As a result of its extreme cleanliness, utilitarian architecture and infrastructure and pristine natural beauty, Switzerland has gained a global reputation as being sterile and even boring. My visits to the Land of Chocolate have painted a different picture, however, one most probably influenced by the fact that one of my very best friends in the world — who is currently on a plane bound for Texas — lives there.
If you find yourself in Switzerland and aren’t completely delighted, find yourself a local companion — the notion that Swiss people are too snobbish to talk to strangers is also bullshit.
When I arrived to Zürich Airport inbound from Istanbul last October, Bianca and our friend Estelle were waiting for me at the exit. I hadn’t seen either of them since my previous visit to Switzerland in 2008, so the experience was almost surreal for the first several hours I was there. Thankfully it had worn off by the next morning, which the three of us spent blowing bubbles in Bianca’s back garden. Yes, I said “blowing bubbles” — Switzerland’s uniformly high standard of living imbues a carefree, almost childlike quality into many of its residents.
Bianca lives in a small city called Wettingen, located in the canton of Aargau, which borders Zürich to the west. Although Wettingen is just 15 minutes from both central Zürich and its airport by train, it is considered a separate entity due to its proximity to Baden, the adjacent city in Aargau that is better known than Wettingen, in spite of Wettingen being larger. Prices of transport into Zürich — one Swiss stereotype I won’t attempt to refute is how damn expensive it is — reflect this: a one-way train journey from Wettingen or Baden to the Zürich Haubtbahnhof costs CHF 15,50, or nearly $1 per minute.
Of course, the fact that Bianca lives outside of central Zürich never has much effect on the fun we have together. After enjoying an evening out with Estelle and her then-boyfriend in central Baden, we scaled the Stein Castle that overlooks the town, which had been a holdout for the Austrian Habsburg dynasty before being destroyed in 1415 and 1712. At some point the castle was rebuilt and now provides a stunning vantage point for all of Aargau, one that’s particular breathtaking at night — and particularly after indulging in some herbal refreshment, as Bianca and I did after we reached the peak.
In spite of being only 15 minutes away from one of the most sophisticated urban centers in the world, Bianca’s neighborhood — and indeed, the entire city of Wettingen — is extremely bucolic. The morning after our night out in Baden we scaled the hill that overlooks Wettingen. As you can see, the friends we met along the way were happy to see us.
After spending a few days getting re-acquainted with Baden, Bianca, Estelle, her then-boyfriend and I headed southwest to Bern, the Swiss capital. Among the first facts I learned about the Swiss capital upon my arrival there is that its name derives from the German word for “bear” — and with good reason: the Bärengraben (literally, “pit of bears”) sits along the west bank of the River Aare, which is incidentally the same one that runs through Baden and Wettingen. In fact, it’s the namesake of Aargau state. Although the bears (there were two when I was there) are kept behind a fence to prevent them from escaping, they have ample space to play, both on land and in the water, as you can see.
Aesthetically, Bern is exactly what you would expect from a Swiss city, let alone its capital, with meticulously-contstructed houses of nearly equal height arranged in symmetrical, even patterns that exude order, sophistication and class. A building known as the Bundeshaus, which houses the Swiss parliament and a portion of the executive branch, sits along the northern periphery of the town center. The benches that overlook the Aare as it flows behind the so-called “Swiss White House” also provide stunning views of the Alps, so it wasn’t surprising that this was where Bianca and I chose to light up. We won’t get caught, she assured me as she began rolling the joint. I smoke back here all the time. After two hours of being held and a steep fine of CHF 180, Bianca had been proven wrong. The good news is that I can finally say I’ve been arrested. Without handcuffs, no less — those darn civilized Swiss people!
My final destination in Switzerland before Bianca and I headed to Amsterdam to catch what would be a disastrous Tori-Amos-With-An-Orchestra concert was the Swiss Alps. Bianca and Estelle took me to a settlement called Melchsee-Frutt, which sits adjacent to a lake that sits on a high alpine plateau. As we boarded the cable car that would take us to the peak, I had to convince myself that the Swiss were skilled enough engineers to have factored Robert Schrader’s personal safety into the equation when they designed the lift. Thankfully, we were surrounded by clouds for the first several minutes of our journey, which concealed how high off the ground we were — and, thus, how certain our death would be in the event of a malfunction. As you can see, that didn’t last long.
In spite of continued cloudy weather upon our arrival at the top, our time there was pleasant, the lake itself filled with water so clean I literally drank right out of it. Although the towering peaks that roses around us were humbling in their grandeur, the lilliputian frogs hopping around everywhere were most certainly my favorite memory of my brief time in the Swiss Alps. Interestingly, people who see this photo comment as much on the frog itself as how fantastic Bianca’s fake nails are.
Robert Schrader is a travel writer and photographer who’s been roaming the world independently since 2005, writing for publications such as “CNNGo” and “Shanghaiist” along the way. His blog, Leave Your Daily Hell, provides a mix of travel advice, destination guides and personal essays covering the more esoteric aspects of life as a traveler.
