Swissited
Heaven on Earth. They say it’s Kashmir, but I got a slice of heaven on my plate of life last autumn and it was not anywhere near the Himalaya’s. On our way from Basel to Milan, Rafat and I journied through the Swiss Alps on a foggy Saturday in October. Not far from Zofingen, we decided to leave the highway and continue our trip on the much less crowded and sometimes abandoned roads from village to village. We stopped halfway up a mountain on what looked like a farm lane. There, in the middle of an Alpine meadow, surrounded by silence and mountains with perfect October trees, I was overwhelmed by an intense feeling of peace and at the same time sadness that all this would be over once we got back in the car to continue our journey. So I tried to enhance that moment, breathing in that sweet crisp air and listening to that beautiful green and yellow autumn silence, only interrupted by the bells of Alpine cows in the distance and drops of soft rain touching our umbrellas. Heavenly. We took some pictures but as it turned out, the camera failed to capture the perfectness of it all. Little did I realize that it was just the top of the beautiful ice berg called Switzerland and there was a whole lot more of perfect Alpine-ness to discover.
Regretfully we came closer to Milan and the closer we got, the rougher and rockier the mountains got. By the time we reached Milan, we promised each other that Switzerland has not seen the last of us.
With all that peace and tranquility in mind (and ofcourse the size of the county) i find it odd that the WEF named Switzerand the world’s most competitive economy more than once (including this year). However, it should not be such a big surprise. After all, the country is known for its hard working citizens, high quality of education (and health care), political stability, international trade and banking, cultural diversity and add in it’s self imposed neutrality and we have most, if not all the ingredients for a well economy.
Also worth mentioning is the friendliness of the Swiss. In Italy we came across some pretty cranky Italianos (so much for the cliché of happy Italians or maybe it only applies to southerners?), while I found people in Switzerland surprisingly welcoming and helpful, from the hotel personnel to the guy selling warm roasted chestnuts outside the town hall.
Definitly a place worth revisiting!
