Yodeling and Mooing

It is interesting sometimes to consider how people see themselves. We all have our opinion of how old we are mentally, for example. Me, I think I am 25. I know I am not of course. My knees and other joints tell me something quite different. But on our recent Christmas trip to see Indy and Cat in Zurich, it rebounded quite strongly. Not my knees, this thought.

You'll no doubt have followed our every move on Chris' fantastic and now beautifully updated travel app, Track My Tour, which if you haven't you can catch up with right here.  I alluded to our arrival and departure interludes when on the airport shuttle trundling you between terminals, the voice over charmingly welcomes you to Switzerland (in English) and when finished is replaced by these sounds that you think really cannot be. Surely that cannot be alpine bells tinkling, alpine horns moaning and ... wait for it... contented Swiss cows mooing. Can it? But yes, it is. We listened to it going in and out and both Indy and Cat confirmed that it is a standard thing. So the Swiss who are some of the most sophisticated people in the whole darn world think these cutesie little things are those things that most completely describe them??

Why not fondue? OK well it is a solid cheesy mass that sits in (and on if you are a bit messy like me) your tummy for days and days afterwards. 

Apparently so, and as for myself I do like a chuckle or two so appreciate self deprecation but really the Swiss are all about milk, bells and yodeling?? No I don't think so and I am glad we spent some jolly hours in the Swiss National Museum to straighten things out for myself. Mind you I could have just walked down Bahnhofstrasse past all those watch shops, private banks and name brand designer shops selling hideously expensive stuff to realize that that milk, bells and yodeling stuff is just plain hogwash. (Spoiler alert here... I did walk down Bahnhofstrasse on several occasions).

So where do I start?

Switzerland was a nonentity waypoint in Roman Empire days so not much is made of that and it became more important when Charlemagne's grandson's daughters found they liked Zurich enough to build an abbey there. In the 9th century Zurich was a mildly unimportant rural town in the Holy Roman Empire but these ladies upped their importance and dignity for with religious buildings like cathedrals, monasteries and abbeys comes people and lots and lots of money. However although this is a key point in Swiss history, it is almost forgotten now as Zurich in particular was an amazingly focal point in the Reformation. Some of the key men that took the Reformation onwards and upwards came from here and of course they needed pulpits and found plenty to chose from, including the abbey which these days is called the Fraumunster. The then abbess around 1524 politically decided to cede the abbey to the town (and hence the reformation) and go somewhere they felt more welcome leaving the place free to the fire breathing reformers that were the new breed to howl at the moon and their congregations. We know this for the pamphlets provided by the churches said so and more. Very open they were. Apparently these new breed were so vociferous that when one of the main voices died, the congregation of course paid for a statue but also took a loooong deep breath before settling back to enjoy the more charming cocktail party manners of his successor. Who apparently had a long and happy life there.

The Fraumunster on the river

I love this story as it is just like the early days of the Christians who had the hard nosed, fire breathing evangelists discussing fire and brimstone and of course love everyone who were followed by St. Paul who had to tone it down a bit and put the whole thing onto a more stable footing... and of course more remunerative along with his buddy St. Luke. They basically wrote most of the New Testament and I don't think I can read St. Paul's letters to the Corinthians without laughing out loud. His attempts to suggest that when our lord talked about loving everyone, he was talking rather more spiritually than physically and the Sodom and Gomorrah that Corinth had become in the first century AD was actually a bit of an anachronism as opposed to a model community.

Apologies for the digression but it certainly is curious how things repeat.

But I was talking about the Swiss, wasn't I? Well they dumped the Empire back in the late 13th century (maybe the Empire noticed, who knows these days?) and started off on their own.

An early freedom fighter from Empire days... or a terrorist? Depends on the viewpoint

One massive irony came almost immediately after the Reformation when they decided to remain neutral during the 30 Years War that started in 1618. That's right, leaving all their protestant buddies in countries nearby whom they had done so much to convert to be ritually slaughtered over the next 30 years as the war utterly devastated Central Europe, particularly Germany. One of the reasons for the civil disturbances of 1649-50 in Switzerland came as a result of demand for Swiss products declining in the aftermath of the war as local economies started getting back on their feet. Just like the general strike of 1918 (the main display in the museum when we visited) when you know demand for Swiss products declined as their major customers (Germany and Austria) stopped buying. And again just after WWII when nobody would speak to them as they had sided with the Nazis (stopping short of being a part of the Axis of course). Some of the key trading items during these times in no particular order were Lenin, looted Jewish gold and flat packed log cabins used for military purposes by the SS in Eastern and Central Europe..... they had to apologize to the Soviets before they were allowed in to the UN.

How do you write about this stuff and say as little as you can so that people don't think that you are really despicable? But you have to say it. Or at least something approximating it. At least they are better than the Japanese at owning up.

So much for being moral arbiters.

The country itself is picture postcard perfect although Zurich as we discovered is in a valley where it may not snow that often but which more than makes up for it with fog, mist and rain. Lots of drizzle too so I felt just like back in England.

Ridiculously beautiful

Speaking of whom I can't let the current Brexit situation pass without comment and Switzerland is a perfect example of what Britain could be if they chose this path. Now of course Switzerland isn't physically separated from the continent like Britain but it is not a part of the EU but has open borders being part of the Schengen system. It is almost laughably expensive but has zero unemployment and has a population that is totally OK with buying Swiss made stuff. So almost every brand you can think of has a Swiss plant that produces stuff at double the price of the not quite so laughably expensive EU.

$17 for a burger.......no fries

Why hasn't anyone in Britain thought about discussing the "Swiss Model"? That is, if Brexit is to happen.

But it works. Spectacularly so. The standard of living is one that can only be dreamed of for the rest of the world. And that is totally normal. For everyone I think (although I don't know this for sure but it sure seemed that way). Mind you Swiss people are forever popping over the border for a shopping experience which their EU neighbors happily manage by placing supermarkets, shopping malls and every manner of retail experience right there, walking distance away from a very large car park on the border in Switzerland. For while it is not legal to drive back with stuff that has no duty paid on it, you can certainly trundle it back by hand.

All in all I loved it warts and all.

Getting Ready for Pompeii

Like a previous trip I have been extremely remiss in not staying current on these posts.  However I did use that wonder App called Track My Tour (please tell Chris that I sent you if you check it out) which did a much better job.  Here is the link to this part of the trip -- Click here.

**

Probably the highlight of our sojourn in Naples was visiting the Archaeological Museum.  We hopped off the bus here for several hours which were just wonderful.

First of all, this entire region is really old.  There is loads of old stuff to house here.  But the really important raison d'etre of the museum is that anything of quality that could be found in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum were moved here.

Not recently of course.  The Farnese family of the 16th century were popes and had a taste for antiquity so moved anything and everything that he could (statues, sculptures, mosaics, etc.) to his palaces in Rome.  Once Bonaparte invaded Italy in the last years of the 18th century, Italy's map was redrawn but one thing that remained was the Kingdon of the Two Sicilies which passed under the control of Murat, his great cavalry commander.  Murat took back all these wonders and put them into his palace which ultimately morphed into this fantastic museum.

Included too is a 'naughty' room where all those artifacts found in Pompeiian brothels are displayed.  In past days, only the bigwigs could view these delights.  Later on, just men.  It is now open to all over the age of 18.  Interesting sculptures, toys, trinkets, paintings and things couldn't really be identified.  As this is a smut free zone, I will leave the details to your imagination.

The young Augustus when he was still called Octavian

Uncle Julius with a very generously sculptured profile

One of the most famous mosaics from Pompeii

Imagine this was on the floor first of all.  This is what you walk on when entering a house in the Roman era.  It is a mosaic from a house in Pompeii that we later visited taken from an old Greek painting of one of Alexander's great battles against the Persians.  A copy of the painting is to the left.  Alexander's head is all that can be seen on the left.

This is a painting taken from the wall of a house in Pompeii.  The Romans painted directly onto the plaster which is why so few paintings remain.  This is red hued due to the heat of the big day in 79 AD.

The famous bull sculpture (room size from one single piece of marble apparently) reminds us why adultery is a bad thing.  If caught you get chained to a wild bull by your children like this God from antiquity.

Hercules after his 11th labour needed a rest so leaned on his big stick.  I had a cold drink and pizza.

Happy Trails

Just back home to Bermuda and the hot, sticky weather my first thought after 2 months away was how old Bermuda looks.  Not surprising I suppose seeing as it was discovered in 1609 and being small has been built over for years now, so there's precious little leeway to build big, new things.  Or money at the moment anyway although I do hope that changes soon.

Looking back on our time away though, here are some thoughts:

Chicago

What a great City!

That's it.  Nothing else.  OK, one thing someone told me about was the Architectural Society's city tours and how good they were.  He was right.  And this really leads onto a theme running through the trip which is that exploring somewhere through history brings perspective and so much more enjoyment than simply rolling up and trying to get going.  My son, Ali, recently went to Paris for a friend's wedding and visited some of the museums there which he said he really enjoyed.  I found this pleasantly surprising as I thought the young today don't read that much (if its not on a digital device) and don't care much for history beyond the first 20 second sound byte.

Chicago Board of Trade's throne style art deco building

Museums

Many of the museums we visited had guided tours of displays, events and such like.  Do them.  These tours are provided for a reason.  They are interesting and informative.  If the guides are enthusiastic (and ours were), this translates into a wonderful experience which brings so much more to what you are looking at.

Warning: You are in danger of learning something…

In Montreal, for example, at the Pointe a Calliere Museum -- the museum of the city -- a temporary exhibit was of one district in the City just outside downtown.  I couldn't for the life of me understand why I'd care about some suburb but the tour convinced me otherwise and reminded me that everyone and everywhere has a story.  All you have to do is listen.

I now know for example why Montreal housing is built the way it is -- outside staircases because property tax at the time was calculated on living space, staircases being considered dead space were therefore built outside.  Made no sense of course as with the city being snowed in for 6 months of the year, these staircases were death traps!

Not many people know that.

Baseball

The 2 games we went to were brilliant but make me wonder why there are so many games in a season. 162 regular season games is a lot so teams have to have large rotating squads and make sure they win 52% of their games to make it to the play-offs.  (Watch the movie Moneyball to see what I mean). This means the game can be managed statistically; beat that team, rest the good guys for this other team…

Takes some of the immediacy out of things.  Had we realised the St. Louis game was the final one in a 3-game series against LA and they'd already won the first 2 games, we may not have spent the $100 per ticket to watch a game that was fairly low energy (and importance to St. Louis anyway).

I think this is likely the case with NBA and NHL too.

Bourbon

I was hoping I'd like Bourbon but even the smoothest drink felt like a dagger in the throat to me (just like Scotch too).  But when incorporated into a cocktail such as an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan… whoo-hoo!

Draw daggers…

Old Fashioned and Mint Julep… that's what I'm talking about!

Interestingly as a side comment the barman at our cocktail course said that Canadian Rye whisky is the most popular US drink so that now many US distillers make rye too.  This is permeating into Bourbon making as well where the area in which it was originally distilled (Bourbon county in Kentucky) was expanded to the point where it could be made anywhere in Kentucky and still be called bourbon, and then again further still so that bourbon can be made anywhere… and still be called bourbon.

This would never happen in the EU who make sure that you can only legally get Yorkshire Pudding in Yorkshire.  Mind you the French are highly guarded over Champagne and Cognac so maybe the EU learned it from them.

Movies

We like movies and when away take the chance of spending lengthy periods in the local Cineplex 24 or whatever the local name is.  If you plan properly, you could spend an entire day in one of these places moving from screening room to screening room -- our record was 4 in a day.  The challenge is to find movies you like in the right order.

The biggest irritant is going out to buy multiple tickets and makes me wonder why these multiplexes don't just sell a day pass, or a week pass for that matter.  Double or triple a single ticket and enable movie goers to stay and go as much as they want.  They'd buy stuff at the concessions and probably generate more revenue for the cinema and at the same time obviate the need to hire people to check for those who hop from screen to screen without buying new tickets.

Make the experience better for moviegoers in fact.

Service

We went out a lot in the last 2 months.  Pretty much across the board we found that service in bars, restaurants and hotels was excellent but stand out moment goes to the Toque Restaurant in Montreal (see link here).

We were recommended this as being one of the best restaurants in Montreal and expecting it would be French-ish, we went.  Montreal isn't as French as I thought it would be nor was Toque.  It was new, elegant and had some French components to it but it was new American… and very nice too.  I'd ordered a bottle of red wine I thought would be nice and while drinkable it wasn't great and for some reason I mentioned this to the sommelier when he asked.

He apologised and asked if he could change it for us.

I hadn't expected this as it was my poor choice in the first place that I was happy to live with.  I certainly didn't ask him to change it.  He offered.

He also said let him choose a wine he thought we'd like… and he did.  And we did.  And it turned out to be a Serbian cabernet.  Very nice it was too.  The sommelier said he didn't want to tell us first as we'd never have agreed to try it.  He was right, we wouldn't.  I wish I'd made a note of the name as it actually was lovely.

As was dinner and the stunningly unexpected service level.

Luggage

We made some very poor choices regarding luggage in our trip earlier in the year and had cut things down to just the 3 bags … from 6.  Progress certainly but still not perfection.

What were we thinking?

Travelling these days with luggage is a real pain.  Virtually all airlines now charge for luggage -- AA I think was the hold out in the US but they gave up in April when they merged with US Airlines.  Yet another added cost on top of the quoted fare.  Security and Immigration controls are also a pain.  If the US ever increases its Amtrak routing, I'd consider trains more.  No immigration, no travel to/from the airport, no security… sounds wonderful.

Or we could just go tubing…