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Seven things that may surprise you when traveling in Switzerland

Among first things you will probably notice while in the country is how very expensive and very beautiful Switzerland is. But there are also many other surprises you are likely to discover.

Published: 1 March 2022 13:00 CET
Seven things that may surprise you when traveling in Switzerland

Depending on how much you know about Switzerland before you travel, and what your level of expectations is, you may be quite surprised by what you find along the way.

Cleanliness

One of the first things you are likely to notice (especially if you come from one of Switzerland’s neighbours, which shall remain unnamed for the purpose of this article) is how well maintained the country is.

Not only is it clean but it is also manicured to the extreme: not a blade of grass is out of place, hedges are neatly cut and trimmed with utmost precision.

Travel: Six ways to save money while visiting Switzerland

If you see wildflowers and even weeds along the way, it is because they are allowed to grow — also in an arranged and organised manner. Nothing is left to chance or mother nature.

And if you notice that rivers flow in a straight pattern, it is probably also due to ingenious Swiss engineering.

Trimming hedges with precision is ‘Swiss’ thing. Photo: Pixabay

The road less travelled

Another surprise, somewhat related to the previous point, is that you will not find many off-the-beaten-track paths in Switzerland.

Vast majority of roads, both main and side, are paved, and that includes those in rural areas.

You may be able to find an unpaved path somewhere in a remote area or a hiking trail in the mountains (the Swiss would never call it a ‘dirt’ road), but that is probably by design.

Language

It is probably not a surprise that Switzerland is a multilingual country, but you may be stunned by how suddenly one linguistic region spills over into another, without any forewarning.

The only inkling you get that you passed from one language area to another is by signs on the (paved) road and hearing the locals speak.

However, most will also speak English, although they will first insist their skills are very bad (the Swiss don’t like to boast or show off).

But when they do start talking, you will be — yes, surprised — by their fluency in a language that’s not their own.

READ MORE: How did Switzerland become a country with four languages?

Transportation

You have probably heard of punctual Swiss trains.  But the country’s transportation network, including buses, trains and boats, can take you practically everywhere you want to go, both vertically and horizontally (which may explain why the Swiss like their roads paved).

Have you heard of PostBuses?

Those yellow buses travel the widths, lengths and heights of the country, including on narrow, winding, remote and mountain roads.

You can find more about this mode of transport here:

EXPLAINED: Why PostBuses are true Swiss icons

Postbus on a winding (paved) mountain road. Photo by Pixabay

Water!

You will find both good and bad surprises about water in Switzerland.

First, the bad: some restaurants will charge you for a carafe of water.

Good: You don’t have to pay a centime / Rappen / centessino for you water; you can quench your thirst at one of the numerous public drinking fountains that abound in practically every municipality in Switzerland.

These fountains are marked with Trinkwasser, Eau Potable, Acqua Potabile signs. They are perfectly safe.

Sometimes best things in life really are free.

READ MORE: Ten things Zurich residents take for granted

Trash

Please, please don’t throw your garbage away any which way.

The Swiss are meticulous when it comes to waste disposal (no surprise here) and have strict regulations on how to throw away trash in an environmentally correct manner.

Depending on the canton or municipality you are in, you will need a special bag or a sticker, and you will have to either place the trash in a specially designated communal bin, or put it to a curb on a specially designated day and in a specially designated place.

More information about Switzerland’s ‘trash culture’ can be found here:

Trash talk: What are the rules for garbage disposal in Switzerland?

Cheers to that!

It’s a given that Switzerland has lots of cheese and chocolate, but you may be surprised to discover that it has plenty of its own wine as well.

In fact, you will probably find local vineyards practically anywhere you travel in the country.

Sloping vineyards like these overlooking Lake Biel are common in Switzerland. Photo. Pixabay

But beware, when in Switzerland, you can’t just shout “bottoms up”  and down your glass in one gulp. That’s because the Swiss have their own wine drinking culture — and that, certainly, is no surprise.

READ MORE: EXPLAINED: How to drink wine like a Swiss

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LIVING IN SWITZERLAND

REVEALED: How Switzerland’s native-English speakers are growing in number

Some Swiss cities have higher concentrations of foreign residents than others. A new study reveals where most of them live and interestingly how more and more of them are native English-speakers.

Published: 23 April 2024 15:21 CEST
REVEALED: How Switzerland's native-English speakers are growing in number

Foreigners who move to Switzerland like to settle in the cities.

This is what emerges from a new study published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Tuesday.

Surprisingly, the municipality with the highest number of foreign residents is not Zurich or Geneva, but Kreuzlingen in canton Thurgau, where 56.3 percent of the population are foreigners.

Next is Rorschach in St. Gallen, where just over half (50.6 percent) of residents are foreign.

In terms of regions, however, more towns in the French-speaking part of the country have a high proportion of non-Swiss.

In the first place is the Lausanne suburb of Renens, where 49.3 percent of inhabitants are foreign.

It is followed by Geneva (49.2 percent) and its districts Meyrin (45.4 percent) and Vernier (44.8 percent). Next are Vaud municipalities of Montreux (44.2 percent) and Yverdon (37.7 percent).

The study doesn’t indicate why exactly so many immigrants move to these particular towns, but generally new arrivals tend to settle in or near places where they work.

Another interesting finding: English language is gaining ground

“If we consider non-national languages, it is striking to see that English has developed significantly,” FSO reports.

“It is today the main language of 8.1 percent of the resident population.”

This has also been shown in another FSO study in March, which indicated that  English is not only the most prevalent foreign language in Switzerland, but in some regions even ‘outperforms’ national languages.

In French-speaking Geneva, for instance, 11.8 percent of the population speak English — more than 5.7 percent who speak Italian. And in the neighbouring Vaud, 9.1 percent of residents speak English, versus 4.9 percent for both German and Italian.

In Basel-City, where the main language is German, 12.5 percent speak English, 6.1 percent Italian, and 5 percent French.

And in Zurich,10.8 percent speak English, versus only 5.8 percent for Italian and 3.2 percent French.

The ‘ winner’ however, is the German-speaking Zug, where 14.1 percent of the population over the age of 15 has English as their primary language. 

READ ALSO : Where in Switzerland is English most widely used? 

What else does the study reveal?

It shows to what extent Switzerland’s population ‘migrated’ from rural areas to cities over the past century.

While only a third of the country’s residents lived in urban regions 100 years ago, the 170 Swiss cities and their agglomerations are now home to three-quarters of the population.

As a result of this evolution, “new cities sprang up, many political and spatial boundaries were moved, and the country became increasingly urban.”

With a population of 427,000, Zurich is still the most populated city, followed by Geneva (204,000) and Basel (174,000).

And there is more: Fewer people practice religion

The proportion of people who feel they belong to a traditional religion is generally falling, FSO found.

This downward trend concerns all religions, but it is strongest among people of the Reformed Evangelical faith.

In six towns in particular — Bussigny, Crissier, and Ecublens (VD), Kloten, and Opfikon (ZH), as well as Oftringen (AR) — the drop was of more than 70 percent.
 
 READ ALSO: Why so many Swiss are quitting the church and taking their money with them

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