Surprise package
A luxury break in Switzerland puts paid to Susy Macaulay’s preconceptions about army knives, chocolate and cuckoo clocks
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I’M ASHAMED to admit that I had fallen victim to the old cliches about Switzerland – land of army knives, chocolate and cuckoo clocks, and ski-ing in winter. It barely figured in my list of European must-dos.
Then I went on a two-centre trip to Bern and Lucerne and quickly became a dedicated Swissophile.
Now being able to fly direct from Edinburgh to Zurich with BMI daily means I can feed my new enthusiasm with anything from a short break to a full-blown holiday with minimal displacement discomfort.
Admittedly, five-star pampering in two glorious hotels in the Victoria-Jungfrau collection went a long way to my conversion to all things Swiss, but even beyond the champagne flute gently fizzing in my suite as I walked in, the sublime food, spotless surroundings, gracious service and attention to detail, I could see a fascinating country awaiting exploration.
In Bern, we stayed in the Bellevue Palace, a former official state residence right next to the Swiss parliament. As it happened, the parliament was sitting, which it does four times a year, so the hotel was buzzing with everyone who is anyone in the world of Swiss politics. As the manager told us, the Bellevue Palace is where the real business of parliament gets done.
I firmly believe I shared my bed there with a number of presidents and huge stars – all right, not quite at the same time, but without doubt a number of grandees, from Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan to John Le Carre, could have stayed in my suite. The guest book was full of firmamental stars of that order, and my suite was one of the best, so it’s a given.
I also slept atop a mountain of money, because the Swiss gold reserves lie placidly beneath a square clad with world banks not 100 yards away. I hoped that some of the power and cash might rub off on me for ever.
Next day, I had an inkling of what Bern has to offer someone who can make that quick, convenient dash from Edinburgh. It’s only an hour by road from bustling Zurich, and in its Unesco World Heritage Old Town, you really have the feeling that time has slowed to a more elegant pace.
Goethe wrote 200 years ago that it was the most beautiful city he had ever seen, and Herman Hesse wrote in 1912, “Nowhere can one live in such peace as here”.
Perhaps that combination of beauty and peace was what permitted Einstein to think so deeply about the universe – his home in the old town of Bern is now a museum, and within the sound of the extraordinary 13th-century Zytglogge clock tower. Its astronomical clock was built in the 15th century and has faithfully chimed every hour, its figures executing their complex dance without a single break throughout the intervening five centuries.
Bern is full of historic buildings, mysterious fountains, statues and symbols impenetrable to the casual visitor. For this reason, a guided walk cannot be recommended too highly.
There is also a covered walkway containing no less than four miles of shops, and much of the old town’s life goes on underground in the old storage caverns, now home to exclusive boutiques and bars.
Time was too short in Bern, and it’s on my list for a return visit.
Next stop was Lucerne and another Victoria-Jungfrau hotel palace. Palace Luzern is on the shores of the lake of the same name and combines the stateliness of its 100 years with contemporary chic.
I flung open the windows of my suite (yes, another suite, featuring all the touches I had rapidly come to expect from the company – champers, chocolate, canapes, flowers, and so on) to find myself looking over the lake to the snowy Alps beyond. (At 7,000ft, Mount Pilatus is the principal mountain of this central section of the Alps).
Lucerne is compact, so walks round the lake and the old town are perfectly do-able on foot.
Again, a guide is recommended to tell you all about the birth of the town in the 12th century, its iconic bridges and water tower, its rampart walls, beautifully painted merchants’ buildings and monumental circular painting, the Bourbaki Panorama.
From my hotel room, I could look across the lake to what appeared to be a huge black warehouse with an impossibly large roof on the other side.
This frankly uninviting looking building, I was told, was the exciting KKL, Lucerne’s culture and convention centre, whither we were bound that evening for a concert.
We approached it in the most romantic way possible – by ferry over the inky water, right to the KKL’s private moorings. It was then that I suddenly saw what all the fuss was about.
The KKL is an extraordinary building, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and opened in 1998.
It is faceted with glass on the outside to capture and intensify light, and zoned on the inside to create soaring, crystalline layers or subdued intimate areas for concerts, theatre, conferences and fine dining.
Water from the lake is led inside in channels, where it blends so perfectly with the floor tiles that dry clothes are held in-house for visitors who inadvertently fall in.
The concert hall is considered one of Europe’s finest – oval in shape, its four balconies panelled with white plaster tiles so that it resembles a giant, inside-out wedding cake.
An acoustic chamber encircles the hall, its doors finely adjusted to suit the exact requirements of each performance. We enjoyed an unforgettable evening of Beethoven with pin-sharp acoustics.
And the next day, I had the privilege of a personal encounter with one of Switzerland’s leading art collectors, Angela Rosengart, at her family’s Picasso Museum.
In a former bank bought and specially adapted for the purpose, Miss Rosengart showed us round her personal collection of works by Picasso, Klee, Matisse, Braque – paintings she had bought but had been unable to part with.
She grew up in a house frequently visited by the great artists of her time, and even posed for Picasso.
“What was he like?” I asked.
“He would devour you with his eyes,” she said.
“At the end of a sitting, I would be quite exhausted. Come and look at this.”
She took me to a section of the museum devoted to family photographs. Dominating the crowded wall was a snap of Picasso, who stared out at the room with an unnerving intensity. I also realised for the first time how small he must have been.
Miss Rosengart was not tall, but there was a photograph of the two of them standing together, Picasso smiling, craning up at her, arms outstretched.
Switzerland is nothing if not full of surprises – of the best sort.
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