Slow Train to Switzerland by Diccon Bewes

Author:Diccon Bewes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

The Hotel de l’Ours, Kandersteg burnt down soon after Miss Jemima stayed here

There’s no sign of any ursine hotels in Kandersteg today, so instead we are being very British and staying in a B&B. Yes, they do exist in Switzerland. Some of them, it has to be said, are actually hotels that don’t serve evening meals, so they technically offer a bed and breakfast but not in the traditional sense. This one, however, is the real deal, a proper B&B with a suitably English name, The Hayloft, which happens to be in a sixteenth-century Swiss chalet. It’s the perfect British-Swiss combination, much like the couple who run it: Kerry is from Barking, Peter from the Gasteretal, a deep glacial valley near Kandersteg. With its giant A-frame roof, flowery window boxes, green shutters and dark wooden walls, the rustic house really is a picture-postcard place – and so Swiss that I expect Heidi to come running out the door. It’s the closest I’ll get to the sort of rural accommodation Cook’s early guests would have stayed in, though luckily with modern plumbing and heating. And supper is served table d’hôte style, with a set menu (minus a still-gasping fish) and everyone sitting at one table; it could quite easily pass for one of the many evenings recounted in the journal.

While Kerry and my mother trade stories of B&B guests (my parents turned the family home into a B&B once all their children had left), Peter waxes lyrical about growing up in the Gasteretal. It was that, and wanting to be part of a community again, that brought him back – and I can understand why.

The community has a central role in Swiss life. As a political unit, it is the bedrock of the Swiss system of democracy; each is a self-governing entity with its own council, tax rates, schools, roads and rubbish bags. Today many communities are merging as they cannot cope with the financial burden of independence, so there are currently 2,495 communities in Switzerland, or about 500 fewer than 20 years ago. Some are tiny villages (Corippo in Ticino has a population of 12), others huge cities, such as Zurich with 375,000 people. The smallest is little bigger than a farm (Rivaz in Vaud is 31 hectares in area), but the largest (Glarus Süd at 430km2) outranks six of the cantons. No matter what their size, these smallest units of the Swiss political system are all controlled by the people who live in them – direct democracy in its most basic form.

Swiss communities are proud of their heritage, which in most cases stretches back for centuries. This isn’t a political attachment, it’s an emotional one, as every Swiss person derives his or her nationality (and even identity) from the community. In German this is known as the Heimatort, or place of origin, and isn’t necessarily where you were born; it’s the place your family comes from, perhaps generations ago, and that’s what is listed in your passport rather than your place of birth.

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