Traveling between Chur in Switzerland and Tirano in Italy, the 156km trip takes over 4 hours to complete. The reason why buses can run this route faster than the train is that the Bernina Express is the only train route to traverse over the alps and not under it. There Read more
Right on the border with Switzerland, the little town of Tirano depends on tourists flowing from Switzerland to keep its economy afloat. In fact, there’s a Swiss railway station that serves as the starting point of the Bernina Express right in the centre of town. The urban centres of Tirano Read more
Most well known for its international role of hosting the World Economic Forum, Davos is also a ski destination and a retreat in the mountains. The rich come for holiday by helicopter, athletes use its slopes as training grounds for skiing, snowboarding, and bobsledding. It also has three museums, of Read more
The German Migration Center in Bremerhaven provides automatic guided tours in both English and German through themed rooms to bring you along the journey of emigrants and immigrants. You are provided with a card called a “boarding pass” to tap on exhibits for explanations and quotes spoken by actors. It Read more
The first thing that struck me about Bremen was its idyllic windmill located right next to the city. I almost thought I overslept on the train and arrived in the Netherlands. The walk from the main station to the city centre is long but pleasant as shops and kebab houses Read more
Bremerhaven is in the state of Bremen, yet it is separated from its capital of Bremen by about an hour of Lower Saxony. The exclave of Bremerhaven is right by the sea so it forms a part of the Hanseatic League. The harbour harbours several museums and museum ships. The Read more
Domodossola isn’t really too much of a tourist town so Milan is the first real Italian city I’ve visited and it is…quite Italian. The 4th century churches, gothic architecture, dirty metro, liberal traffic flows, and “free” trams are just some of the highlights of the city. There are so many Read more
Heidi is perhaps the most famous piece of Swiss literature to non-Swiss people. Spyri’s take of a girl living with her grandfather, being sold to a rich family in Frankfurt, and then returning to the mountains due to homesickness has been turned into major motion pictures all around the world. Read more
Known as “Sylvester Klausen” to High German speakers and “Sylvesterchlausen” to Swiss German speakers, the festival is unique to Appenzell and only happens twice a a year in winter in select villages of Switzerland. To celebrate Saint Sylvester’s day on December 31, volunteers in each participating village meet at 5am Read more
Appenzell is a rather curious place in Switzerland. While the country was named after the canton of Schwyz in the centre of the country and its language is as diverse as birds in the trees, Appenzell feels to me as the most quintessentially Swiss region. Appenzell is located in the Read more