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Tags: Sad Travel / Switzerland Travel / Death / Thanatourism / → All Tags

Switzerland Not Neutral On The Issue Of 'Suicide Tourism'

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Swiss hot chocolate and powdery ski slopes...these are a few of our favorite things. These are also a selection of heart-warming images that usually call to mind thoughts of traveling to Switzerland, and we'd never imagine having to add "assisted suicide" to the list. But alack and alas, it's true that Switzerland allows people to end their lives legally, so long as the decision is "not motivated by their own interests."

As a result of these liberal laws, Swiss towns that usually welcome tourists for things like good chocolate and yodeling have also become destinations for those who check in only to check out permanently. It's a depressing story—excuse us for dampening your Friday morning—but it's a large issue now in Switzerland and Britain as the Swiss seek to put further rules on who can get assisted suicide and CNN points out that many of suicide tourists are British, averaging two per month since 2002.

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Tags: Smoking Bans / Travel Health / Switzerland Travel / Geneva / → All Tags

Geneva Joins Most Of Europe In Banning Smoking In Public Places

For travelers who want to sit in a café without the health risk of passive smoking, we pointed out last year on our worldwide smoking ban map that most of Europe is smoke-free, but there was an odd exception: the beautiful Swiss city of Geneva.

A legal loophole meant that the attempt to ban smoking in public places failed and smokers were able to continue lighting up all over Geneva. But now that very opportunity has been, well, extinguished. Geneva held a referendum on Sunday and a whopping 81.77% of locals supported a ban on public smoking across the region.

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Tags: Film Festival Travel / Zurich Film Festival / Roman Polanski / Crimes / Switzerland Travel / → All Tags

No More Hiding In Switzerland, Especially For Roman Polanski

What's surprising about Roman Polanski's arrest isn't that it happened 32 years late, it's that police waited for him to make an actual border crossing before they arrested him on that 32-year-old warrant.

The director of "Chinatown" and "The Pianist" was detained Saturday at Zürich Airport en route to the Zurich Film Festival, on a warrant given to Swiss authorities a few days earlier by the U.S. Justice Department by request of the Los Angeles county district attorney's office. Polanski fled the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and serving 42 days in prison, not returning even to accept his Best Director Oscar for "The Pianist" at the Academy Awards in 2003.

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Tags: Geneva Field Trip / Lake Geneva / Switzerland Travel / Watersports / → All Tags

A Guide to The Watersports on Lake Geneva

In continuing our European Vacation series, (we've already gone to Rome, France, Berlin and Turkey), our newest correspondent, Kate Winick, is fresh off a trip to Geneva where she spent some time lakeside. Here's her guide to Lake Geneva.

A bright, shiny morning dawns, the radio chirps that it’s 26 degrees and going to be a beautiful day, and after a moment of puzzlement and then the requisite conversion to Fahrenheit (double it and add 27—accurate above 10 degrees for determining outdoor temperatures unless you’re much more perceptive than most) and it’s straight into bathing suits we go, to scooter down to explore the various sporting options.

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Tags: Geneva Field Trip / Lake Geneva / UNESCO / Switzerland Travel / Wine-Tasting Travel / → All Tags

Life is Good: Wine-Tasting in The Lavaux Vineyard Terraces

In continuing our European Vacation series, (we've already gone to Rome, France, Berlin and Turkey), our newest correspondent, Kate Winick, is fresh off a trip to Geneva where she spent some time lakeside. Here's her guide to Lake Geneva.

Thirty kilometers of UNESCO World Heritage site stretch along the northern shore of Lake Geneva, from Montreux to Lausanne, and from the lake to the lower slopes of the mountains, comprised of snaking miles of stone walls, tightly nestled villages, and most importantly—vineyards. Called The Lavaux Vineyard Terraces, the neat rows of vines upon vines have been growing from grapes into wine here since the 11th century.

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Tags: Geneva Field Trip / Lake Geneva / Switzerland Travel / → All Tags

Exploring the Other Lakeside Towns of Lake Geneva

In continuing our European Vacation series, (we've already gone to Rome, France, Berlin and Turkey), our newest correspondent, Kate Winick, is fresh off a trip to Geneva where she spent some time lakeside. Here's her guide to Lake Geneva.

Geneva has a unique, pleasingly bipolar feeling of a major international center with a small-town feel, but all the lakeside towns here have a lot of character, and are definitely worth exploring. There are plenty of trains, buses, and boats that will get you to other points of interest around the lake, but we took a car for maximum mobility—besides, nothing says vacation like a red convertible.

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Tags: Geneva Field Trip / Lake Geneva / Switzerland Travel / → All Tags

Leave It To Geneva; Summer Is Cooler By the Lake

In continuing our European Vacation series, (we've already gone to Rome, France, Berlin and Turkey), our newest correspondent, Kate Winick, is fresh off a trip to Geneva where she spent some time lakeside. Here's her guide to Lake Geneva.

Stumbling off a red-eye to Geneva is as disorienting as any other—you went to sleep in New York, and suddenly woke up where everything is green and friendly people are offering you tiny coffees in four languages. This crossroads at the center of Europe is used to people just passing through, but we decided to stay a little while, and see what’s been drawing people here since the B.C. years.

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Tags: Museum Travel / Switzerland Travel / Swissair / → All Tags

All Hail Swiss Transportation at the 'Verkehrshaus'

More, more, more! We want more ways to play with and touch modes of transportation. Yes, we are that into planes, trains and automobiles, which is why the Verkehrshaus der Schweiz, or Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne, Switzerland is our "kid in a candy store" place where we go bonkers for a bit.

You see, Switzerland is rife with more than just chocolate, ultra-safe banking and Alps; it's also got a soft spot for transportation with its abundance of cogwheel trains, Swissair planes, vintage paddlewheel lake steamer boats, ski gondolas and inter-city trains. The Verkehrshaus (pronounced like fair-cares-house) simply wallows in the splendor of the country's mobile history by displaying some of these awesome machines and adding an IMAX theatre and planetarium to boot.

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Tags: Best Factory Tours / Best-Factory-Tours-Map / Cheese / → All Tags

Aging Gracefully: Monastery Turned Cheese Factory

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

They always say you don't really want to know how your sausage is made, and we suspect the same might be true for cheese. But we'll try anything once, which is why we're making tracks for the Schaukaeserei Engelberg cheese factory in Switzerland, the first factory we've covered so far that comes complete with a bistro.

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Tags: Recessionomics / Television Travel / Real Housewives of New York City / → All Tags

'Real Housewife' Dumped Over Email Thanks to Airline Cutbacks

We know there's nothing real about the "Real Housewives of New York," but this is too juicy not to be real: Show character Countess Luann de Lesseps reportedly was dumped by her husband over e-mail this week while he was in Geneva with his new girlfriend.

The union of Count Alexandre and Luann (his fourth, and she used to be a model) was never that stable: Despite their two kids, he lives in Europe most of the time, according to Page Six. But really? E-mail? Hopefully he got socked with some really nasty roaming charges.

Well, maybe the count just couldn't get a flight home to tell her: The International Air Transport Association boasted it was cutting emissions by 8 percent, but it's not because of better technology or improved efficiency: Most of the improvement has to do with routes and flights being canceled in the economic downturn. If he can't get a ticket home to dump you, he may just be not that into you.

Related Stories:
· Real Housewives' Countess Separating from Husband [US Magazine]
· Airlines to fly less, and pollute less, in downturn [Reuters]
· Real Househusband Simon van Kempen Clears Up "Ownership Status" On His Blog [HC]

[Photo: famegame.com]

Tags: Amazing Race 14 / Amazing-Race-14 / Chasing Racers / Television Travel / TV Travel / → All Tags

Don't Let a Cheese Hit Me!

Chasing Racers is back, with a brand new Amazing Race 14 mashup. This map will update the morning after every new episode. Send along tips, rumors, gossip, locations and spoilers to our map editors, become a member and comment on the stories below and add to the Jaunted-Flickr photo pool to get in on the fray.

Remember to zoom in, out and around on the map--with so much happening in each episode, it's easy to miss a map point.

THE RACE IS ON!
We've been jonesing for an AMAZING RACE fix, and the new season is finally here, complete with cheerleaders, relationship drama, little people and a gay father and son duo. What more could we want?! This season, the Race covers nine countries and 40,000 miles. Eleven teams embark on this adventure around the world. Who will crash and burn, and who will make it all the way to the end and win the million dollar prize?

LET'S FIND OUT!

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Tags: Ski Travel / Skiing / Winter Travel / Switzerland Travel / → All Tags

Switzerland Skiing Has A Sell-Out Season

Skiing in Switzerland has usually struck us as a bit stereotypical--not to mention expensive--but if the statistics are right, well, we might be wrong.

Apparently this winter, the economic meltdown has not managed to melt the Swiss snow at all. Quite the opposite, in fact: There have been unusually heavy snow falls across the Swiss Alps, and they've produced the best skiing conditions in a long time. And despite the credit crunch, bookings are just as high as last year, and many thousands of skiers are headed to Switzerland for their winter vacation.

But not wanting to sound too cheerful, the Swiss Tourism Board has a gloomy explanation: A spokesperson said she thought tourists were still flocking in because they have "a greater need now to escape from everyday life." Or it could just be that plenty of people love skiing, right?

Related Stories:
· Snowfall Buries Skiers' Credit Crunch Fears [Reuters]
· Easy-to-Reach Skiing: Elm, Switzerland [Jaunted]
· Switzerland Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Kecko]