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LIVING IN SWITZERLAND

10 things you should do in Switzerland at least once

Switzerland is small but for the curious and adventurous people, there are plenty of opportunities to try something new and exciting. Here’s our list.

Published: 23 February 2024 15:01 CET
Updated: 25 February 2024 08:55 CET
10 things you should do in Switzerland at least once
A fLake Geneva ferry transports passengers between Switzerland and France. Image by Loyloy Thal from Pixabay

Walk (carefully) the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the Alps

High above the village of Randa in canton Valais, hangs (though thankfully not by a thread) a 500-metre long foot bridge.

This ‘walkway in the sky’ is suspended at the height of 85 metres between Grächen and Zermatt, and offers spectacular views as far as your eyes can see.

It is open from May until October, but closes (for obvious reasons) during storms.

And oh yes, heed this advice from local authorities: “It is an advantage to not be afraid of heights for the crossing.”

‘Open cellars’

If you love wine, then you will enjoy visiting the traditional ‘caves ouvertes’ or ‘offene keller’, which take place across Switzerland’s wine-making regions throughout April and May.

For a set price (varying from region to region), you will get a chance to sip locally-produced wine, while also having a chance to visit the old, quaint villages where the vintners live and harvest their grapes.

Quaint villages of the Lava (Vaud) wine region. Image by Singha Bohrer (-Bender) from Pixabay

Climb the Matterhorn

This is clearly not for the faint-hearted, but if you enjoy mountaineering, climbing Switzerland’s most iconic mountain will be quite a feat and will surely impress all your social media followers.

If you are not a hard-core (read: very well trained) climber, choose the easiest route — Hörnli — that is on the Matterhorn’s northeast side.

But ‘easiest’ doesn’t mean you can just stroll up without breaking a sweat.

You need to be in excellent physical shape and be prepared for high-altitude conditions, such as very cold temperatures.

Chocolate workshop

If climbing the Matterhorn is not on your bucket list, but you still want to get the taste (literally and figuratively) of Switzerland, then learning to make chocolate could be just the ticket.

Luckily, the Cailler company, the manufacturers of the famous Swiss chocolate, runs workshops in its factory in the town of Broc, canton Fribourg.

There, you will learn how  to make your own chocolate and while you’re at it, sample quite a bit of it too.

Cheese workshop

If you are more of a ‘savoury’ than ‘sweet-tooth’ person, then you may prefer the art of cheese making.

No problem: Zurich has a workshop where, “under the guidance of the master cheesemaker, the participants produce their own ‘Mutschli’ cheese, which are then left to mature for two to three months under the supervision of the cheesemaker.” 
 

Say ‘cheese’: This could be you in a Swiss workshop. Image by Christoph Schütz from Pixabay

Attend Fasnacht

You have just missed it, but mark your calendars for next year, so you can attend Basel’s famous ‘Fasnacht’ carvnival.

While this is not the only carnival in Switzerland — many other cities and regions have one as well — Basel’s event is the largest of its kind in the country and is enshrined in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

Though the Swiss, including the residents of Basel, are typically well-behaved, during the three days of Fasnacht, they actually go wild!

READ ALSO: What you should know about Switzerland’s largest carnival

Learn wood carving

A school in the canton of Ticino offers wood sculpting courses for beginners, so chip away!

Working with a chisel and other appropriate tools, your sculptures will, literally, take shape.

As the school explains it, “the work can be figurative or abstract.”
 
In other words, let your imagination be your guide.
 
Take a ferry across one of Switzerland’s lakes
 
Switzerland has about1,500 lakes, many of which can be crossed by boat.
 
The two largest bodies of water, Lake Geneva and Lake Constance (Bodensee), have regular ferries that connect Switzerland with France (for Lake Geneva) as well as with Germany and Austria (for Constance).
 
The rides are not only relaxing, but also offer breathtaking views of the surrounding areas.

Stay at a funky hotel
 
If you are not a fan of conventional hotels, Switzerland also has some other lodging possibilities — ranging from castles to inns dug deep into the rocky mountain sides.

Sure, you can always stay at a ‘regular’ hotel, but then you will miss on what could be not only an extraordinary, but also a unique ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience.

This article will whet your appetite for these funky accommodations:
 
READ ALSO: 10 of Switzerland’s most unforgettable hotel experiences 
 
 Visit CERN
 
Stepping into The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) site in Geneva is a ‘must’ for anyone interested in the mysteries of the universe.
 
Visiting the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, which is the home of the famous Large Hadron Collider, is hands-down one of the coolest (though probably the nerdiest too) things you can do in Switzerland.

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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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