Explore Switzerland’s Cultural Landscape in Lavaux
By Barbara Radcliffe Rogers
In September 2007, UNESCO named Switzerland’s Lavaux region, on the sunny north shore of Lake Geneva, a World Heritage Site for its “cultural landscape” of vineyards and farms. Only five other wine-growing regions have achieved this UNESCO status.
The citation noted the authenticity of the land, divided into small plots and held in place by stone terraces, some dating from the Middle Ages. Along with its rich wine-growing heritage (the first vines were planted by the Romans 2000 years ago) the region has the country’s highest concentration of Michelin stars.
While your clients may expect sweeping views of snow-covered Alps and sumptuous Belle Epoch hotels overlooking the lake, they may be surprised to find mile after mile of hillsides neatly striped in grapevines. In this small area, six wine regions include 28 controlled appellations (DOC), and although rarely found outside Switzerland, the wines consistently win world competitions.
Lavaux’s Gastronomic Terrace Trails
A series of tourist routes has been created to showcase the scenery and the food and wine experience. To help you advise clients interested in exploring these and finding other authentic experiences, the Lake Geneva Region has several new (and free) publications, including the full-color “Gourmet Worlds,” filled with food and wine destinations.
Several food trails are mapped in great detail on the website (www.lake-geneva-region.ch). Posted with food and wine signage, the 18-mile Discover the Lavaux Terraces Trail is easily broken into shorter walks reached by the Swiss Rail network.
The route begins at Château de Chillon, among Europe’s most beautiful medieval castles, and follows the lake shore through Montreux before climbing into vineyards to follow terraces to Lausanne. The shorter Vully Vineyard Footpath also passes winegrowers, craftsmen and food shops where travelers sample products. The six-mile circular Coeur de La Côte vineyards walk combines splendid views with stops at country inns, winegrowers and village cellars. Advise a stop in Bougy-Villars to visit artisanal chocolatier, Tristan.
Steer dedicated foodies to vineyards and villages of the Vaud’s “breadbasket,” where the Bread Museum fills a 17th-century farm in Echallens. At Vieux Leysin Cheese Dairy they can watch cheesemakers work, and sample the product.
Walking is not the only way to enjoy the Lavaux. The Beau-Rivage Palace provides meals on board the Belle-Epoch paddlewheeler Montreux July-Sept, where cuisine has strong competition from the scenery. The Train-Resto Gros-de-Vaud and BAM Saveur are gastronomic trains with vintage cars where local foods and wines are served. The Train des Vignes travels through the vineyards from Vevey. Advise clients to spend some time in this lakeside city’s Alimentarium, a museum of food filled with engaging interactive exhibits. Summer Saturday mornings, a farmers market fills the main square. For clients who prefer to maximize their time by engaging a guide, suggest Fabienne d’Alleves-Ostersetzer, an excellent choice for her knowledge of regional history, art, wines and cuisines.
Call 011-41 21 943 1318; E-mail: fabienne.dalleves@hispeed.ch
Sampling the Local Treasures
Clients will certainly want to sample the traditional and fine dining options. At Philippe Rochat’s Hotel de Ville in Crissy, one of only two restaurants in Switzerland awarded three Michelin stars, each course is a work of art (011-41 21 634 0505; www.philippe-rochat.ch). In vertiginous Saint-Saphorin, L’Onde is a well-loved auberge where the chef makes richly flavored pates and terrines (011-41 21 925 4900; www.aubergedelonde.ch).
The Swiss Riviera has been the playground of generations of rich and famous, whose every whim is graciously catered to at grand hotels lining the Montreux and Lausanne lakefronts. I was treated with the same attention during my recent stay at Lausanne’s Beau-Rivage Palace (www.brp.ch), now celebrating its 150th birthday. The interior is sumptuous in frescoes, paneling and original art. Commissionable rates for two-night packages with spa treatments and lunch begin at $985.
Less grand, but sparkling from recent renovations, Hotel City (www.fass bindhotels.com) offers doubles from $200. Picasso Tours (www.picassotours.com) offers this three-star hotel as its lower-priced option for three-night packages starting just over $300, a bargain with breakfasts, excursions and entrance to Chillon Castle.
Getting There and Getting Around
Star Alliance partner Swiss International (www.swiss.com) flies direct to Geneva daily from JFK’s Terminal 4, where First and Business passengers relax in the new Swiss Lounge. Flights from Boston, Chicago and Miami connect through Zurich. OnePass partner Continental (www.continental.com) flies to Geneva from Newark five times weekly.
Good news for agents: save clients as much as 15% -- and earn a 5% commission – with advance-purchase Swiss Passes through Rail Europe (http://agent.raileurope.com, 888-382-7245). Along with free travel on trains, buses and lake steamers, Swiss Passes offer free admission to 400-plus museums, and free travel for children under 16.
Another value-added is the free Riviera Card offered by hotels, for free travel on local buses and 50% discount on train and boat excursions and museum admissions.
Contact Switzerland Tourism, 800-794-7795; www.MySwitzerland.com or www.lake-geneva-region.ch www.montreux-vevey.com for special packages.
September 2007 Feature
Show Time in Switzerland
by Tom Bross
Basel does the hosting; 2007 anniversary festivities in Fribourg & Stein am Rhein
Basel doesn’t rank in the Top Four of Switzerland’s best-known, most-visited urban centers. Zürich, Geneva, Lucerne and capital-city Bern consistently occupy highest perches in the touristic pecking order. But northerly “Number Five,” so remarkably situated that its outer neighborhoods converge with both French and German terrain, has plenty of attractions and serious artistic prestige.
Agents and tour operators found opportunities to explore the local and regional scene, thanks to Rhine-riverside Basel’s hosting of the 14th Swiss Travel Mart, last May 10-12, convening 350 nationwide suppliers, who welcomed 490 buyers from 41 countries. Over the past three years, the country’s incoming tourism (meetings and conference) totals have been steadily increasing, from 620,000 to 900,000 annually.
For getting-around purposes, visitors can easily adjust themselves to Basel’s transportation infrastructure.
Take the main railroad station as a prime example. SNCF French and SBB Swiss trains travel on separate tracks in separate sections of that same busy facility. DB German trains, meanwhile, chug to and from a different station—clock-towered Basel Badischer Bahnhof—about a mile beyond the river’s northern embankment. Then there’s the metro area’s unique EuroAirport (www.euroairport. com), 16 miles northwest of town and therefore situated in France. Serving Swiss Basel, French Alsatian Mulhouse and German Freiburg im Breisgau, it functions on the basis of a 1949 treaty negotiated between Switzerland and France, making this the world’s only two-nation airport.
Great Art Museum, High-Towered Rathaus
Mention Basel (population 163,186, a notch below Geneva’s total) to knowledgeable travelers and they’ll most likely begin by praising the Kunstmuseum, generally regarded as housing Switzerland’s biggest and best fine-arts collections. Old Masters (Dürer, Holbein, Cranach, Rembrandt, Breughel) are well-represented; same for French Impressionists, German Expressionists and American avant-garde notables. Roy Litchtenstein’s Hopeless, painted in 1963, depicts a comic-strip blonde in larger-than-life tearfulness. Coming in 2009 (April-Sept.): a major showing of landscapes by Vincent van Gogh.
From there, turning a corner to reach a street named St. Alban-Vorstadt brings visitors to Europe’s foremost Caricature & Cartoon Museum, which occupies a townhouse standing since 1422. Walking uphill in a different direction gets them to the continent’s oldest cathedral north of the Alps—a pink sandstone, twin-steepled Gothic landmark that’s dominated Basel’s skyline for 650-plus years. The church’s wide-open, harmonious Münsterplatz deserves notice as a terrific vantage point for panoramic views of the city layout and its four bridges spanning a sharp bend (Baslers call it the “knee”) of the Rhine.
Looming over the marketplace down in the historic and commercial heart of Basel, the 16th-century Rathaus makes a visual statement with its red sandstone tower, belfry pinnacles, multicolored roof patterns, heraldic sculptures and fresco-ornamented courtyard. Your clients should be encouraged to delve into the tangle of narrow, interestingly named old streets in the town hall’s immediate vicinity. (Among our favorites: Elftausend Jungfern-Gässlein—which means Eleven Thousand Virgins Lane).
Half a dozen other topnotch museums exemplify the city’s cultural eminence. Not to be missed, worth a public-transit commute (via #6 tram) to suburban Riehen: Fondation Beyeler, a major repository of “classic modern” art on a stunning garden site completed a decade ago, designed by superstar architect Renzo Piano.
Visit www.baseltourismus.ch for more about the city and the multinational Baselland region. Also see the article featuring the destination in JF’s May issue.
Mountain Country on the Big Screen
Beginning this spring, a movie entitled The Alps has been packing audiences in IMAX® theaters world-wide. Viewers take a cinematic train ride on the Glacier Express, bungee-jump off the Verzacsa Dam, poke into mountain villages and climb the Eiger North Face. For theaters and schedules, visit: www.alpsfilm.com.
The movie’s release coincides with this year’s 150th anniversary of the founding of England’s Alpine Club, a Swiss mountain-climbing pioneer. Soon after that 1857 startup, the Thomas Cook Company introduced alpine excursions in its “grand circular tours” offered to British vacationers.
Current civic celebrations mark the 850th anniversary of western Switzerland’s Fribourg, a beautifully preserved medieval city clustered around a 15th-century town hall and Gothic St. Nicholas Cathedral; www.fribourgtourisme.ch. Eastward toward Lake Constance (the Swiss/German Bodensee), picturesque little Stein am Rhein is in the midst of year-long festivities commemorating its 1,000th anniversary.
Flamboyant frescoes embellish the town center’s timber-framed houses; www.steinamrhein.ch.
Getting There
JAX FAX flew round-trip Boston-Zürich-Boston aboard Swiss International Airlines, code-share partnered with Star Alliance, established 10 years ago this past May. Arrival at Zürich’s super-efficient international airport was followed by a quick westbound transfer to Basel’s midcity train station (thank you, Rail Europe for Flexipass ticketing). Other U.S. gateways for nonstops to/from Zürich: New York JFK, Newark EWR, Chicago ORD, Los Angeles LAX, Miami MIA, Washington WAS. The airline also operates nonstop service between JFK and Geneva. Additionally, USAirways inaugurated Philadelphia-Zürich flights in June.
For general information about Swiss destinations, also about promotional materials and special-events updates, contact Switzerland Tourism offices in New York City, Los Angeles and Toronto. Phone: 877-794-8037; www.MySwitzerland.com. That website now features 200 excursion proposals and downloadable Swiss Cities Podcasts. Among available marketing publications are Cities (previews of a countrywide two dozen) and Selling Switzerland, an all-purpose sales guide that includes detailed Swiss Pass info, travel distances, categorized lists of incoming operators, schedules of events, FIT guidelines, PostBus offers and recommendable packages.
Basel: Discreetly Swiss and Quietly Classy
By Christine H. O’Toole
As I emerged from the train station into Switzerland’s wealthiest city at midnight, I expected dazzle. Bling. Oceans of Cristal, being guzzled in black-windowed limousines, cruising through a sparkling city.
But that’s not the way that Basel rolls. Though they share the Art Basel name for annual shows of outrageous art, this old-world city is decidedly not Miami. Wealthy, discreet Basel keeps it on the down low.
The first European bridge across the river was built here in 1225, and Basel has prospered ever since. Its medieval history is illuminated in its center, dominated by the famous thirteenth-century Munster and riverfront promenades. Art Basel is held here each June. But its artistic edge is best shown, appropriately, on the city’s fringe, where Switzerland touches France and Germany.
New architectural landmarks have sprouted in the suburbs. Many are world-class museums. The Swiss partnership of Herzog and de Meuron (designers of the new Miami Museum of Art), who make their headquarters here, contributed the hulking Schaulager, archive of the Hoffmann Foundation. Fellow Swiss Mario Botta added his signature curves to the waterfront at the Tinguely Museum. The Fondation Beyeler commissioned a nearly transparent home by Renzo Piano. And the Vitra Design Museum campus is packed with big name-buildings, with works by Frank Gehry, Nicholas Grimshaw and others. All told, the city boasts 40 handsome museums in its 40 square kilometers, all easily reached by tram.
From my central base at the Three Kings Hotel (five-star bling on the Rhine since 1681), it was a ten-minute tram ride to my next stop, the futuristic Schaulager. A high-tech warehouse for mixed media works in the vast Hoffmann Foundation collection, this massive concrete structure by Herzog and de Meuron was opened in 2003. Inside, the space is vast and white, with a few compressed windows. Light’s not required. The room-sized installations, including contemporary pieces like Katharina Fritsch’s menacing “Rat King,” are stored for future exhibits elsewhere behind foot-thick walls. If the Alps ever crumble, this fortress would probably remain.
Equally enduring is St. Alban Tal, a newly chic 700-year-old neighborhood that’s home to another museum district. It takes its name from an ancient city gate on the southern bank of the Rhine. Clustered along the immaculate pedestrian river walk were museums the contemporary Museum fur Gegenwartkunst (an offspring of the Kunstmuseum), the Karikatur and Cartoon Museum, and the Papiermuhle, a former paper-making factory beside a water wheel that still turns.
I hopped another shiny tram across the river to Solitude Park, where a shrine to a local hero awaited. The Rube Goldberg-type fountain at the entrance introduced the museum dedicated to Jean Tinguley, an avant-garde Sixities artist who poked fun at modern mechanics. The curvy building by architect Mario Botta faces the Rhine, pouring light into huge galleries displaying Tinguely’s work.
Tinguely was a lifelong Baseler; only a native could subvert its efficiency and invention so slyly. His works included film, performance and “self-destructive machines,” all of which demand space; a contraption called “Din” included a moving tractor, cymbals, and smoke.
At evening rush hour I departed from the Tinguely for the Fondation Beyeler. Like Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation, this collection of 200 modern masterworks draws international art lovers to the suburbs.
Alighting from the tram at Riehen, I followed a path towards a building that seemed, in the twilight, like a lozenge of glowing glass. Renzo Piano’s ten-year-old home for the collection donated by the Beyeler family seemed brand-new. Works by Picasso, Cezanne, and Monet got sensuous display here, in spacious galleries that paired Monet’s “Nympheas” with the strains of “Claire de Lune.”
I headed by tram over the German border. In the Vitra Design Museum in Weil-am-Rhein, pieces of furniture are the works of art. But the buildings scattered across a broad country field are works of art, too. Frank Gehry’s first European commission, the tumbling white museum, opened in 1989; a Buckminster Fuller dome, a sleek Tadao Ando designed conference center, and a high-tech fire station by Iraq’s Zaha Hadid sit alongside. Guided walking tours are conducted (in impeccable English) twice a day.
For lunch afterwards, a contemporary bistro seemed fitting. Acqua Osteria, near the city zoo, is set in the walls of a municipal water plant, with glass tiles showing bubbles under the floors. Acqua is where chic young Baselers take long lunches, with a prix fixe menu and carafes of local wine on every table.
I spent the afternoon in the sunshine along the Freiestrasse, where window shopping for Hermes and Armani, Bucherer and Prada was free. For city souvenirs, I’d already splurged on art: works from eight of the country’s most intriguing museums, stacked on postcards for my personal home gallery.
Basel is 16 miles from EuroAirport and one hour by train from Zurich International Airport. Beginning June 10, the French high-speed TGV line will offer service from Paris to Basel in three hours and twenty minutes. Swiss Travel System passes, good on transport from high-speed trains to lake steamers, can be purchased in the U.S. before departure (www.sbb.ch). The passes include free admission to 400 museums nationwide.
Basel Tourism offers a wealth of detail for English-language visitors at www.baseltourismus.ch. for links to museums, dining options, sample itineraries, detailed transit schedules and more. Basel Tourism also sponsors guided walking tours of the city daily from May through mid-October (Saturdays only October-April); tickets cost under $20 for adults.
The Basel Mobility Pass offers free public transit to all overnight guests in the city, while the Basel Card offers museum, dining and nightlife discounts. Get the card through Basel Tourism (two locations open daily, at the SBB train station (011-41-(0)-61-268-68 68) and at the Stadtcasino, Barfusserplatz (011-41-(0) 61-268-6868). Also available at EuroAirport, museums, and at some hotels.
For more information, contact Switzerland Tourism, 212-757-5944; www.myswitzerland.com