[PRCo] Swiss Trip Report

[Fred Schneider]

Upon the request of several friends, what follows is a report on my
recent trip to Switzerland and Austria.  If this fails to attract your
interest, you know where the delete key is…  Please be selective in
replying … many people resent a ton of  “reply all” messages.  If you
wish to comment, please do so directly to me ONLY.

Switzerland in the Winter
(A tour of the Evil Spirits)

This particular mid-winter escapade begins with a guided tour conducted
by a local woman whose hobby is, very simply, conducting tours to
Switzerland.  She has an unyielding love for the country and its people,
and is a member of Bern Tourist, the capital’s tourist promotion board.
Sometimes she makes money, sometimes she looses it … but she has fun.
She has a most favorable attitude to her patrons … she declines the
opportunity to drag them into stores where she, the tour guide, and the
bus driver split a rake from the spending of their group.  Instead of
using tour buses, she simply includes the cost of a Swiss rail pass for
each participant in the tour cost, and then tells each person that they
may stay with the tour or venture off on their own at will.  The only
stipulation is that they have the courtesy to tell her in advance if
they plan a disappearing act!

As an aside, the Swiss Rail Pass is available in the United States (not
in Europe) and, unlike the Eurailpass, it is available in First or
Second Class denominations.  I might point out that the Second Class
coaches arrive at the same time as the First Class coaches.  I really
never felt a willingness to spend a 50% surcharge to ride in a slightly
better upholstered seat.  Eurailpass is only available for adults as a
first class pass at an outrageous price.  While it is generally valid
only within Switzerland (there are exceptions), the Swiss Pass covers
the entire standard gauge network, most narrow gauge lines (and for a
20% discount on the handful on which it isn’t valid), most if not all
lake boats, all postal and intercity bus routes, and most urban transit
undertakings.  It is valid on ALL the streetcar lines in the nation.
So if you should plan a vacation in Switzerland and you wish to go by
train, don’t even think of getting suckered into a Eurailpass.   A 15
day second-class Swisspass is now priced at $270 in the U. S.  I got my
money out of it.

This was a short trip … eleven people (including Betty and her husband)
visited three cities.  There were seven women who wanted to shop, one
man who wanted a wife, and one getting away from his wife (me).
Betty’s primary purpose was to have us look at New Year’s traditions in
another country, starting in Urnäsch in Canton Appenzell northeastern
Switzerland.  On New Year’s Day costumed Schellencläusen enter the
village at 5 A.M. and spend the entire day driving out the evil spirits
by ringing small and large cow bells.  Many other towns do the same but
Urnäsch is the only one that does it both on December 31st and again on
January 13th (the end of the original Roman year).
The second day the ladies were off to shop, and I rode the St.
Gallen-Gais-Appenzellerbahn over to St. Gallen and back.  The railway is
one of those incredibly numerous meter-gauge railways that cry out for
definition.  Is it a railroad or an interurban?  The railroad skirts the
Alps in the rolling farmland southwest of St. Gallen.  It would be a
peach of a railway in the United States.  It Switzerland, it is just one
more small railway with trains every hour (or half hour in the peak)
from early in the morning until very late in the evening.  Nothing
unusual to the Swiss.

The group moved on to Interlaken on January 1st … the long but faster
way over standard gauge (1435 mm) rails of the Swiss Federal and the
Bern-Lotchberg-Simplon via Zurich and Bern.  Why there?  There was a
fireworks display on the evening of January 1st … not more than ten
minutes … and the Harder Potschette parade the next afternoon.  The
stone face on the mountain is allowed to down into the town once each
year to drive out the evil spirits.  Again there is a liberal dose of
cowbells but also a local band.  The roof of the Best Western Hotel
Bernerhof made a good viewing platform for both.   The tour group went
to the Shilthorn the next day … I went up as far as I could free on the
Swiss Pass, then looked at the television monitors and decided that
there was no reason to spend $34 more for the cable gondola ascent to
the top so I could view the inside of a cloud.  After all, I had done it
before on a crystal clear summer day … one of those when you could see
30 miles to Bern from the summit.   I went back down using the
Mürrenbahn and a funicular, and then back to Interlaken on the
Berner-Oberalpbahn meter gauge train.   Now the Mürrenbahn is something
unique … it hangs on the cliff above a glaciated valley from Mürren to
Gletchalp.  There is no way up there other than a funicular or a
swinging cable car.  So how did the railroad get take delivery of its
cars?  On the incline in pieces.  Then the parts were moved into the
adjacent car shop by forklift and assembled.  The railway has absolutely
fantastic views analogues to riding along the south rim of Yosemite
National Park and looking across to the other side at Bridal Veil Falls.

By this point the tour group was absolutely falling apart.  I never even
ate with them again.  John took the women to Bern so they could shop
while his wife rested in the hotel.  (She is having hip replacement
surgery as I write this.)  I rested my hip in the hotel too.  They left
Interlaken on the 4th for Zurich and a flight home the next day.  I
never even saw them off … I was waiting for the sun and trying to find a
position that my left hip would accept.

About ten o’clock on Monday the 6th I concluded from TV monitors in the
hotel that it had snowed overnight in the mountains.  There was no sun
but there were also no clouds on the ground.  So I headed out the door
(leaving behind whatever lenses and film would not be needed), took the
connecting mainline train from Interlaken West to Interlaken Ost (about
three minutes – it takes about six minutes on the local bus), then
caught the Berner Oberalpbahn train to Grindlewald.  The BOB is a “Y”
shaped meter-gauge system heading south into the mountains from
Interlaken Ost.  At Grindlewald I boarded a connecting Wengenalpbahn
train up the mountain to Kleine Scheidegg.  The entire WAB, by the way,
is a rack operation.  Without going for the Kurzbuch, I would suggest it
might be 10 miles long and takes two hours. (It would probably not be
possible to find the actual lengths of the line … most published
distances are in “tariff kilometers” and not the actual length.  The
saddle at Kleine Scheidegg was blessed with about 25 cm of new snow.
The trains were absolutely jammed with people, skis, and ski poles. The
vendors at the top were making copious profits selling gluwein (remember
to pronounce the w like a v), a concoction of heated red wine buffered
with cinnamon, cloves and sugar … great stuff!

At Kleine Scheidegg, the WAP connects with its partner, the 900 mm-gauge
Jungfraubahn, a line mostly in tunnel leading to Jungfraujoch, 11,333
feet up in the Alps.  have never ridden the Jungfraubahn, feeling that
the $35 extra to ride in a subway tunnel to see snow was not as good as
looking up at the Jungfrau (young lady), the Mönch (monk), and the Eiger
(devil) peaks.  However, in the summer I have ridden as far as the
tunnel portal at Eigergletcher (gletcher = glacier) and then walked back
down a glorious mountain trail.   The pictures were worth the walk.

The return trips was through Wengen and Lauterbrunnen, and then back
over BOB into Interlaken.  Wengen, by the way, is a rather expensive
resort town hanging on the side of the gorge opposite the previously
mentioned village of Murren.  There is no way into the town except by
railroad … picture if you can a village of 3,000 to 5,000 people into
which every article of clothing, food, fuel, and toner cartridges must
come in by cog railway.  And once in a while they do haul construction
trucks up the mountain on railroad flatcars.

By the fifth night in Interlaken I’d tried Swiss, Oriental, Indian, and
eclectic (sort of like Halloween with a chain saw at the Pennsylvania
Trolley Museum) restaurants and had decided it was time to move on.  The
Centovalli railway from Domodossola, Italy into Locarno, Switzerland
seemed to be worth exploring … it was off the beaten track territory and
I’d never been there before.  So on Tuesday the 7th, I caught a mainline
train from Interlaken to Spiez, and then changed to another mainline
train on the BLS/SBB/Italian State Railroad heading southward through
the Lotschberg and Simplon tunnels to Milan, Italy.  Detraining at
Dommodossola, I found the Centovalli train in a transverse tunnel under
the mainline tracks.

A long-time friend in Lancaster came home from his first trip to
Switzerland in the 1960s and immediately tore apart and reassembled all
his photo albums.  Previously he has one set of albums for railroads,
and another set for trolleys.  He had come home convinced that he no
longer knew the difference.  While the behavior meets what my college
psyc prof called excessive compulsive behavior, it does attest to a
great variety of railways in Switzerland.

The Centovalli (an Italian word, pronounce it Chen-toe-val-ley) Railway
is one of those railways that defy description.  Perhaps an interurban
or maybe a railroad … it runs about 25 miles through the Val de
Centovalli (or Valley of 100 Valleys) connecting two cities in two
countries.  The equipment: well the newest articulated cars easily
remind one of low-floor handicapped accessible trolleys.  The
ventilation system, regrettably, is poor and the no-smoking section is
about as workable as a non-urinating section of your community swimming
pool.  Some of the older cars have resemblance to older narrow gauge
electric railroad cars.  The oldest one, stuffed and mounted on a
pedestal at an on-line station, reminded me of some of the earliest
Swiss interurban cars.  The line ends in a subway at the FSS or SBB
train station at each end.  In Locarno there are actually two other
graffiti-decorated subway stations.  The line handles common-carrier
freight over its meter-gauge rails.  But between the two termini it goes
places no self-respecting businessman would want to put either a
railroad or a trolley … it heads directly from the Dommodossola train
station to the foot of a mountain, and then twists and turns back and
forth and back and forth ad infinitum until the tracks reach the top,
then it enters the Val de Centovalli at a high elevation and twists and
turns through numerous tunnels and over bridges until it reaches the
suburbs of Locarno.  The latter city has about 30,000 denizens,
considerably more than the former.  The scenery is absolutely
unmatched.  Some of the bridges are hundreds of feet above rushing
streams.  The ride reminded me of a 25-mile drive in a no passing zone
behind a superannuated woman who peers over the top of the steering
wheel at 25 miles per hour, and who, once in a while finds herself
accidentally reaching 30 miles per hour and puts on the brakes in a
panic.

Locarno is a Swiss resort city in the Italian speaking southern-part of
the nation, often ignored by Americans but lovingly frequented by
Germans.  I stayed behind the first door on which I knocked, the Hotel
Muralto, across the plaza from the railroad station.  The cheapest
single rooms (SF 110 or about US$75) faced the railroad station; the
more expensive ones Lake Maggiore.  They couldn’t understand why I would
accept the railroad view.  Well, you get what you pay for.  The next
morning, I found myself standing in deepening shower water.  The staff
spoke only German and Italian.  So I left a note in cryptic German the
desk explaining that the bathtub drain was plugged … that water flowed
in but not out.  I came back from breakfast to find the hotel
jack-of-all-trades standing over the tub with a plunger.  The tub was
filled with all sorts of evil spirits that had been in the drain, but
there were more spirits firmly anchored in there.  He muttered something
in a Slavic accent about getting a “specialista”.  By evening, all the
spirits were gone and the tub drained.   All the evening meals in
Locarno were taken not at the hotel but at an adjacent restaurant and
bar where I could eat a full dinner and drink two glasses of wine for
under US$ 20.

I spent two days (three nights) in Locarno walking around town and
photographing the Centovalli … to the point that my hip was totally
finished and I spent most of the remainder of the trip on my back in
hotel beds.

On Thursdays January 9th I fretfully dragged my suitcase, air compressor
and c-pap mask, and a ton of cameras across the plaza and boarded 06:59
train in darkness.  It arrived in Bellinzona at 07:20.  (There was an
intermediate train with a 13-minute connection.)  The sun was trying to
shine weakly when I caught the next train, the 08:05 mainline train
northward from Bellinzona through the St. Gotthard tunnel to the fourth
stop in Göschennen, and a seven minute connection to the Furka-Oberalp
train up into the clouds to Andermatt, for a ten-minute connection to
Diesentis. There one changes across the platform to the waiting
Rhätischebahn train into Chur, which arrived on time at 12:10.   By the
time we left Andermatt and headed up the mountain into Oberalppass, the
sun was absolutely brilliant on the fresh snow.  The skiers were
literally everywhere and so were the fairly tale Swiss villages, each
surrounded by a sea of snow.  This ranks as one of the prettiest rides
in Europe, explaining why the “Glacier Express” over it is so well known
around the world.  By the time we arrived in Chur, we were again below
the clouds and the weather was anything but nice.   The ABC Hotel across
from the train station offered SF 140 on Friday and SF 120 on Saturday …
expensive to my frugal mind but it saved a three-block-longer walk.

The next morning offered more heavy clouds and periodic snow flakes.
Staying in the room and reading a text on the Great Depression seemed
like a good choice until a man arrived in the hotel lobby and announced
that sun existed at higher elevations.  I walked across to the train
station and caught the first Rhätischebahn train to San Moritz.
Passengers in the train objected to a briefly opened window, but the sun
was perfect on the Landwasser viaduct, a curving stone-arched structure
426 feet long and almost as high, with the south end leading directly
into a tunnel.  The bridge is just north of the village of Filisur.
Farther south and between Bergün and Preda the meter-gauge railroad
gains (southbound) 1,364 feet in a track distance of 7.82 miles (about
three air miles).  Five complete loops (four of them in tunnels) are
required.  There are probably 2,500 degrees of curvature in those 8
miles.  I can think of nothing in North America quite as dramatic.  The
return was via Filisur, Davos, and Landquart.  When I changed trains at
Filisur on the return, I dropped into a seat next to two couples from
New Jersey who came to Switzerland to ski.  I asked why they chose
Switzerland instead of Vermont, New Hampshire, Alberta or Colorado.
They advised that they could not afford to ski in North America.
Interesting.

This is such a great part of Switzerland, both for railroad activity and
for general interest, that it deserves a full week in the summer.  I
never took time to look at the cathedral and the old section of Chur but
the postcards tell me I need to see them.  Goes on the list of things to
do.

On Saturday January 10th I checked out of the ABC and headed east,
taking a standard gauge Swiss Federal train to the border station in
Buchs, and then a SBB-ÖBB through train from Zurich to Wien (Vienna) as
far as Innsbruck, Austria.  This was my first introduction to mediocrity
in scheduling.  During this trip I road on 43 separate trains and
streetcars, 41 of which were on-time to within a half minute.  In this
instance, Swiss Federal turned the Kaiserin Elisabeth (a named train)
over to the Austrian Federal at Buchs dead on time.  ÖBB added a coach
and put its engine on the other end of the train and left Buch’s five
and a half minutes late.  No good reason why … just sloppiness.   The
trainman announced that we were eight minutes late, showing that he had
some difficulty reading a clock.  The initial lateness was now
compounded by meets on the single-track railroad that were not in the
right sidings, and by a train too long for several stations.  We pulled
into Innsbruck 30 minutes late, with ÖBB now being forced to also hold a
connecting northbound train to München (Munich) and a southbound to
Padova and other points south in Italy.   This was probably the worst
scheduling screw up I’d ever seen in the German speaking world.    Oh
yes, I did say 41 out of 43.  The other was a Centovalli train that left
Dommodossola precisely on time and, five miles from its destination of
Locarno, encountered a false block occupancy red signal, resulting in a
loss of about five minutes while the crew ran their legs off getting
permission to pass a signal, then unlocking the station to obtain a
switch throw-lever, than restoring it and relocking the station.  In
general the Swiss still behave like it would result in a national
scandal if they ran a train ten minutes late.  One thing that helps to
keep trains on time are station clocks, one on each platform of each
station with a large red second hand.   I imagine that the clocks are
all synchronized across a nation because they always precisely matched
my own watch.

The Austrians are building a new train station in Innsbruck causing the
trolley loop to be closed for two years.  I had to tow the suitcase and
all paraphernalia for five blocks to the trolley running up into the
mountains to Mutters.  I had chosen a small hotel that, from experience,
was very good… a typical village chalet with large second and third
floor porches under overhanging eves (and decorated with flower boxes in
summer and snow in winter).  The view from the front looks into a
mountain farming village, from the rear one looks down on the next town
of Natters and into Innsbruck, about five miles away.  The Hotel
Altenburg is run by the third generation of the Wishaber family … mostly
by the daughter-in-law Karin, her husband’s Dalmatian and her two cats.
(I was sitting next to the front desk when the large orange cat came up
to the front door, tripping the opening sensor.  The cat marched in, the
door closed behind him, and he glanced up at me and gave me this “What
are you doing on my turf? Look” as only a cat can do it.  And what did
this great place cost?  The room with “halbpension” or all meals except
lunch was SF $67.80 or roughly US $45 a night.  Drinks are extra.
Saturday night’s dinner was a plate of dried Austrian meats (a regional
specialty in Austria and eastern Switzerland), home-made noodle soup,
salad bar ( including the greatest sweet dill pickle slices), chicken
and spetzels, and a absolutely decadent (is that word still in the
vocabulary?) chocolate dessert.   Sunday’s dinner had as many courses,
the principal course was a Wienerschnitzel (of real pounded veal).

So, what was the lure of Innsbruck?  The trolleys (sort of a Johnstown
PA type operation … two city lines and two interurbans but in 2003) and
a medieval city set amidst the Tirolean Alps.  “If you understand, no
explanation is needed.  If you don’t, no explanation is possible.”  This
was an opportunity to get together with Christof Grimm, who lives with
his wife Cornelia about 90 minutes away in southern Germany.  Christof
works for Deutschebahn and is a true railroad, trolley, and travel
aficionado who has as much love for the American scene as I do the
European.  He brought with him his wife Cornelia and a young student, a
“native Indian guide,” who lives in Innsbruck.  We had four hours of
good light to photograph the Stubaitalbahn trams in the snow up in the
mountains.  When the sun failed, the manager of the local tramway museum
opened the doors for this American.   An absolutely great Sunday and
worth all the added cost of the trip into Austria.   The Stubaitalbahn
is running three section Düwag articulated cars from the 1960s, rebuilt
locally in 1982-83 from ends of cars of cars original used in Hagen,
Germany and center sections from somewhere else.  At that time the
interurban was converted from alternating to direct current propulsion.
The scarlet and yellow cars look great posed against either the green of
summer or the snow of winter.   And they do serve a purpose … Mr. Most
claimed that patronage has just about doubled since 1983 to 1.6 million
a year in 2002 because of car parking costs in Innsbruck.

The next morning I towed my personal goods two-blocks downhill from the
hotel to the Stubaitalbahn station in Mutters, and caught the 7:00 car
into Innsbruck.   Mutters has no high school.  This turned out to be the
school car going down to Innsbruck.  The number of young people who
actually used that time to study astonished me.  Next to me was a couple
experiencing the hormonal changes of spring a little early. By the time
we got into the city, there was no way I could see more than ten feet
down the car through the mass of standing bodies.  The train ride to
Zurich was uneventful and on time (and I dozed for most of the three
hours).

Betty had chosen the four-star Schweizerhof for the last night of her
tour because of its quality and its proximity to the downtown train
station (and the train service to the airport).  In my case, the hotel
agreed to give me my room a week later at the same price.  SF 455 seemed
a lot for a room.  I was able negotiate a cheaper room at SF 400 (US
$268 a night) for the last two nights.  Gives you some idea how bad my
hip was that I wouldn’t change hotels after one night to save $150!  But
I had to stop four times and rest in the 600 or so feet from my arriving
coach from Innsbruck to the front door of the hotel.  And believe me,
I’m normally cheap.  The dream of a SF 7.20 all day ticket on the
streetcars evaporated … I dozed and read through the last day.   An
oriental restaurant a half-block from the hotel provided evening
nourishment; it was anything but first rate but it saved a walk.

In spite of the infirmities (Bruce Bente once told be that getting old
isn’t for sissies), I did enjoy standing out in front of the hotel for a
half hour on the next to last night.  I banged off a 36-exposure roll of
Ektachrome 400 on the trams in that time.  It was snowing lightly,
muting the sounds of trolleys and traffic.  This was a city like those
we want to remember from our youth.   Maybe smaller.  Zurich is home to
only 360,000 people. The offices and stores closed about 6:00 and the
streets were clogged with thousands and thousands of people walking to
the streetcar stops and the train station for their evening commute.
The trams were never single cars … there were trains of articulated
motors and single trailers as well as trains of two articulated motor
sets.  The oldest equipment on the streets came in the early 1970s (they
were brand new when I was co-editing Headlights magazine).  The headways
seemed to range from as short as three or four minutes on some routes up
to maybe seven or eight on others.  Each car was carrying a swinging
load.  You could make a 360-degree turn at any time between 5 and 7 PM
and there would be at least one moving tram in the scene, either on
Bahnhofstraße approaching or leaving the train station, or running in
the Bahnhofplatz parallel to the station.  (There was one notable
exception to the rule of modern cars … in the middle of the rush of
filled tramway trains, a late 1920s museum piece, emitting all the right
sounds of resistance control, solid steel wheels and spur gears,
hammered through the special work … it was empty and possibly in route
to or from charter duties.  The orange lampshades in each window were a
nice touch.)  To continue, every very minute or so there would be a
train entering or leaving one of the eighteen tracks under the Swiss
Federal Railway’s train shed.  This is what some of us remember from the
‘40s and ‘50s in the United States.  And if you are into something “more
normal,” there are enough museums, churches, stores, and lake vistas in
Zurich to kill a week.  I think that explains why some of us keep going
back.

The next morning the bellman, unsolicited, met me in the hall outside my
room and insisted (and I mean strongly insisted) that it was his job to
carry my bags to the train station.  He was also offended when I tipped
him but he wasn’t offering to return the coin.  I said goodbye as he put
my bags on the train, and headed for the airport.   Most trains into
northeastern Switzerland and some other through trains stop in a
terminal underneath the parking lot at Zurich airport terminal B.  On
weekday mornings there are trains every 10 or 15 minutes.  The ride only
takes ten minutes.  I was early enough that the check-in was simple.  No
one was ahead of me.

About 3:15 on Wednesday afternoon I found myself on a glide path to
Dulles Airport in Washington, and passing almost directly over my own
home.  The cabin staff refused to give me a parachute … something about
the captain not appreciating having  the cabin suddenly depressurized.
So I had to stay in the silver cylinder for another 20 minutes and then
spend three hours driving back home.   Oh yes, something very unusual
happened at the end of the flight.  The US Customs and Immigration staff
were unusually helpful and friendly … I was actually wished a pleasant
evening and with a smile at that.  Bravo!

I usually end these with general comments on general topics I’ve
observed.  Why should I break with tradition now?

1. Fifteen years ago I was impressed that Europeans still read books and
talked to each other.  The television set  (usually in a plastic case)
was hidden in a fine piece of furniture.  The renter (majority) or
homeowner would look at the television program guide in the evening,
determine if anything was worth viewing, and then the and only then
would the cabinet doors be opened and the machine be energized.  After
that program ended, the television would be turned off and the cabinet
doors would be closed and people would return to civilized pursuits of
reading and conversation.   We’ll, seems we exported the idea of cable
and satellite television.  Television suddenly changed from two or three
channels in each country to 40 or 50, and from late afternoon and
evening broadcasting to around the clock drivel.  The themes are the
same as here: if producers in one country finds some trash that people
will look at, every other nation seems to jump on the band wagon.  One
can easily determine from the volume of cartoons on Saturday morning
television that European adults have adopted the American position of
letting the black box raise their children.  My friend Christof lamented
that the average German now wastes 2.5 hours a day mesmerized by the
tube.  Somehow this all seems very sad.

2. And here I admit to watching television, in this case British Prime
Minister Tony Blair’s speech to that nation’s diplomatic corps last week
in which he stated that his nation would support the American position
on Iraq, but that the Americans were strongly being put on notice that
they would also need to support causes that were important to Europeans,
principally global warming and other environmental issues.  He was
partly seconded by a number of other people whom I pumped for opinions
on the United States.  Most seemed to feel that George W was behaving
like the 1,000 lb. Gorilla who could sit anywhere he wished.   And maybe
they have reason for complaint.  The United States population is 283
million but collectively those countries that we used to consider
non-communist Europe are home to 389 million people and all of Europe is
populated by 727 million.  Maybe we should listen more, study geography
more, and pontificate less about the evidence we supposedly have on
Sudam?  And you also might be surprised to find out how many people live
in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Israel and so
forth.  I leave that to you.  Try typing “United Nations world
population data” on your search engine.  (Personal opinion and I know
it.)  I said partly seconded … one British correspondent is disturbed by
the number of loaded military trucks heading for the docks at
Southampton and the number of empty ones heading north.

3. For those who wish to travel:  In the last five years I haven’t found
a money access machine in Europe that refuses my cirrus or plus cards
because of our four digit pin numbers.   They all work now but you
cannot access savings accounts and secondary checking accounts from
overseas.  I carry two MAC cards on the same bank, one for a checking
account and the other for a money market account so I can access both
from overseas.   But don’t for one minute believe that they will
uniformly spit out small bills like they do here.  I asked one machine
in Locarno to give me 200 Swiss francs and it did just that … one SF 200
note.  Now just where are you going to find a store that wants to change
that?

4. The proposed tax of £7 a day to be levied against people driving into
central London, England on weekdays has not died.   If anything, the
proposal appears to be gaining strength.  Enforcement is to be both by
continuous photographing of car license plates entering the city center
(and running that against a data base of those who paid to enter the
city) as well as by traffic wardens.  If we have a proposed tax, then we
must have a proposed penalty, and we do.  The proposed fine for having
your auto in the city without paying the tax is £80.  (Multiply the
rates by about 1.6 to get dollars.}  Hmmm …  $3,000 a year in tax simply
to be allowed to pay an additional $10,000 a year in parking fees.  And
I note from the Modern Marvels series on the History Channel that 80% of
those commuting are already using the underground and buses and train in
London.  The other 20% are simply making the city impossibly
congested.   Care to imagine what would happen if the Mayor of New York
would offer a similar proposal?

5. For those who have never crossed the pond, it is absolutely great to
have some skills in the native language.  Locals are far more apt to
want to meet you half way if you try their language first.  You should
at least know how to ask for the mens or ladies toilets, to say please,
thank you … the basics.  There is also one absolute must that no school
ever teaches, i.e. “I speak almost no [German].  Can you help me in
English?  Now, how much help do you need.  In Germany, by age five the
children begin to learn “High German” or “Hoch Deutsch” in addition to
the native dialectic tongue.  Three years later they will begin seven
years of English.   The Swiss follow the same theme … teach the native
language of the area first (German, French, or Italian), then about the
third grade the students begin a second national language (from the last
in the last sentence), and then several years later they can elect
another and most select English.  The desk clerks, concierges, and
important management staff in all the middle and upper class hotels have
their jobs because they are able to speak German, English, French and
Italian (or at least three languages).  Evening waiters in better
restaurants will manage English.  On named trains, announcements are
made in two or three languages (including English).  Train announcements
on secondary trains will be only in the local tongue.  Regardless of how
good your hosts’ English might be, taking several semesters of their
native language (I’m being careful not to use foreign here because we
are foreign to them)) can make for a trip a hundred times more
enjoyable.  If you can interact, you will be amazed after a few trips by
the number of overseas Christmas cards you mail each year.










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