Decadent precision... and other things Swiss

Switzerland is much more than mountains and good time pieces

alpine chalets

stunning landscape

serious shopping

rural areas

hey...I even found a new family there

great (imported) wine

Heidi

 death by "sweets" 

and chocolate

the best in mental health

just the environment was healing

views across foggy lakes

rugged up against the cold 

happy, affectionate cows

Christmas angels

Christmas lights

mountains to ski and explore

I'll have one in every colour

Just one of the delicious decadent treats 

I’ve never been to Switzerland before, well technically I have, years ago when I crossed the border once from Italy and tried to get a sun tan in the snow.

I have a memory of lying there on a plastic sheet in the freezing cold in my bikini,  convinced that as all ski instructors wore sunglasses and were tanned I would easily become golden brown in a couple of hours. Later, dressed only in shorts, sandals and a summer top, numb and stiff with cold, I had to be assisted off the chair lift and given hot alcoholic “punch” to help me “thaw” out amid some comments about mad Australians.

I was young then, and indefatigable. It was my first trip overseas. I didn’t really see Switzerland. My head was full of dreams and I was in love with life and keen to experience everything.

As the train pulls into Zurich, I don’t know what to expect. I’m still not really here to “see” Switzerland but to meet up with a lovely, gentle cat-loving friend who I met in Hong Kong doing a qigong course.

Alice and her husband live about 30 minutes from Zurich in a town called Meilen. Like most places in Switzerland it is easily accessible by train (public transport here is efficient and affordable), but they have kindly come into Zurich to collect me.

I could not have asked for more gracious and generous hosts, who are keen to show me what Switzerland has to offer.

They take me to Santis, where we take a cable car to the top of the mountain, (on a good day you can see six countries), to pretty alpine villages like Appenzell and Einsiedlen, (each with their distinctive houses and Christmas markets), to a Lindt factory outlet, where I buy up and sample the world famous chocolate (my favourite is champagne) to visit Zurich, by day and night (with its elegant shops, cafes, and discreet banks catering to the seriously wealthy) where we window shop, see the Christmas lights and famous Chagal windows, stroll through the old city and stop to have a hot chocolate at Felix and try to decide whether the truffles at Teucher or Sprungli are better. (It’s impossible to decide without another taste test!)  

I go walking with Mike in the mornings, rugged up in a borrowed warm jacket, stepping into a rural paradise, just a few steps from their modern home, where I meet friendly locals, and enjoy a stunning view from the top of the hill across a fog covered lake.

I go shopping with Alice at the local markets for flavour full organic produce and ingredients for the endless good meals she whips up in her kitchen, the highlight a Raclette (that flavoursome cheesy Swiss specialty that is a cholesterol and carbohydrate catastrophe) Alice’s version involves grilling special cheese topped with spices and a delicate pancetta and serving with small boiled potatoes, tiny gherkins and sweet onions, baby corn and tinned peaches and pears.  

We eat together, drink tea, coffee and good wine, exchange ideas, resources and information and it feels comfortable and familiar.

Sitting around the table when I first arrive, I am struck by the deafening sound of silence.

And that time seems to have been suspended in this place.

And that is its allure and what makes it disconcerting. It is so peaceful and beautiful that it can almost be overwhelming, if you are used to being distracted, busy and unable or unwilling to simply listen to your body and inner world. To me, it is a gift and I take it gratefully, with both hands. I feel like I have been fed in so many ways.

I leave this beautiful place and space feeling physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, grateful and comfortably full!

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I am sitting in a second class couchette of a grimy Italian train. Thankfully I have had the uncomfortable 4 berth cabin to myself. It is 8am and I am 15 hours into a 22 hour trip from Switzerland to Siderno Marina, a small town in Calabria, in the South of Italy which is my Dad’s home town.

I have just had some of the delicious cheese and birnebrot, a filling sweet bread that Alice and Mike packed for me in a little “care package” for my long journey. It is just as well, as when we crossed into Italy from Switzerland, the restaurant car was detached and there is no provision to buy food or even water for the rest of the trip.

I ask the cabin attendant if there is anywhere we will stop long enough to get off the train. It turns out that the next stop at Bari Centrale is for 20 minutes and I get off and buy some water and a Lavazza coffee from the vending machine on the platform.

There is such a difference between the Italian trains and those in Germany and Switzerland, reflecting the cultural and economic and social differences between each place, especially here in the south of Italy.

I’ve done this long journey once before, when I travelled with my Mum from the north of Italy to my Dad’s home town in the south. I had just finished high school with good grades and my parents rewarded me with a trip to Italy to get to know and appreciate my “roots” and the land of my ancestors. It was a long uncomfortable, even dangerous journey then, one of us keeping watch at all times, alert to the possibility that we could be robbed or even violated on the way.

All these years later, I still don’t feel totally safe, my instincts confirmed when the steward warns me to lock my cabin door. This time at least, I can lie down across the seats and although I hardly sleep I can relax, the loud snoring from the cabin next door and the raised angry voices from frustrated passengers fading away as I tune into the soothing clack clack and swaying movement of the train wending its way southward into the inky darkness.

It is with some trepidation that I leave my unlocked, unguarded cabin when I go to the loo, in the middle of the night but my coach is almost deserted, most passengers have either left or are huddled under mounds of dark clothing in crowded compartments further on.

I watch daylight brighten the morning sky, and hear the familiar dialects and conversations that tell me I am in the south and brush my teeth in the small wash room and look forward to being in my Dad’s home town again.

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