Posts about Switzerland
Switzerland, a quadrilingual country in the middle of Europe, has been my home since 2001.
The Niesen casts a clearly triangular shadow when the sun is low in the sky.
Technology introduced by YouTube last year allows you to click, drag and change your point of view inside a video: watching the action and looking around the camera in any direction.
This bag, which I’ve mainly used for equipment storage for the past few years, is for sale. It’s old and well-worn, but is still in good shape, with all zips in good order and (as far as I can see) no tears or damage. It comes with a small day bag, which fits inside the…
High in the Swiss alps, the Aletsch glacier, various mountain climbers’ huts and the Sphinx observatory all seem to be impossibly high above the real world. However, the statistics for 2015 from the Jungfrau Railway show that they’re not as far from the everyday world as they feel.
Hotel Posthuis in Melchsee Frutt gets a shiny new website, to say thank you for all their hospitality through the years.
The Gurten Hill (or Güsche in local dialect) stands adjacent to the south western edge of Switzerland’s federal capital: Bern. It’s a park, conference venue, hotel, restaurant, model railway, playground, viewpoint, music festival venue and beloved free-time destination, not just for Bern locals, but also to many other visitors looking for a break from the city.…
Dense, grey fog on the lakes in the Bernese Oberland means that it’s best to head for the surrounding hills and mountains to get above the cloud and into the sunshine. We took a drive up a road we’d never used before – an unrestricted, toll-free one for a change – and ended up high…
We are ever grateful for the opportunity to live in such a beautiful country. For the luck which means that we are of sufficient means to decide, based on a weather forecast, to drive for fifteen minutes and ascend in a rattling funicular cabin to a place which feels like the top of the world. All to…
The valley at Zermatt is surrounded by nearly three dozen peaks with summits higher than 4,000 metres above sea level. The Breithorn is well-known as the “easiest” to ascend: although easiness is, of course, a matter of reference. The number of tiny, ant-like climbers on the slopes leading from the Breithorn Plateau was quite amazing, when…
One of the more spectacular mountain lakes in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland is at Oeschinensee, in a hanging valley easily reached by cable car from the town of Kandersteg. If you’re feeling lazy, then the walk to the lakeside restaurant is a fairly easy one. If you’re more adventurous, then there are a network of paths leading…
The mountain restaurant and top cable car station at First, above Grindelwald, affords amazing views down to the valley and to the huge wall of rock opposite: including the famous Eiger North Wall.
I am rarely in Zurich and I prefer the countryside and mountains to cities these days. But I like to be in the midst of industrial architecture sometimes, and one of my favourite sites is the former milk processing plant in the industrial area of Pfingstweid. Mainly because of the huge corkscrew ramp leading up to…
Lessons learned and presentations seen at this year’s WordPress conference in Zurich.
Beautiful time lapse sequences from canton Wallis (Valais) by filmmaker Christian Mülhauser.
Experiencing vertigo for the first time on a high-alpine route in the mountains above Melchsee-Frutt.
The Swiss need foreigners to keep their tourism industry afloat, but many resent the fact enough to complain about it, publicly and loudly.
Hiking in the rain along an unexpectedly steep route from the viewpoint above Interlaken.
Fast anderthalb Stunden in Begleitung der «Rotbiene»: der Rettungsdienst von Air Zermatt rund ums Matterhorn. Wenn ich mit 28 mit mehr Geld im Konto in die Schweiz gekommen wäre, wäre ich Helikopterpilot geworden. Weil meine Geschichte diesen Weg nicht folgte, muss ich mich mit ein paar Touristenflüge pro Jahrzehnt und das Zuschauen von solchen Dokumentarfilmen zurecht finden.
Jo bought a new bike in 2012 but hasn’t used it as much as she’d expected, so it’s up for sale at Fr. 450 (or near offer). It’s a 21-speed Kalkhoff bike, made of aluminium, and in near-new condition. If you’re interested, there are photos and details at http://velo.mhm.li/: please do get in touch via email, Twitter…
A picturesque hike on the way to the Faulhorn, from Grindelwald First in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland.
