Switzerland Travel Guide
7/08/2008 at 2:00 PM
Tags: Summer Travel, Music Festivals, Music Travel, Festivals, Leonard Cohen (all tags)
Melancholy singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is out on the road again after a 15-year touring hiatus. The Canadian poet and balladeer, who spent most of the '90s in a Zen Buddhist monastery in California, plays tonight at Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival, a genre-crossing concert series on the shores of Lake Geneva in the same city where David Bowie recorded "Heroes."
See bluesman Buddy Guy tomorrow, neo-soul duo Gnarls Barkley on Friday and an all-star tribute to Quincy Jones on July 14 at the festival, which continues through the 19.
Cohen kicked off his tour in Fredericton, New Brunswick in May and follows up his Montreux appearance with concerts in Lyon, Bruges and Amsterdam this weekend.
Related Stories:
· Leonard Cohen Revisits Montreux After 30 Years [AFP, via Google]
· Leonard Cohen's Island [Jaunted]
· Switzerland Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo of Cohen: My Chemical Toilet; photo of Montreux: yaspal]
by egw
6/30/2008 at 5:15 PM
Tags: Geeky Travel, CERN, LHC, Google Maps (all tags)
Nah, not really. The scientists at the massive European physics lab CERN say when they switch on the Large Hadron Collider this August nothing more than groundbreaking research will result.
But some of the nerds at Wikipedia say the LHC could create "micro black holes, strangelets, vacuum bubbles and magnetic monopoles," none of which we understand--but all of which sound terrifying!
If you don't fear science and like wearing hardhats on tours, you can actually go visit CERN. Make reservations at least three months ahead of time by filing out this form.
Related Stories:
· Visiting CERN [Official Site]
· Large Hadron Collider [Official Site; warning, science content!]
· Some Fear Debut of Powerful LHC [AP, via CNN]
· Large Hadron Collider [Wikipedia]
· Geeky Travel coverage [Jaunted]
by pbb
6/05/2008 at 9:00 AM
Tags: Celeb Travel, Art Basel, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Super World Travelers (all tags)
Good luck putting that in your checked bag: Brad Pitt toured Art Basel in Switzerland yesterday and dropped over $1 million on art. Apparently the brand new soon-to-be father has a bit of the nesting impulse; chief among his purchases was a $293,000... table.
He also picked up a lamp and some chairs. (You can feast your eyes here.)
It's easier to bring giant art in through the airport than, say, perfume in a four-ounce bottle bought outside security. But you might want a refresher on duty-free rules. Not that Super World Travelers need to handle that kind of thing--they have staff.
Related Stories:
· Rumored Maternal Travel: Angelina Jolie's Twins Born in France? [Jaunted]
· Super World Travelers coverage [Jaunted]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo with festival director Ambra Medra: Celebritymound]
by egw
6/02/2008 at 9:15 AM
Tags: Swiss Air, Airlines, Design, Business Travel, Green Travel (all tags)
We love to daydream about the ultimate airline seat--the one that actually enables us to sleep well. Swiss Air has just announced a new version of a fully-flat seat for business class that looks like it might do the trick.
By 2011, all of Swiss Air's long haul flights will have these six-foot-plus long "beds" installed, with a pretty clever design that saves space by having a passenger's feet fitting into a cut-out of the seat in front.
They're also replacing conventional foam with an air cushion filling that you can easily adjust to be either firm or soft. We'd be happy to have that at home, too!
For green fans, the new seats have one more bonus--each one is 9 pounds lighter so the planes will be cheaper to fly, saving 2,000 tons of CO2 emissions a year. Comfortable seats that save the planet? We always knew those Swiss could do more than just make great chocolate.
Related Stories:
· Swiss Unveils New Generation Business Class [Business Traveller]
· Airlines coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Swiss Air]
by amandak
5/07/2008 at 9:30 AM
Tags: Switzerland Travel, Hiking, Mountain Biking, Biking, Active Travel, Outdoor Travel (all tags)
We already credit the Swiss with being quite good at a range of things: Army knives, watches, chocolate and banks. Turns out we can add something else to the list: an impressive network of hiking, cycling, skating and canoeing paths perfectly signposted for us to use, as part of the SwitzerlandMobility project.
Apparently all of these trails and paths have been around for ages, but now that they've got them properly interconnected and have standardized the signage, there's no stopping us, whichever method of getting around we choose.
Hikers can choose from almost 4,000 miles of paths, cyclists from nearly 5,300 miles and even mountain-bikers get over 2,000 miles of signposted Swiss beauty. Those clever Swiss have even tied in public transport routes to help us get to and from these trails. No excuse for staying still in Switzerland now.
Related Stories:
· Switzerland Mobility [Official Site]
· Switzerland Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Donnie Ray]
by amandak
3/10/2008 at 9:12 AM
Tags: Surveys, Tourism Boards (all tags)
If you're wondering which nations have the best tourism conditions, check the new World Economic Forum Travel and Tourism Report. What the WEF measures is how "conducive" an environment is for travel and tourism--whatever that means--and the results make for interesting reading about the places that might be most welcoming to visitors.
Top of the list is Switzerland, closely followed by Austria and Germany, with Australia coming in fourth. Of the English-speaking nations, the UK is sixth, the United States seventh and Canada ninth.
What does that all mean? Well, they say that Switzerland is on top because it has great cultural and natural sites, useful transport and good training for tourism industry staff. Germany pops up high on the list because it's also good at dealing with business travelers and holding conventions.
At the bottom of the list--presumably destinations that just aren't able to cater to tourists at all--you'll find Chad, Burundi and Bangladesh. Surprisingly near the bottom of the list, there are also Cambodia, Namibia and Bosnia, which are all getting plenty of satisfied visitors these days. Just goes to show you can't believe everything a survey tells you.
Related Stories:
· Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report [WEF]
· New Zealand Rates High in Tourist Stakes [NZ Herald]
· Switzerland and Austria Top for Tourism [TravelBite]
[Photo: flappingwings]
by amandak
12/06/2007 at 10:00 AM
Tags: Ski-Areas-Near-Airports, Skiing, Ski Travel, Ski Resorts, Winter Travel, Europe Travel (all tags)
We really like skiing and boarding. But that doesn't mean we want to spend our whole vacation just getting to the mountain. Our Ski Areas Near Airports Map will help you maximize your time on the slopes.
You can't get more ski-vacation-suitable than Switzerland, plus this country has the bonus of great chocolate and knives, too. [Ed note: What else do you need?!] There are a bunch of ski resorts within one hour's drive from Zürich airport, including those with great names like Flumserberg, Grüsch and Bad Ragaz.
But our recommendation is a place with a short and easy-to-remember name: Elm. Less than an hour's drive from ZRH, the small municipality of Elm has two main resorts, both great for intermediate and beginner skiers. (As one website reminded us, that's an hour "in good driving conditions"--a snowstorm could slow you down.) Being relatively small and less likely to be as full of ski tourists as other larger resorts, the villages around Elm will also give you a quaint, truly Swiss experience.
Related Stories:
· Elm Ski Info [On The Snow]
· Skiing coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: ForsterFoto]
by amandak
10/31/2007 at 9:15 AM
Tags: Switzerland Travel, Crimes, Festivals, Art (all tags)
In Basel, Switzerland, the Shift Festival has just wound up. It's a new festival for the electronic arts, which they plan to hold every fall from now on. The theme for this year's festival was "access", but access to the exhibits seems to have got a bit out of hand.
That's because there was a theft at this year's Shift Festival. A group of artists from Vienna working under the name of Ubermorgen had created an exhibit involving a book--the Abbie Hoffman classic "Steal This Book"--placed inside an incubator. Apparently the exhibit was supposed to praise those who fought for literary freedom by celebrating a hacking operation on Amazon.
Perhaps not surprisingly, somebody did steal the book. Shift Festival organizers have decided not to press charges but hope the thief will return the stolen book. We can't wait to see what crazy things get shifted or lifted at next year's Shift Festival.
Related Stories:
· Shift Festival [Official Site]
· Thief Accepts Invitation [Independent Online]
· Fall Culture Travel in Basel [Jaunted]
· Switzerland Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: shiftfestival]
by amandak
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