Steam train above Lake Brienz, Switzerland (photo. ©2011, Swiss Tourism / Christof Sonderegger)
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland’s national tourism office has just handed a gift to wannabe tourists, a completely revised web site that makes just about every aspect of travel in the country easier.
The overhaul of My Switzerland’s site was completed over the weekend of 4-5 June, and its new face was officially unveiled at the start of the week.
For the 24 million visitors who use the site every year, this is excellent news. MySwitzerland’s web site, published in 16 languages, has seen its traffic double in five years.
The previous version of the site was created in 2006 and while it boasted a wealth of information, it became heavy to use, by comparison with newer sites.
Swiss Tourism new site is far more than a facelift: it has been completely reworked, with a new approach to navigation that is more in line with today’s user’s expectations and that connects it better to offers from local and regional tourism offices. Searching the wealth of information in the database has become faster and the results display better.
The cost was several hundred thousand Swiss francs, but under half a million, says Swiss Tourism, in line with large web sites where the server structure and database technology have significant upgrades.
“Maximum of diversity in a minimum of space”
The tourism office puts it neatly: a maximum in terms of diversity in a minimum of space is not only a characteristic of Switzerland as a tourist destination, but a good description of the new site.
Pages are airier, less text-heavy but searches take you quickly to what at least on this user’s first try were several well-sorted results. Ironically, given the lighter look of the pages, it feels as if there is more information available.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Gulf Air has announced it will add three flights a week from Geneva to Bahrain starting 29 March 2011. The flights will leave at 11:50 and arrive at 18:50 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from Geneva using a B737-700 with 16 business class flat bed and 78 economy class seats. Flights the same days from Bahrain will leave at 02:15 and arrive at 07:50.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government Tuesday 11 January took to task the Israeli government for allowing the demolition of the Shepherd’s Hotel in East Jerusalem to go ahead, under the protection of Israeli armed forces. The hotel is being demolished to make way for a new housing settlement, which Switzerland points out is clearly in violation of international law.
“The 4th Geneva Convention, whose applicability extends over the entire occupied Palestinian territory, prohibits the Occupying Power from destroying personal or State-owned properties in the occupied territory with the exception of destruction rendered absolutely necessary by military operations, and it forbids the Occupying Power to transfer parts of its own civilian population into an occupied territory. Moreover, the construction of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory undermines the resumption of negotiations in view of realizing a two-state solution.”
The Swiss government says it is appealing to Israeli authorities to “respect International Law and to avoid any actions which might jeopardize the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.”
Public referendum in 2013 likely
The French and Swiss power grids: multiple electricity sources include nuclear power
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Three requests to build new nuclear power stations, on the site of existing ones, have passed their first hurdle, with the Federal Nuclear Safety Commission saying the sites meet legal and other requirements. The commission will now study the applications, the first in a series of approval stages that is expected to take three years. The three sites are in Muehleberg, canton Bern, Goesgen, canton Solothurn and Beznau, Aargau. The requests to build were filed by Forces motrices bernoises (FMB) for Muehleberg, Axpo for Beznau and Alpiq for Goesgen.
The commission has asked the three project owners to supply more information, in particular details concerning earthquake, landslide and flooding risks, as well as the financial profitability of the operations.
Enea's new Tree Museum, Zurich (click on images to view larger)
Tree Museum, photo Martin Ruetschi
Update 4 June / Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Zurich will soon add a new museum to its already eclectic and rich collection of these. One of the world’s top landscape architects, Enzo Enea, will open a tree museum in Raperswil-Jona, canton St Gallen, 14 June. The trees are a collection from those he has moved or adopted over the years while creating new gardens for people, and the youngest is 50 years old. About 120 trees will be on display at any given time. The tree museum is part of a 7.5 hectare park whose magnificent blooms will be on display for the public starting 14 June.
Zurich museums include, besides the famed Kunsthaus art museum, the Migros art museum with a notable contemporary art collection, the Rietberg collections/exhibits which host top international shows such as the just-closed “Mexico: Teotihuacan, The Mysterious City of Pyramid”, and which is worth visiting even just to see the grounds of this magnificent home which played host to composer Richard Wagner for nine years. It was here he offered his new composition “Tristan and Isolde”, written for Mathilde Wesendonck, his hostess, with whom he had an intimate relationship.
Links to other sites: Enea tree museum (Baummuseum), Luminaire on Enea
- Opening hours for the tree museum, Monday-Friday 09:00-18:30 and Saturday 10:00-17:00
- Address: Buechstrasse 12 / 8645 Rapperswil-Jona
- Telephone: +41 55 225 5555
New Swiss bank notes delayed to 2012
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – New bank notes for Switzerland will not come out until 2012, instead of autumn 2010, as originally planned. Security features to be added will require additional development and testing time, says the Swiss National Bank (SNB). The high level of security for the current bank notes means there is no urgency, it argues. Switzerland will keep the colours and denominations of the notes currently in circulation, but the new ones will be slightly smaller.
Links: SNB security features on Swiss bank notes, design details of Swiss bank notes, contest new bank note designs by Manuela Pfrunder, who was awarded the job (note: the new notes will not look like these)
A 5.9 earthquake in Haiti Wednesday 20 January, the largest to date, frightened people but does not appear to have caused major damage. An earthquake of 6 would be one-tenth the strength of the one that hit the country 12 January, since the Richter scale is a base-10 logarithmic calculation. Supplies are reportedly finally moving, although still slowly, aid agencies report.
Links to other sites: CNN, Reuters AlertNet
Early January evening snowfall at Bern's Aare River and Bear Park
Bern's new Bear Park offers a lovely riverside walk, information on the animals
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Winter may not appear to be the ideal time to visit bears at parks, given their reputation for hibernating, but this is not stopping tourists from streaming to see the new bear park in Bern, which opened in late October 2009. Finn, a young male bear recovering after he was shot when an intruder went into the animal’s den, is particularly sought out.
“He’s in a kind of micro-hibernation,” says bear park spokesperson Marc Rosset, who says you have to have luck on your side to see Finn during these wintry days.
Finn, swimming again in December 2009
“He came to us from the Helsinki zoo, where he did hibernate during his first two years.” But in the slightly warmer climate of Bern, he occasionally goes outside. “He gets hungry, so he goes looking for food,” says Rosset.
Finn’s fourth birthday is 15 January.
Apple eaters choose first by looks, then by smell, say the Swiss
Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A government study to determine what causes us to choose or reject apples shows that it depends on what kind of apple-eater you are: big apple fans select their fruit based on looks, but smaller apple eaters need to smell the apple and will buy it only if convinced that it smells good. The second group tends to reject darker apple varieties, which they associate with over-ripeness, unless they can smell or taste them. They also tend to reject apples that do not resemble varieties they already know.
