Land in Zurich or Geneva and treat the railway as the itinerary. A first week runs along the plateau and then climbs: Lucerne for the lake and the two mountains above it, Interlaken for the Jungfrau region and the Lauterbrunnen valley, Zermatt for the Matterhorn and a village with no cars in it. Bern is the quiet capital with the arcades and the bear park, Basel is the museum city on the Rhine, and Lausanne and Montreux hold the vineyard terraces above Lake Geneva. If you want somewhere that feels like a different country, cross the Gotthard to Ticino, where the signs, the lunch and the light all turn Italian. June and September are the sweet spots: trails open, lifts running, and the July and August crowds either not there yet or gone.
4 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, which is why the city’s formal title is Bundesstadt, federal city, rather than capital.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityIt is four language regions that agree on the institutions and disagree on almost everything else, including lunch. The German-speaking centre and east, French-speaking Romandie, Italian-speaking Ticino and Romansh Graubünden read differently in their newspapers, vote differently in referendums and eat differently at noon. The line between the German and French halves has a name, the Röstigraben, the rösti ditch, and it is used in political commentary without irony.
The realityMostly true, and it is a design choice rather than a national temperament. The railway runs a clockface timetable in which connections are built into the schedule, so trains wait for each other at the junctions by plan. What follows is that a delay of three minutes matters here in a way it does not elsewhere, because it can cost you a chain of connections rather than one train.
The realityAbout two thirds of the country is Alps, but almost nobody lives there. Three quarters of the population is on the plateau between Geneva and the Bodensee, which is flat, dense, industrial in places and where the universities, the banks and most of the jobs are. The mountains are the weekend, not the address.
The realityReserved, which is not the same thing. Small talk with strangers is rarer than in the Anglophone world and privacy is taken seriously, but the reserve drops on a trail, in a mountain hut or on a chairlift, where greeting the person next to you is the norm rather than an intrusion. Say hello when you enter 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
Carl Jung
Alberto Giacometti
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Johanna Spyri
Ursula Andress
Marco Odermatt
Lara Gut-Behrami
Martina Hingis
H. R. Giger
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Paul Klee
Albert Hofmann
Auguste Piccard
Max Frisch
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Must-try Swiss food
Raclette
Half a wheel of cheese melted at the cut edge and scraped over potatoes, gherkins and pickled onions. Slower than fondue and better with a crowd.
Rösti
Grated potato pressed flat and fried until the crust holds. It gave its name to the Röstigraben, the invisible line between the German and French halves of the country.
Zürcher Geschnetzeltes
Strips of veal in a cream and white wine sauce, served over rösti. Zurich's contribution to the national menu.
Cervelat
The everyday sausage, split at both ends and grilled over a fire until the tips curl. Eaten on hikes, at football and at every village fete.
Älplermagronen
Macaroni, potato, cream and cheese under fried onions, with apple sauce alongside. Herders' food, and still the best thing on a mountain hut menu.
Capuns
Spätzle dough and dried meat wrapped in chard leaves and simmered in milk. A Graubünden dish that barely travels past the canton border.
Papet vaudois
Leeks and potatoes stewed slowly under a saucisson from Vaud, which flavours the whole pot as it cooks.
Basler Läckerli
A hard, spiced honey biscuit with candied peel and almonds, cut into squares. Basel's answer to gingerbread, and about as forgiving on the teeth.
Birchermüesli
Oats soaked with apple, lemon and cream, devised around 1900 by the Zurich doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner for his patients. Breakfast, and occasionally supper.
Zopf
A braided butter bread eaten on Sunday mornings, torn rather than sliced, with butter and jam.
Fondue
Gruyère and Vacherin melted with white wine and a shot of kirsch, eaten off a long fork. A cold-weather dish, and ordering it in August marks you out.
Bündnerfleisch
Beef pressed and air-dried in the Graubünden valleys, then sliced almost transparent. Salt, air and time, and nothing else.
Filets de perche
Lake perch floured and fried in butter, with lemon and a glass of Chasselas. The standing order on any Lake Geneva terrace.
Malakoff
Deep-fried cheese fritters served in a handful of villages above Lake Geneva, and named after a battle of the Crimean War.
Luganighe with polenta
Ticino's soft pork sausage cooked down over polenta that has been stirred for the best part of an hour. Order it in a grotto.
Risotto with Merlot
Ticino grows Merlot and cooks with it, which turns the rice a deep red and the plate into something no German-speaking canton would recognise.
Engadiner Nusstorte
Caramel and walnut sealed in shortcrust. Built to survive a journey, which is why it is the pastry that leaves Graubünden.
Milk chocolate
Daniel Peter brought milk and cocoa together in Vevey in 1875, using the condensed milk his neighbour Henri Nestlé had worked out. The country has been eating the result ever since.