A Land of Enchantment

Switzerland is a breathtakingly beautiful country with snow-capped mountains, clear alpine lakes, glacier-driven rivers, cascading waterfalls, and verdant meadows. The large cities are clean, safe, and environmentally conscious. The rare blend of the pastoral with the urban entices visitors from all over the world to spend a vacation or even a lifetime in this charming land. There are many beautiful places to visit in Europe but Switzerland ranks first on my list of travel destinations.

Major Swiss cities like Bern, Lucerne, Geneva, and Zurich have much to offer, with museums, medieval churches and castles, quaint cafes, and delicious cuisine that will satisfy the most demanding wanderlust. Switzerland also prides itself as a world leader in scientific and technological achievement. Tourists will find the public transportation system a marvel as buses, trains, and planes generally run on time.

What draws tourists from all over the world, however, is the spectacular beauty of the country. Almost 70 percent of Switzerland is mountainous. Scattered throughout the valleys, sandwiched between or nestled below the towering peaks, are hundreds of Swiss villages with their unique dialects, foods, and traditions.

*Swiss Alps toward the famous North Face of the Eiger*

For over 20 years, my wife and I have enjoyed spending time in the alpine village of Grindelwald. Located in the Berner Oberland region, Grindelwald is a favorite tourist destination but also offers miles and miles of trails along the river banks or higher elevations for hikers looking to get away from the crowds and revel in the unsurpassed beauty of nature. Since our retirements, we have not missed a year exploring the rivers and mountains, except during the time of the pandemic in 2020. Even professional photographers cannot capture the fairy-tale magic of this magnificent area of Switzerland. Only by being physically present can one fully appreciate the incredible majesty of this enchanting land.

As beautiful as the country is, however, the people of Switzerland have an allure all their own. They are welcoming to guests, hard-working, neat, organized, and community oriented. Swiss people are conservative by nature in their values, traditions, and even their politics. But conservative doesn’t mean they are not progressive. The Swiss recognize the existential threat poised by climate change, for example, and are working around the clock to control the damage that a warming planet is causing to their beautiful land. In the very near future, the glaciers that supply much of the water for Swiss villages, not to mention habitats for wildlife, will disappear from much of Switzerland.

It’s not just the native people of Switzerland that we are drawn to, we also look forward each year to the people we meet from other lands. My wife and I enjoy meeting people from all over the world who come to enjoy the beautiful scenery and unique culture. On trains and buses we have met people from so many different places. Recently, we met a couple from China, Chinn and Tan, who were sitting across from us on a train. Chinn owns an export/import business in China and speaks good English. They were warm and engaging conversationalists. As we discussed our interests and families, my wife and I realized that Chinn and Tan were not all that different from us. So often we Americans think of the Chinese as threats to our way of life, but they want for their people only what we want for ours—to raise their families in peace with the hope of a better future.

A few days later, we met a family from Macedonia. The mother and father, along with their two daughters, were eating lunch at a table next to ours. We began a conversation that lasted 15-20 minutes. The father is employed by an energy company in Zurich. He has a Ph.D in a specialized scientific field and studies both fossil fuels and renewable energy sources that will power the world for the coming decades. He emphasized that in the near future the world will need both fossil fuels and green energy to responsibly sustain the modern technological way of life. Their oldest daughter, Kira, was celebrating her 7th birthday, so of course we wished her a happy birthday. The younger daughter, Zoe, tightly holding on to her stuffed dog Hugo, was wide-eyed and curious at meeting two Americans.

Travel has enlarged my view of the world. Over the span of my life, I have lived, gone to school, and become friends with people from foreign countries who helped me to become a better person by broadening my understanding of religion, politics, and people. To meet citizens from different lands and cultures, who speak different languages, and who worship differently has helped to deepen my appreciation for the diversity of our tiny planet. The fact is, in spite of all that separates us, we are not all that different from one another. We share the bond of our common humanity.

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