Switzerland [antikvár]

This liiile country has a population of only six million and covers an area of a mere 41,300 square kilometres, but what incredible diversity it can offer! Countless lakes, lowering peaks, unspoilt natural valleys; towns like Geneva, Zurich or Basle, modern hut not outrageously so, providing their inhabitants with a rich cultural life and boasting many museums and galleries; beautiful cathedrals and castles, dating from (he Middle Ages; homes which range from mountain chalets to urban developments, buiU from avant-garde architectural plans; a first-class communications network, whether it be railways, teleferics, roads or air links from the international airports.Foreigners tnay attribute whatever epithets and characteristics they like to the country, but the Swiss remain unperturbed by such commonplaces: a country which is known for its watches, its chocolate and its cheeses; the oldest democracy in Europe; its carefully-calculated neutrality during the two world wars; the "gnomes of Zurich" who lay down the law in banking matters; its orderliness, its wealth, its cleanliness, but also a certain boring dullness which emanates from it.Besides all this, there is the complicated political system of this Confederation of Swiss states, which manages to have twenty-two cantons and four half-cantons, three languages (or four, counting Romanche), and two official churches. This may put the layman off, and may seem to the uninitiated to be monotonously lacking in interest and excitement.Switzerland takes no notice. It goes quietly on its way, knowing that it possesses one enormous asset, which has survived the passage of centuries, withstood the winds from the east and west, and disasters from the north and south, and resisted the jealousy and greed of other nations. Its beauty, that is its prime asset.Should one then be surprised at the rather naive patriotism of its citizens, when great writers like Rousseau, Byron, Goethe and Schiller were delighted by the Swiss countryside? A delight shared, indeed, by all those who come from far and wide to visit the country.GENEVAGeneva was once described as a grain of musk which perfumed the whole of Europe, h is a ciiy where rigor and pleasure mingle, with, in the background, the grim countenance of Jean Calvin but also the sparkling smile of a lake which Voltaire thought was the "most beautiful of all". Geneva is a good place to live precisely because it has something of the languor of the Latin countries. and at the same lime, with no apparent confrontation, a discipUne derived from its Ger-man-speaking neighbors.The origins of Geneva are lost in the mists of lime. Prehistoric cave-and lake-dwellers are known to have settled in this superbly favorable spot where the purified Rhone emerges from Lake Geneva. Under the Celts. Geneva grew and prospered. Julius Caesar made the first written reference to the oppidum in his Commentaries on the war of the Gauls. (58 B.C.). Much laler on. after it had become a town of the Empire. Geneva was to have constant trouble w\\h the House of Savoy, ending in the famous night of the Esca-Gcncvi), pre-eminently an international cItA', Is certainly the gateway t Switzerland, and s>m-bolises the country's welcome. The waterside promenades and the water-jet, which can reach a height of 150 metres in calm weather.