packaged tourist idyll of lakes and mountains. The three great Swiss cities of Geneva, Zürich and Basel are crammed with world-class museums and galleries. In Zürich and Lausanne, there’s a humming arts scene and underground club culture that feeds nightlife as vibrant as anything you’ll find in much larger European cities.

The landscapes are dominated by the Alps and their foothills, but mountains aren’t the only story. In the north and centre are lush, rolling grasslands epitomized by the velvety green hills of the Emmental, traditional dairy-farming country. Vineyards rise tiered above Lake Geneva, the Rhône valley and the Rhine. The fairytale southeast is cut through by wild, high-sided valleys, lonely, dark and thickly forested. Most surprisingly of all, bordering Italy in the south you’ll find subtropical Mediterranean-style flower gardens, sugarloaf hills and sunny, palm-fringed lakes. For a small, little-regarded mid-continental country with a profound image problem, Switzerland has plenty more to offer than most visitors suspect.

About the Author
Matthew Teller is an experienced and accomplished travel writer. He is also the author of the Rough Guide to Jordan.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 2nd edition (June 23, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843530643
• ISBN-13: 978-1843530640
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #623,631 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you can only get one guide on CH - this is it, August 16, 2002

By	Chia-heng Yao "milesyao" (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Switzerland, 1st Edition (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

Doing my due diligence on this year's trip to Switzerland, I checked all the relevent guidebooks in local bookstores. Finally settled on this book over the similar Lonely Planet one. This one wins out for all the bonus info it manages to squeeze into its numerous sidebars. I am especially impressed by its mini-history of counterculture in Bern and Zurich - throws a monkey wrench into the usual Swiss stereotypes. It labors to do justice to the many less-well-known charms of Switzerland, and to a large degree seems to succeed (e.g. a full section on CERN - birthplace of the web), while still remaining compact and useful (as opposited to Michelin)

However, there are still a few shortcomings:
* No coverage of the major scenic trains of the Swiss Railway (Golden Pass, Glacier Express, William Tell Express, etc.) A major omission, since they are well-known, excellent experience in themselves, and make for a great backbone to hang your entire visit.
* More generally, not enough help for new visitors to pick and choose all these sights and put together a sensible itinery, e.g. scenic routes, top-10 experiences, and sample 7-day or 14-day itineries (although very few guidebooks do this). In particular, the book should help me take advantage of the best rail system in the world to maximize my stay. Swiss Rail deserves a section all its own.
* Not enough web addresses are supplied for hotels, attractions etc. where usually only phone #s are given. URLs are much more useful than phone #s for trip-planning (esp. hotels).
* A general problem for Swiss guidebooks, but still annoying: On Lake Leman and Maggiore, coverage stops at the border, as if the other French and Italian halves don't exist. C'mon - borders are for politicians. When I am at Lake Maggiore, I want to know what's there around the _whole_ lake, and how to enjoy them all. Just give me the info and I'll deal with the technicalities. In the case of Lake Leman, the French side on the south may well be on another planet - cuz it's too small for the French guides to cover!
* In Jungfrau region, it overlooks the small town of Gimmelwald - currently the exclusive scoop of the Rick Steves book

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for a Swiss trip.. I would combine with one other, April 10, 2004

By	10za "10za" (Alpharetta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

What I like best about the Rough Guides is that they give critical reviews. They will point out the tourist traps and will give negative reviews. I find that Frommer's and Fodor's rarely point out the negatives to a particular hotel or site. The rough guide is very critical and is a great balance to these other guides. I would balance your trip to Switzerland with a Fodors (or Frommers) book because the maps are often better and there are more higher end hotels listed.

This book will help you decide where is best to spend your vacation in Switzerland. There are clear critical descriptions of all the regions and great general info on getting around in Switzerland.

If you aren't interested in "roughing" it and staying in lower priced hotels.. the guides are still very useful in rating attractions, and areas in which to stay... but you will need another book to look at more moderate and luxury hotels.

I would definitely read this book before going to Switzerland.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not great, August 9, 2004

By	T. Hooper "thdizzy" (Osaka, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This guidebook covers Switzerland from a British point of view. The Rough Guide series is not known for it's in depth coverage. The entries in this guide tend to be brief--only giving a mention and a list of business hours and transportation info. For those who are looking for more in depth coverage, this obituaries style of writing may leave you looking for something else. If you cut out the phone numbers, lists of business hours, and transportation information, then the page count would be cut in half. Also, for a book that spends so much time talking about transportation, it's a little frustrating that there aren't more maps to illustrate the directions. If you're looking for a comprehensive guidebook for Switzerland, I would get another guidebook.