Slow Train to Switzerland Quotes

“Tourists and travellers are two sides of the same coin living in a symbiotic relationship of mutual contempt but actually dependent on each other. Without the infrastructure of tourism, being a traveller would be much harder work and much more expensive; without the frontier spirit of travellers, tourists would be trapped in the same old places, not knowing where the next new destination is. In the end there’s no big difference. Tourist, traveller – many people are both, even on the same trip.”
― Diccon Bewes, Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart

“Railways ushered in an era of faster, cheaper mass transport – 25 million passengers in 1880, 240 million in 1910 – but for many Swiss it was still out of reach financially. What was affordable for British visitors was a luxury for locals. Transport history centre Via Storia reckons that most of those 240 million passengers were tourists and the small layer of Swiss society with money, but the middle classes could at least contemplate a trip for the first time; not often or far, but a possibility, although in third class most likely, as first class was double the price, and mountain trains were even more expensive. Someone from Zurich might manage a day trip once a year to Lake Lucerne or to another Swiss city, one that had probably been an economic rival until then.”
― Diccon Bewes, Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart

“Mercenary armies were abolished in the new Swiss federal constitution of 1848, although existing contracts were still honoured (how very correct) until the government banned all forms of fighting for money in 1859. The sole survivor of the bloody practice is the Pope’s Swiss Guard, which has been protecting his Holiness since 1506. To serve in Rome, the men must be under 30, over 1.74m tall, single and have completed their Swiss military service. Being both Swiss and Catholic are somewhat essential as well.”
― Diccon Bewes, Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart

“Dress codes weren’t the only minefield; there was the etiquette of the evening dances: “Young people who had tobogganed together usually addressed each other not as Miss Smith or Mr. Brown but as Miss Mary or Mr. Bobby, which was considered to mark a real advance in intimacy. To dance more than twice with the same partner was faintly compromising.”
― Diccon Bewes, Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart

“A week at the Grand Hotel Bear in that first winter season cost £10 5s 0d (about £600 today), including second-class train travel from London, room (with lights, service and heating), full board and 56lb of luggage. Passengers could leave Charing Cross at 2.20pm and arrive in Grindelwald at 3.10pm the next day, having caught a boat, travelled through the night and changed trains four times. The same train journey today takes ten hours with three changes, in Paris, Basel and Interlaken.”
― Diccon Bewes, Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart

“For example, in the mid-1960s there were direct flights from London to Interlaken (with British Eagle), and in the late 1980s Brits were still the most numerous hotel guests in Interlaken, outnumbering even the Swiss. However, in 2012 Britain only managed No. 8, overtaken by the likes of India, Korea, China and Japan. The British century (and a half) in Switzerland is over; the Asian one has just begun.”
― Diccon Bewes, Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart

“Contrast that with an exemplary piece of civic far-sightedness: the large open space that sits in the centre of town opposite the Victoria-Jungfrau. Known as the Höhematte, this was once on the edge of the village and had belonged to Canton Bern since the Reformation, but in 1863–64 the state was selling off its property. With Interlaken expanding, the plan was to parcel it up and sell it to developers cashing in on the hotel boom. That would have meant an end to the unspoilt views of the Jungfrau and made Interlaken a much more urban place, possibly ruining the very reason it was so popular. Luckily, that never happened. Not everyone saw development as the answer and, after much wrangling, the Bernese parliament eventually approved Plan B: the Höhematte was bought by a group of shareholders who vowed never to build on it. And they never have. It remains a green and pleasant patch of land, where it’s not unusual to see a farmer out harvesting his hay.”
― Diccon Bewes, Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart

“Despite only having a population of around 5000, Interlaken has two stations, West and Ost, at opposite ends of the long main street. They are direct descendants of two Bödelibahn stations, relics of long-forgotten planning that survived because of another oddity: a railway that crosses the River Aare twice between the two stations for no geographical reason. The line could easily run along the south bank without any hindrance, but the planners were sneaky; they could envisage a time when the Aare might be widened in order to create a navigable canal between the two lakes. That would put the steamers in direct competition with their trains, and tourists could simply sail past Interlaken altogether. So they purposefully diverted the new line across the Aare and back again, a double crossing that stopped any such canal plans in their tracks.”
― Diccon Bewes, Slow Train to Switzerland: One Tour, Two Trips, 150 Years and a World of Change Apart