Impressions of Germanic Switzerland
For those who thought that Switzerland is only about political neutrality, peace talks, watches and cheese, a trip around the numerous medieval townships of German speaking part of the country, will definitely be a mind-changer. Foreign occupation, power struggles between lords, kings and cities, religious differences heating up people to persecution and manslaughter, it’s all part of Swiss history, just like anywhere else in the world. The uniqueness of Switzerland is rather in nature, in the bucolic Alpine landscapes of mountains, steeply rising meadows with cows, farms and wooden chalet houses, in the strings of lakes and rivers dotting the lower parts of the valleys. And, yes, of course, there is also the modernity of industrial life, business, finance and the stock exchange of the country’s largest city, Zürich, but even there, the lake and the horizon of high mountain peaks grant the city a delicate natural perspective, resolutely reaching beyond the urban pollution of noise, traffic and concrete.
Before visiting the place of your choice:
Not only was the Canton of Schwyz among the three founding members of the initial ‘Eidgenossenschaft’, the Alliance of Oath at the Rütli Meadow of Seelisberg, Schwyz has also given its flag and its name to the country that would gradually emerge from this bold partnership of three. It is therefore not surprising at all that the ‘Bundesbrief’, the ‘Letter of Alliance’, the Oath Parchment, traditionally dated at 1291, but possibly a decade or so younger, is ceremoniously and solemnly kept in the town of Schwyz, in the Archives of the Charters of Confederation. The museum building was specifically erected for this purpose in 1936, its facade covered with a giant colourful painting of the Rütli Oath. Much of the historic city centre consists of houses and public buildings of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as the Rathaus, the Town Hall with its reddish intense facade paintings.
