A Humorous Guide to Switzerland

Earth -  S. Hofschlaeger  / pixelio.de More than ten years ago, I put together a small  phrase list of Swiss German words and expressions that relate to holidays and traveling  in general. There, you can find the Swiss German words for 'breakfast buffet', 'beach' or 'travel agency'. What you won't find, however, are the names of places and countries on our beautiful earth.  Swiss German Place Names Now, you need to understand that although people in Switzerland speak Swiss German in day to day life ( or French or Italian if they don't live in the German speaking part of Switzerland ), most written text will be in  German  (what we call High German or Standard German). The most notable exception would be personal messages, especially on apps like whatsapp or on social media.  This means, the official names of places and regions in Switzerland are always in German. Nevertheless, we of course have a Swiss German equivalent for all of them that we use...

Skyline of Berne - mafa / pixelio.de A friend visiting Switzerland once joked that in Switzerland all cities are on a lake or river and have their medieval castle nearby. While that is certainly not true for ALL cities here, it is true for many. Considering that many of the Swiss cities have their origins in medieval times it is easily understood why they were built near the water: it offered water for drinking  and transportation . After all, goods needed to be transported and there were nor railways, trucks or airplanes to ship them around. Plus, there are simply a lot of rivers and lakes all over Switzerland which makes the chances of settling near one of them pretty high. Like Zurich , Geneva and Basel , the capital city of Switzerland Berne also lies on the shores of a river, in this case the Aare river. It not only houses the building of the Swiss parliament and government but also features a lovely old city that invites people for a stroll. There is also a good number of mu...