May 8, 2011

Zürich has won awards for its high quality of life. With Swiss Alps stretching on the horizon across a tranquil lake, this “Little Big City” of 380,000 boasts safe, spotless streets and unsurpassed mass transit. Zürich’s Altstadt, or Old Town, is especially alluring. Largely spared fires and wars, neutral Switzerland sports some of Europe’s best

Nov 12, 2010

Part V: The Reichenbachfall and Giessbach Cascades In A Tramp Abroad Mark Twain mentioned in passing two waterfalls located in central Switzerland. Meiringen has “beautiful cascades that leap from those rugged heights, robed in powdery spray, ruffled with foam, and girdled with rainbows — to look upon these things… was to look upon the last

Oct 29, 2010

The Richard Wagner Museum is perched near exquisite Lake Lucerne (Luzern in Swiss German), surrounded by dramatic vistas of the Swiss Alps. The three-storey mansion where the German composer lived from 1866 to 1872 now documents and celebrates Wagner’s music and life in Switzerland. The manor — originally built in the 15th century, its current design

Oct 22, 2010

Part III: Magritte’s Matterhorn and Zermatt Today Zermatt is a hustle-bustle hamlet with 7,000 residents and 23,000 daily peak season visitors at one of the Continent’s most popular destinations. True too in Mark Twain’s era, with actual and armchair Alpenists drawn to Europe’s best-known mountain: the 14,691-foot Matterhorn. “The monarch was far away

Oct 15, 2010

Part II: Lucerne, the “City of Lights” In addition to writing about sightseeing at Lucerne’s lake and Alps in his1880 A Tramp Abroad Mark Twain reported on its city sights. To enjoy them as fully as possible I embarked on a walking tour set up by Luzern Tourismus led by an excellent English-speaking guide. Longtime resident Annamaria Rotach knows Lucerne

Oct 8, 2010

Part I: Lucerne in the Sky With Diamonds Mark Twain, who died 100 years ago, is primarily remembered as the fictional chronicler of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn’s Mississippi River adventures. But Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens) is also one of the best travel writers since Alexander the Great, turning phrases like few could. He described the

I spent the most entertaining afternoon panning for gold in the river in Romoos, Switzerland. The weather could not have been any better. The sun shone high in the sky as I pulled on my borrowed knee high boots and grabbed a shovel. After a quick lesson, I waded into the water and tried my hand at this not all together unsurprisingly difficult task. First you

Last night I slept in straw. I don’t mean on a mattress made of straw or a bed woven of straw. I mean straw. Big piles of straw that would otherwise have been fed to the cows. The cows that were sleeping just one floor below me. I’m staying on a farm in Romoos, Switzerland at Baruti (6113 Romoos, 041 480 16 16). Not for long. Just for one night. But long

Just a few steps from the train station, sat my hotel in Lucerne, Switzerland – Hotel Continental Park. The entrance is on a side street just steps away from the tracks. The lobby is simple and inviting and the front desk staff could not be any more friendly. The hall and doorway to my room remind me of my overnight train stays in Hungary. But the room

After getting off of a seven hour overnight flight to Zurich, I was quite nervous about finding my way to Lucerne. All I knew was that I needed to catch a train. I asked at the info desk where the train station was and I crossed the street and entered the building as instructed. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, unlike the signage in JFK, the signage at

I enjoyed a very nice Business Class flight from New York to Zurich last night. The flight attendants were lovely. The food was fine and the seats laid perfectly flat. You can’t ask for much more than that. They had good movies, though, not massive in number. And the amenities  were simple but inclusive. The weird thing was the configuration of the seats.

Graubünden in Switzerland has mountains, valleys and Romansh one of the four official languages of Switzerland. I had the chance to find out more at a recent travel trade meeting in Los Angeles. In this interview with Gieri of Graubünden Tourism, we get the lowdown on this interesting destination. And remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page to watch

This year’s VEMEX (Visit Europe Media Exchange) was another great time for getting the low-down right from those who know. Here is my interview with Sibylle of Lucerne Tourism. Actually, I remember more about this charming storybook city than I let on. Shhh, don’t tell Sibylle. As with all our videos, Quick Time 7.0 is

All good travel starts with an idea. And what’s a more comfortable way to gather those ideas than armchair traveling with In The Know Traveler? To get your adventures started, let In The Know Traveler and a list put together by the United Nations help. While the UN is an organization that you don’t usually associate with travel recommendations, each year

This winter saw little snow. Verbier, one of the most famous ski areas in Switzerland was no exception, until heavy snowfall brought 30 to 50 cm of fine powder. It can all happen in a blink. Verbier lies in the French speaking part of Switzerland, in the Region of Valais, not far from Geneva, about 1 ½ hours by car or coach. The village itself is on a plateau