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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 / Boating / → All Tags

Getting The Wind In Our Hair On Lake Geneva

The first thing you need to know about sailing in Geneva is this word: Alinghi. You’ll see it on bags, on t-shirts, on hats, on bumper stickers, in the newspaper and on television, and, if you’re very lucky, on a sleek grey boat zipping across the lake.

As the defending America’s Cup champion, the Alinghi is beloved by the denizens of this nautically minded city, and its home base, the Société Nautique de Genève, is located right next door to Geneve-Plage. They host a number of large regattas, including the Bol d’Or Mirabaud, Europe’s largest lake sailing race, which goes from one end of the lake to the other, and takes place over a very long day in mid-June.

On weekend mornings, it’s easy to score a prime place by the shore to watch sailboats racing just offshore, but why not join in yourself before the big guys take to the lake later this month?

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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: 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]

Tags: Bungee Jumping / Switzerland Travel / James Bond / → All Tags

Go Where Bond Has Gone Before

We're suckers for a James Bond tourist attraction, even when it's a wet-your-pants-scary one like the Verzasca Dam bungee jump near Locarno, close to the Swiss border with Italy.

Coming second to one in Macau as the biggest permanent bungee jump in the world shouldn’t matter to these guys because they've got the Bond draw card--he did this 720 foot leap in "Goldeneye." That sequence looked more impressive than this video, which makes the jumper look like a tiny ant about to be smashed into a massive cliff.

If you’re kind of wimpy like us, then you can always cry poor to get out of throwing yourself off this dam wall, because one jump costs 255 Swiss Francs ($215); if you’re keen enough to do this twice in one day you'll pay half that for the second go, though we really think it's one of those jumps you should be smart enough to only risk once. But hey, don't listen to us, we even believe in travel insurance.

Related Stories:
· Verzasca Dam Bungee Jump [Official Site]
· Be James Bond: Bodyflight Vertigo Opening Soon [Jaunted]
· Switzerland Travel coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Switzerland Travel / Hiking / Mountain Biking / Biking / Active Travel / Outdoor Travel / → All Tags

Switzerland by Bike. Or Foot. Or Canoe.

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]