Land in Zurich or Geneva and let the railway be the itinerary. Lucerne for the lake and its two mountains, Interlaken for the Jungfrau and Lauterbrunnen, Zermatt for the Matterhorn and a car-free village. Bern is the arcaded capital, Basel the museum city on the Rhine, Lausanne and Montreux the vineyard terraces above Lake Geneva. Cross the Gotthard to Ticino and everything turns Italian. June and September bring open trails, running lifts and no summer crowds.
5 Switzerland city guides
Fun fact
The Swiss constitution names no capital. Bern has held the seat of the Federal Council since 1848, but only an act of parliament says so. The city’s formal title is Bundesstadt, federal city.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityIt is four language regions that agree on the institutions and disagree on almost everything else, including lunch. Each reads its own newspapers and votes its own way in referendums. The German-French divide has a name, the Röstigraben, the rösti ditch, and commentators use it without irony.
The realityMostly true, and it is design more than temperament. The railway runs a clockface timetable with connections built in, so trains wait for each other by plan. A three-minute delay matters more here than elsewhere, because it can cost you a whole chain of connections.
The realityAbout two thirds of the country is Alps, and almost nobody lives there. Three quarters of the population is on the plateau between Geneva and the Bodensee: flat, dense, industrial in places, and home to the universities, the banks and most of the jobs. The mountains are the weekend.
The realityReserved, which is different. Small talk with strangers is rarer than in the Anglophone world and privacy matters, but the reserve drops on a trail, in a mountain hut or on a chairlift, where greeting your neighbour is normal. Say hello entering a small shop and you will be met halfway.
How to fit in
- Greet people when you enter a shop, a small restaurant or a mountain hut, and greet them again when you leave. Skipping it reads as rude in a way it does not in a bigger country.
- Say hello to walkers you pass on a trail. Grüezi, bonjour or buongiorno, depending on which side of the country you are on.
- Sunday is quiet by convention and often by rule: no drilling, no mowing, no putting glass in the recycling. Shops are closed, apart from those in the main stations.
- Punctuality is not a preference. Turn up on the minute for a dinner, a tour or a train, because the other party will.
- Keep your voice down on the train, and keep out of the marked silence carriages if you want to take a call at all.
- Litter and recycling are taken seriously enough to be a civic matter. Take rubbish off the mountain with you; the bins that exist are for what fits in them.
Famous Swiss faces
Roger Federer
Henri Dunant
Le Corbusier
Alberto Giacometti
Marco Odermatt
Lara Gut-Behrami
Martina Hingis
H. R. Giger
Paul Klee
Albert Hofmann
Auguste Piccard
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Carl Jung
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Johanna Spyri
Ursula Andress
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Max Frisch
Must-try Swiss food
Fondue
Gruyère and Vacherin melted with white wine and kirsch, eaten off long forks. Winter food.
Raclette
Cheese melted at the cut edge and scraped over potatoes and pickles. Best with a crowd.
Rösti
Grated potato fried into a crisp cake. It named the Röstigraben, the language divide.
Zürcher Geschnetzeltes
Veal strips in a cream and white wine sauce, over rösti. Zurich's contribution.
Cervelat
The everyday sausage, split at both ends and grilled until the tips curl. Hike food.
Älplermagronen
Macaroni, potato, cream and cheese under fried onions, with apple sauce. Herders' food.
Capuns
Spätzle dough and dried meat wrapped in chard and simmered in milk. Graubünden only.
Bündnerfleisch
Beef air-dried in the Graubünden valleys and sliced almost transparent.
Papet vaudois
Leeks and potatoes stewed under a Vaud saucisson that flavours the pot.
Engadiner Nusstorte
Caramel and walnut sealed in shortcrust, built to travel. Graubünden's export pastry.
Basler Läckerli
Hard spiced honey biscuit with candied peel and almonds. Basel's gingerbread.
Birchermüesli
Oats soaked with apple, lemon and cream, devised around 1900 by Dr Bircher-Benner.
Zopf
Braided butter bread for Sunday mornings, torn by hand, with butter and jam.
Milk chocolate
Invented in Vevey in 1875 by Daniel Peter, with condensed milk from his neighbour Nestlé.
Filets de perche
Lake perch fried in butter, with lemon and Chasselas. The Lake Geneva terrace order.
Malakoff
Fried cheese fritters from villages above Lake Geneva, named for a Crimean War battle.
Luganighe with polenta
Ticino's soft pork sausage over slow-stirred polenta. Order it in a grotto.
Risotto with Merlot
Ticino rice cooked in the local Merlot until it turns deep red.
