Once you’ve lived in Switzerland for a long time, it’s only when you go on holiday or back to your home country that you realise that all the things that are normal to you here, really aren’t elsewhere. To illustrate this point, here are six things in Switzerland that just make sense.
Switzerland may be known as a hotbed of banks, high salaries, 12-franc coffees and million-franc studio apartments, but a few things are both free and convenient. Case in point: every water fountain in Switzerland, from the centre of Basel to atop the highest mountain, is drinkable unless stated otherwise.
This means that you will always be refreshed when you are on the go, and should mean you can leave bottled mineral water behind. Think having free refills is normal? Try and find a city in the UK or the US that has over 1.200 public drinking fountains like Zurich!
In other parts of the world, having less than a 10-minute connection between your bus and train is a lucky roll of the cosmic dice - or a danger in places where delays are common. In Switzerland, journey plans have been modified and even cancelled at just the thought of having to wait more than 30 minutes for the next train.
As the densest network in the world, public transport in Switzerland is designed so that travellers can take trains every 15 minutes between anywhere, from the largest Swiss cities to the smallest towns. What's more, the timetable has been optimised so that most services neatly connect to any onward journeys you may need to take. Remember that if you, for example, miss one of just eight daily trains between Toronto and Ottawa.
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Another pleasingly free part about life in Switzerland is, if the weather is hot and you need to cool off, you can just leap into the local lake or river! Be it Lake Zurich or Geneva, the Rhine in Basel or Aare in Bern, local waterways are clean and excellent swimming spots during the summer months.
Plus, if you don’t mind stepping over some stones or having just a ladder as an amenity, you can ditch the entry fee at the swimming pool and swim for free.
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While working in Switzerland is usually considered a “high effort, high reward” enterprise, there are two times of day when the country takes a leaf out of the Scandinavian playbook by sitting down to coffee and cake. In Switzerland, elevenses and afternoon tea have been replaced with Znüni (9am) and Zvieri (4pm).
From school and homes to offices, Znüni is a well-known custom across German-speaking Switzerland, and is a time to down tools and chat with friends, family and colleagues over a cup of coffee and snacks. Everyone is able to choose their snack, but most of the time it is fruit and pastries paired with tea, coffee, water or juice.
If the gap between lunch and dinner is too vast, you can also indulge in Zvieri. Typical delicacies for the mid-afternoon snack range from a refreshing ice cream in summer to hot chestnuts (Heissi Maroni) in the autumn and winter.
What's more, you can describe all your meals in German Switzerland in the same way. Calling your meals Zmorge (breakfast), Znüni, Zmittag (lunch), Zvieri and Znacht (dinner) is a surefire way to tell that you may have been living in Switzerland for too long...
It’s always liberating to go outside, point to a place on the landscape and say, "let’s go there". Switzerland makes it all too easy to discover new parts of the country thanks to its labyrinth network of cycling and walking paths.
Thanks to Switzerland Mobility, the country is crisscrossed with well-maintained walking trails and cycling routes, some of which are even designed with views and sightseeing in mind. Others are “barrier-free” meaning they can be enjoyed by those with limited sight and mobility.
In the hustle and bustle of modern cities around the world, it can take a lot of time (and money) to find and travel to a place where the drum of life doesn’t beat as loud. In Switzerland, quieter parts of the country like forests, mountains and fields are never too far away.
Need an escape from Zurich? Then the rolling fields and quiet lakes of the Zurich Oberland are just half an hour away by train. Has the buzz of Basel started to wear thin? Then a quick trip and hike around the cathedral and Hermitage of Arlesheim is just down the road. Geneva may be known for its liveliness, but a tranquil walk around the vineyards of La Plaine and Satingy is only a few stops away by train!
Whichever city you find yourself in, there will be a quiet place to relax and simmer down.
While there are problems that need addressing, there are also many different things that make Switzerland a pleasant bubble of beauty and efficiency in the heart of Europe. Do you think there is something Switzerland has or does that should be copied the world over? Let us know in the comments below!