Ken Ritley

Switzerland is a land of many secrets. Everyone knows about the banking secrets, where anyone around the world can hide their money in a famous numbered bank account. Everyone knows about the secrets of lost paintings from WWII, hidden deep in bunkers underneath the Swiss Alps. Everyone knows about the secret Freeport in Geneva, which provides storage lockers at an airport that bypasses customs control, no-questions-asked, and where, according to experts, the overwhelming majority of the world’s art and archaeological treasures have been squirreled away by poachers and collectors alike.

But if you have lived here as long as I have, you know there are other secrets – real secrets – secrets so terrifying that even the Swiss themselves never speak of them, even in the privacy of their own homes. Secrets which, if you were even to whisper them to a close friend at a bar, mean you would be likely to simply disappear.

The Eschenberg Tower (in German, the Eschenbergturm) is one of these mysteries. It has been rumored to be a huge steel tower, many hundreds of feet tall, hidden deep within the thick forests of north-central Switzerland.

Who built it? Nobody knows.

Why was it built? Nobody knows.

Does it really exist? A secret that no Swiss will ever reveal to you.

Well, for several years now I hike through the forests – not knowing exactly if this rumor is true – so you can imagine my surprise when I found myself on a lonely hiking trail and I saw this sight:

Could this be that mystery tower?

My heart began to heartbeat. My pulse began to pulsate. My sweat began to sweatswate.

I approached slowly – and cautiously – in a state of near disbelief – until my eyes gazed upon this incredible sight!

It is indeed a tall tower, many hundreds of feet tall. Here is as artistic a snap as I thought I could get:

So, yes, I can confirm that this tower really does exist. But I cannot even dream of letting you know where. And in fact, after leaving he tower, I totally wiped my mobile phone to ensure there was no electronic trace whatsoever of where I have been.

Loud parties – even louder music – psychedelic drugs – great volumes of alcohol, drunk with wild abandon.

No, these wild bees are not those kinds of wild bees!

Continuing the series, here is another wild bee hotel, nestled deep in the Eschenberg Forest that is close to my home:

I took this snap looking up a rather steep hill in Wülflingen area of Winterthur – but the way it turned out, it looks rather horizontal:

Nothing special, just one of the many tens of thousands of “half-timbered” houses that adorn the North Central Swiss countryside:

Continuing the series, a while ago I showed this snap of the famous Underground Recycling Cisterns of Winterthur:

Well, today I caught an operator hard at work, emptying one of the cannisters:

You learn something new everyday – or at least, I do.  Today I learned that there are wild bees that actually do not make any honey.

Winterthur operates a series of hives all over the outskirts of the city, to help provide a home for these wild bees.

Here is what the hive looks like – covered in plastic, so that the public can see the bees:

And here’s a description on a plaque next to the bee stand:

And here’s a closeup

According to what I read above, the tubes that are covered over must contain a bee egg or larva.

I guess this snapshot doesn’t really do it justice – for some reason a big red flower has chosen to grow in an otherwise completely grassy area in Winterthur.

What kind of a flower is it?

Why did it chose to grow there?

Was it an accident or did someone plant it?

I’ll have to go back to the field where I took the snap, and take a snap of the bigger field.

Continuing the series, here is another snap of a public drinking fountain located in Winterthur:

Interestingly, the skyscraper in the background – for a long time Switzerland’s tallest – may be the current headquarters of the Sulzer Ltd. company – but it ain’t got nothing on the old classic Sulzer buildings, of which hundreds of them (literally hundreds) are scattered around Winterthur.

A castle is not a castle is not a castle – in the German language there are many different types, such as a Schloss or a Burg.

This one is well and truly a Schloss:

Getting up close and personal, here it was it looks like from one side:

And here is what it looks like from the other side:

With the current Corona restrictions in place I’ve had plenty of time to explore the (mostly empty) Swiss countryside on my motorcycle, being able to find and enjoy tranquil spots like this one.

Here they are, the Sulzer brothers (in German, Gebrüder Sulzer):

That’s Johann Jakob on the left, and his brother Solomon on the right. Interestingly, they weren’t the founders of the Gebrüder Sulzer company, which is today Sulzer Ltd., but rather their father, also named Johann Jakob. Founded in 1834, it’s Switzerland’s oldest company still in existance – and I had the great privilege and pleasure of working there.

Anyway, back in the day it was a heavy manufacturing company with forges and presses and steel working capabilities, and today the face of the Swiss city of Winterthur is still adorned by hundreds of Sulzer buildings and artefacts – literally hundreds – including this antique fountain (Brunnen, in German), where I stopped on my motorcycle to have a quick drink of water.

 

Not trying to document them all – don’t think I ever could – but the Corona quarantine gives me plenty of time to go exploring the magnificent Swiss countryside on my motorcycle, where I see sights like this one:

Lest you miss it, here is a blow-up:

Warning – once you see this, you cannot unsee it!

It seems blue clockfaces on Swiss churches are something of a pandemic – and just about every village in Switzerland has been infected!

I took this snap in outside of the tiny village of Lupfig in an even tinier, almost microscopic village who’s name I can’t remember.

For reasons I don’t fully understand, Swiss villages tend to be a bit more spread out than their German counterparts. But be that as it may, here is an artistic a snap as I thought I could get of a tiny village nestled so deep within the north-central Swiss countryside that tourists have been been here, no likely will ever be:

Switzerland: No country has more guns and people that shoot them except the United States. I am not entirely sure why, but I have always suspected that guns and shooting enjoys a very long and very deep historical impact on culture: the US was forged by cowboys, and cowboys need to shoot; and Switzerland was forged by William Tell and the world’s most trained and lethal mercenaries, and both William Tell and mercenaries need to shoot.

Anyway, this is a common site that you can’t help but trip over if you travel more than 5 or 6 kilometers in any direction in Switzerland:

I’ve blown up the target area to show you this is really used for shooting:

Be careful before you look further – be very careful indeed – because once you look at the following snap, you will never be able to un-see what you have just seen.

Here goes:

I have no idea what these containers are or what purpose they serve. Clearly, they are at the end of a corn field – and farmers do need containers to store their harvest of corn. Normally these corn-storing-containers are known (at least in the United States) as grain elevators – but in the US they are many, many times larger than these. Is the a Swiss equivalent, scaled down because Swiss farms are somewhat smaller?

I shall return one day and find out!

A tree in the springtime, in the Swiss village of Flüelen, just astride the Swiss Vierwaldstättersee, nestled deep in the Swiss canton of Uri,

Took this nap in the Swiss village of Flüelen,

Interestingly, this little village is nestled in the Swiss canton of Uri – a very remote canton, thought to be the birthplace of William Tell.

The Neanderthals were named for ancient human remains that were found in a valley of the same name, just north of Switzerland – and there is a lot of evidence to suggest that an enclave of Neanderthals existed in Switzerland – indeed, thrived in Switzerland – many thousands of years after going extinct elsewhere.

One bit of evidence for this are bits and pieces of language – linguistic artefacts, if you will.

Here is a town in a highly secluded region of Switzerland that could easily have been home to one of these Neanderthal enclaves:

The town is named “Taa” – no, that is not a Klingon name, although you could be forgiven for thinking it is. It is one of a handful of very strange words filled with hard, explosive sounds.

For another example of a probably Neanderthal enclave, please have a look here.