Swiss and Switzerland

I used Microsoft Lens to unstretch this gate, a surviving artifact of the walled city of Schaffhausen – or, in the Alemanic language, Schaffhuuse:

 

Seeing this up close, it makes me wonder why the skin tones of some of the people in the painting are dark?  This might not seem interesting, but only about 300 m from this tower is the famous Schaffhausen Moor-fountain that portrays an Arab.

Could it be that Schaffhausen has a history involving the Arabs?  It would not surprise me, since Schaffhause is easily reached from the south of France via a long series of rivers.

It’s a mystery I have to come back and clear up some day!

I took this snap in the Canton of Schwyz, but it is a common sight anywhere in the German speaking region of Switzerland:

In the western part of Switzerland, also called Romandie, the architecture tends to be more similar to what might be called a French style, with buildings mostly made from stone.

The town of Schlieren in Switzerland, just outside of Zürich, has to be one of the niftiest little towns I know. There is a very old area that has been overgrown with a slightly-less-old industrial area, and that has been overgrown with a modern industrial area. You have to really go on a weekend and drive around on the roads marked private, but if you do you see a lot of interesting sites like this, a very old church next to a slightly newer but also old industrial building, while all the while I am surrounded (off camera) by very modern industries:

Here’s a slightly different view from a different angle:

I caught this snap just outside of Zürich,

 

 

 

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of some plants in a planter on a pier at the Vierwaldstättersee in Switzerland, in the town of Ingenbohl,

That’s a luxury 4-star hotel in the background, the Seehotel Waldstätterhof, and unless you are willing to plop down a cool CHF 400-500 per night don’t think about sleeping here.

I took this snap of an unattended stand where you can buy candies and sweets. You can either put your money into a little box – or else pay electronically.

It’s wonderful to live in a modern European country that has such a high degree of security and trust!

If you live in Switzerland then you know how it is. Luzern seems to be the “sacrificial city.” Tour guides, bus operators, and the like all route the tourists to the city of Luzern. It is a very touristy city.

But one of the real jewels in the crown of Switzerland is a closely guarded secret that not a lot of people outside Switzerland know about, Bern. And I’ve often thought, that is exactly how the locals like it, to keep the marauding hoards of tourists from spoiling the city.

I’ve probably published this snap before, but I liked the idea of a panoramic threepeat,

If you’ve ever been to the Berner Oberland in Switzerland then you know how it is. The Swiss built a tremendous number of fortifications deep within the country of Switzerland, far from any borders, so that if the Germans attacked from the north, they could retreat to the center and – in a sort of scorched earth policy – destroy bridges and roads to prevent German egress into the center.

Here is an incredible sight for anyone driving into Interlaken:

Including a close-up of one of the bunkers, including the picnic bench which I think adds a nice, homey touch:

As artistic a photo as I thought I could take of the Stadtkirche Winterthur, dating back to the thirteenth century (the church, not my photo),

Just for the sake of transparency, I squared up the image a bit using the SKRWT app on my iPad.

It reminds me of Ansel Adams in two ways: not only is it a black and white snap of a church, but I captured it while just waiting around outside before my dentist’s appointment (my dentist asked his patients not to arrive early for their appointments, due to Covid). Ansel Adams was known to take a little point-and-shoot Polaroid camera everywhere he went – and although I don’t put myself in his category, just about all the snaps he took on that little Polaroid are now hanging in museums.

I think this is my snap. I hope this is my snap. But I am not really sure. Reason? I use Google Photos – and Google Photos has a very nasty habit of sucking up all photos that it finds on my device, including what other people post in apps like WhatsApp. But if it is not my photo it is surely a scene I’ve seen dozens of times since moving to Switzerland

I really like the way this panoramic snap of a train wagon turned out,

I took this snap of a red-roofed church in the medieval Swiss village of Bremgarten,

Continuing the series, here is a foot bridge across the Aare River in Bern, underneath the magnificent Kornhausbrücke

Looking up from below at the magnificent Kornhausbrücke in Bern

What caught my eye about this icicle in Interlaken was the very different directions that the points were pointing. I am assuming this effect is some combination of wind and sunlight, because usually gravity makes them all point in the same direction:

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of an excavator in front of a sheer cliff in Interlaken,

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of the early morning winter haze

Doesn’t really matter which time of year it is, Swiss villages are universally picturesque!

Since I’ve been spending more time at home due to the Covid pandemic, I’ve been experimenting with feeding my neighborhood crows.

I’ve tried everything.

They have almost no interest in foods that are pure carbohydrates, such as unsalted peanuts.  But they like salted peanuts and scarf them up. It amazes me how they can somehow sense or smell the salt.

They will eat meat, cooked or raw, as well as chicken and fish, cooked or raw.

But there is nothing – NOTHING – that they prefer than their favorite snack: CHEESE.

 

I’m not quite sure why they like cheese so much, since milk products are not typical bird fare (birds have very small breasts so I assume their own milk is negligible).

I assume it is probably the combination of protein and fat, particular in the colder weather as it is now.

Long story short, I put out a bit of cheese, and crows come for miles to fight over it.