Land of Milk & Chocolate. Review on Switzerland, General

My first trip to Switzerland was in Fall of 1981. I had been traveling with my friends Mike and Matt (on their dime--thanks eternally, guys!) through Europe and needed a respite from the continual round of churches, museums, and antiquities. Matt is the world's best tourguide, and had planned our trip in microscopic detail. E.g., he knew when we would most need to use the men's room, and planned the trip so that one would be nearby when the happy incident occurred (okay, it wasn't quite THAT well-planned).

In any case, I had read a lot about a Christian retreat called L'abri, run by a well-known thinker, Francis Schaeffer, and I was eager to make a visit and relax in the hills for a couple of days while my friends toured Paris. Little did I know that the few days would turn into four months.

L'abri is in the small village of Huemoz, about 50 kms. up in the mountains from Lausanne. Huemoz has fantastic views of the Dents du Midi, a 10,000-ft massif across the valley, and further beyond, Mont Blanc. It is surrounded on all sides by beautiful green fields and picturesque chalets and half-timbered cottages. I worked and studied there, taking long walks along the many trails that wound through the hills, and around every bend there was a new wonderful discovery--a shepherd with a flock of sheep leaping up the hills, stands of fragrant pinewoods, an old hotel/cafe with the best cafe au lait and chocolates.

One of the first things that sinks in about Switzerland is how well-run the joint is--on train trips through the country, along the highways, in the towns and villages, everything is sparkling clean. You never see litter or rusting hulks along the highways--it is as if the entire country is freshly scrubbed each evening in preparation for the new day. And of course, this is all paid for somehow--Switzerland has among the highest tax rates in the world along with its high standard of living. An example of the fine maintenance. Once while I was there, in December, there was a snowfall that lasted for two days; there was over two feet of snow on the rooftops and in the village streets. Walking up to the next town just after the snow stopped, I was amazed to see that a bridge over a gorge had been constructed so that the sides could be removed and bulldozers were taking the excess snow from all of the village streets and pushing it into the canyon. Within a few hours, the streets were all cleared, and 100-foot mound of snow reached nearly to the bottom of the bridge.

But I digress. What to do in Switzerland? Well, skiing, of course, in the winter. There are narrow-gauge red trains that traverse nearly every mountain, seemingly, in Switzerland, and you can easily get up into all but the most remote regions. Even if you don't ski, these are a great treat, as you can take a train up the mountain and hike down from almost anywhere. Hiking is unparalleled--the paths are all well-groomed and offer the best way to see those ''Sound of Music'' or ''Heidi'' views that your heart is longing to experience. The trains aren't cheap (nothing in Switzerland is cheap, especially in an era of a strong Euro), but you can get a Eurailpass in many countries that will cover 7, 14, or 21 days in the range of $300-$600.

Hotels in Switzerland deserve their reputation as among the best in the world, but at a price. Since I don't have $300/night for a nice hotel, I prefer pensiones, the Swiss versions of bed-and-breakfasts. While not cheap (it's hard now to find one for under 50 Euros/night), they are very clean, comfortable (usually providing warm eiderdowns--down comforters), and include huge breakfasts. Most also include dinner at an extra charge (usually around 10 Euros, including wine), and you'll have an opportunity to sample famous Swiss fondue or raclette, a dish made from roasting cheese under an on-table broiler, and then scraping it onto potatoes and boiled onions--delicious!).

There are three languages spoken in the three major areas of Switzerland: French in the west, German in the east, and Italian in the south. I've never visited the southern area of Switzerland, but have toured some of the French and German areas. In the east, there is of course Geneva, a modern metropolis, but with a lovely old town where you can walk where John Calvin once walked. Geneva, like the rest of Switzerland, is expensive, and while a lot of people swear by it, I see it as more a place to change trains than anything else. Better (for me) are Lausanne and Montreux, on the northern shores of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva): beautiful promenades along the lake, medieval castle walls, wonderful little cobblestone lanes--areas of Lausanne will make you swear you are back in the middle ages.

In the east, my favorite places are Interlaken--a beautiful land of lakes and mountains with old amazingly-detailed baroque churches, Zurich, the cosmopolitan shopping city, Winterthur, which has a world-class art museum, and Switzerland's ancient capital, Bern. For sheer ambience, Bern is one of the great capitals of the world. It's small by most standards, but beautifully situated and again with a medieval city and castle walls.

If you're flying into Switzerland, most flights will take you to either Geneva or Zurich. If you only have a few days to spend, decide whether you want to visit the French, Italian, or German areas (if Italian, it probably makes more sense to fly into Milan, Italy and travel north through Como and then on to Switzerland). The airports are easy to navigate, and nearly everyone in Switzerland speaks English, so getting directions is no problem.

In brief: Switzerland is an expensive jewel of a country. However, as one of the most beautiful places on earth, it is worth the scrimping and saving to experience a journey about as close to Heaven as we are likely to get in this lifetime.