Lake Geneva in Montreux

Montreux is the last stop on the Golden Pass line, a scenic railway route which we followed from Lucerne. It is right on the banks of the eastern end of Lake Geneva (Lac Leman to locals, Genfersee in German), at the foot of some of the Swiss Alps.  The lake is one of the largest in Western Europe belonging to both Switzerland and France.

Not unreasonably, the area is known as the Swiss Riviera, specially because of the Mediterranean kind of climate it enjoys. It is a mild micro climate, with the lake and the steep hills behind protecting it from the severe winters that other parts of the country experience.

We stepped out of the station, crossed the road and went down a long flight of steps to get to the lake just opposite the station. Thankfully there is an escalator to come back to the top, which of course we used while returning.

The Promenade Fleuri is a flower-lined path built right along the lake, from Montreux to Vevy allowing people to stroll along admiring the amazing colour contrasts provided by the water, the mountains that come right down to the water on the other side, the clouds on top against the sheer blue of the sky. We walked along one stretch till Clarens. We saw trees like pines, cypress, palm, bananas etc. which can only grow there. There are a number of other exotic colourful and scented flowering plants, not common in Switzerland.

A bridge in Lucerne

A 50 minute train journey brought us from Zurich central station to the beautiful city of Lucerne (Luzern), sometimes also described as the gateway to central Switzerland. The city is on the banks of Lake Lucerne (Vierwaldstaettersee or Lake of the Four Forested Canons), surrounded by the Swiss Alps including Pilatus, Titlis and Rigi. We stepped out of the station and saw the lake right in front at the bottom of the mountains. Turning a bit towards the left brought us onto a bridge, Seebrucke, at the end of which was the Saturday morning market and also next to it was a cute, flower-lined, angled, wooden bridge, running diagonally over the water.

One of the famous landmarks of Lucerne is the Chapel Bridge or Kapelbruecke, a covered, wooden bridge, 669 feet long which maybe one of the oldest in Europe. The original bridge was built in 1333 as part of the city's fortifications but was destroyed by a fire on August 18, 1993. The restored bridge was opened on 14th April, 1994. The bridge spans the river Reuss near to the place where it flows out of Lake Lucerne. It is named after St Peter's Chapel which is at its northern end.



There is a tall, octagonal tower adjoining the center of the bridge, more towards the southern portion. This is the Water Tower (Wasserturm), a building constructed around 1300 AD which has subsequently been used variously as a prison and torture chamber, watch tower, treasury and archive.

Another significant feature is the 122 gable paintings, originally dating from the 17th century, a lot of which of which were destroyed and subsequently restored after the fire. The paintings by Heinrich Wagmann, have Swiss history and Christianity as a common theme and show quite violent and morbid scenes. Some of them depict black death, in reference to the black plague of the 1500's which wiped out more than half of the population of Europe. Others show the daily life and times of the people of that age, their clothes and activities. Stories of the life of the city's patron saints, St. Leodegar and St. Maurice, are also seen, as are the coats of arms of the various noble families. The paintings were executed directly on the frame of the bridge and the ones at the two ends of the bridge were part of the few of the original to have completely escaped the fire. Each painting has a number and a caption.

Austria darshan!!

Off to Austria tonight for the Easter holidays. We shall be spending tonight on the train, sitting upright. Tomorrow night we shall be in Salzburg and Saturday night will be in Vienna. Sunday night will again be in the train and hopefully we will be back in Zurich on Monday morning. That's the plan. Let's see how it goes. I shall come back and report next week. Till then ciao.

Book review - Nothing is Blue by Biman Nath

I bought this book Nothing is Blue by Biman Nath while waiting at Hyderabad airport. The story - a detective story set in Nalanda caught my attention, and I felt like I had to read the book. I was not disappointed.

This is the first book of the author, who is an astrophysicist by profession, and thus in a good position comment about positions of stars, which form an important part of the story. The story is set in 7th century India and follows the life of Ananda, a student monk at the monastery of Nalanda. The other characters in the story are names which to me are the stuff of legends - Hiuen Tsang, Shilabhadra, Brahmagupta, Khona etc. It is a historical fiction, depicting on the one hand some of the problems that Buddhism had to go through to survive and on the other hand also dealing with some complex astronomical problems which probably affect the lives of Indians today also. 

It is not a murder mystery - there are no bodies dropping at regular intervals. Nevertheless, there is intrigue, suspense, secrecy, and similar ingredients in ample measure to keep the reader happy. At the beginning itself, the book itemizes the three major ideas it deals with - the visit of Hiuen Tsang during the reign of the great Indian emperor, Harshavardhana; the development of tantric Buddhism; and the suppression of mathematical calculations showing the inaccuracy of South Asian calenders. "Festival dates are now offset by almost a month."

The story of Khona, a woman astronomer in ancient India, has been nicely told in a way that I was able to identify with - having heard her name since childhood but not really knowing much about her. It is entirely plausible that she had been a victim of male egoism and her discoveries were not made public.

The writing style is simple and a continuous flow is maintained throughout the book. However, a lot of questions remain unanswered at the end. Maybe this was the author's intention, to allow the readers free use of their imagination to fill in the blanks. However, it does leave one with a mild feeling of discontent at the end of the story. A book that is definitely worth reading once.

Lindenhof - Zurich

Zurich is believed to have been founded in 15 BC by the Romans who had a customs station here which they called Turicum. This name was first discovered on a Roman child's tombstone dating back to around 200 AD. Evidence has also been found of ancient Celtic settlements, so it is still probably not sure as to who came first.

The Lindenhof hill which is part of the old town area of Zurich, rises about 25 m above the river Limmat  and is situated right beside it. The Romans probably took advantage of the height in order to build a fort there and remains of it can still be seen today. Today it is a pleasant shady park with good views of the city and the river, a flat square on top of the hill, with a lot of trees, including lime trees. There is a steep climb to reach the place, just starting off Rennweg and Strehlgasse. It is a peaceful place with a number of benches scattered around, some chess playing squares on the ground and a place to rest in between roaming around the city, or even to eat a picnic lunch.

There is a copy of the child's tombstone, which was first discovered in 1747 in the Lindenhof area. It is for the son of the head of the customs station, a boy named Lucius Aelius Urbicus who died at the age of 1 year, 5 months and 5 days. 

There is also a fountain, the Hedwig fountain, which was built in 1668 to recall the bravery of the women of  Zurich. The story goes that in 1292, Duke Albrecht von Habsburg I, had attacked Zurich while the men of the city were away doing battle in Winterthur. It is believed that the women of the city, led by Hedwig Burghalden, dressed in armour and carrying lances, stood on the walls of the Lindenhof, to successfully protect their city against this siege.

There are more Roman remains near the hill - the heating system of an ancient Roman thermal bath, which can be seen on Thermengasse. They date back more than 2000 years but were discovered recently in the 1980s.

Till next time, ciao.





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Book review - Death of a Valentine by M. C. Beaton

Death of a Valentine is the 26th out of 27 books in the Hamish Macbeth Murder Mystery series by M. C. Beaton. The mysteries are set in and around the quiet village of Lochdubh in the Scotland countryside. The village policeman, Hamish Macbeth, who has a laid-back attitude to life in general, prefers to solve all murders and in general maintain peace and quiet within his beat without attracting a lot of attention to himself. He does his best to avoid any subsequent accolades or promotions as a result of his successes.

The book is written in a simple style without unnecessary turns of phrase. The mystery is a straightforward one with too many suspects so that both Hamish and the reader feel lost. However, as usual the mystery is successfully brought to a proper conclusion at the end without Hamish's bosses getting to know that he is the one to have solved the case.

There is a side-story going on all through the book which does make it a bit irritating. It deals with Hamish's junior, a new female constable, Josie, who seems to be less of a police officer and more of a matchmaker - obsessed about marrying Hamish and her future life with him. Her antics seem unbelievable at times, making up schemes which no sane woman trained to be a police officer would probably be capable of. She runs away from the job too much just like at one point she runs away while the macho Hamish rescues a lion that had escaped into the countryside.

Its a good book if you want something to finish in a day or more likely, in a couple of hours. There are a number of characters which are a continuation from the previous books in the series, but it is easy to follow them. It is less easy to follow the suspects in the investigation. Go ahead and read it, specially if you like cozy mysteries.

Fasnacht or Carnival time!

This week was time for attending two masked parades - one in Zurich and one in Basel. These parades were part of the Fasnacht celebrations all over Switzerland. Since the entire thing was new to me, I did some reading up on the internet and got some information from variousother articles and of course good old  Wikipedia.

The German word for carnival is Fasnacht. The carnival is a festive occasion which is primarily celebrated by Roman Catholics in different parts of the world and it takes place just before the start of the sombre Lent period. However, Switzerland does not restrict celebrations specifically to Catholics. Different parts of the country celebrate the festival at different times, starting as early as January and running right through February and March as well. 

The Fasnacht celebrations in Zurich started last Friday evening, 11th March and ended with a big parade on Sunday, 13th March. The parade was on Bahnhoffstrasse, starting from the lake and going up near to the main train station. When we reached, a lot of people had already gathered along with a lot of tiny witches, princesses, a small superman and a super-small frog - the children were dressed in fancy dress. The adults were sporting bright fluorescent hair that were green or pink or any other colour that one could think of with equally bright paints all over their faces and any other visible body part.

The long parade had people all dressed up in various different costumes, masked and made-up to look like witches and different, really scary creatures complete with horns and tails. They were like Halloween costumes but then it was in broad daylight and everyone was having a lot of fun. Each group had different masks and were either part of a band, playing different musical instruments or else throwing paper confetti and candy to the crowd. The idea of the costumes is probably to scare away the evil winter spirits and welcome in the warm summer days.

The Basel one was a much larger celebration. That started early in the morning but we went there in the afternoon. The celebrations there were from 14th March, 4 am to 17th March, 4am. There is a lot more confetti throwing going on there, along with other small gifts as well, like candy, oranges, bananas, small stuffed toys etc. from giant floats moving right through the crowd. The parade is not restricted to a few hours, instead the entire city goes crazy for 72 hours. Besides costumes of witches and ghosts, some of the bands also make political statements and it was also possible to spot the German Chancellor, the French Prime Minister and so on.

So this was a huge change from the normal quiet life that is Zurich or rather Switzerland. A few hours later there was no sign of celebrations anywhere in Zurich. The police had cleared away the crowd and the cleaners had swept the streets clean. Typical Swiss efficiency and life goes on as usual. Till next time, ciao.