@brady: watches? i hadn’t noticed, i’ll keep my eyes open and if i spot any of those elusive swiss watch sellers i’ll let you know.

Ah Switzerland – I seriously _just got an email from a pal with IBM Amsterdam and he wants to transfer to Switzerland “then I want to go to Switzerland. Fantastic country and great people too” he writes.

Let me offer you a perspective about despoiling of mountains. You go up a mountain in CH and you might get a playground or a luxury ski resort (I speak from experience I worked in Champéry CH south and east of Geneva) on occasion. That’s what you get with 500 years of peace.

GF and I do our share of mountain walking in FR and IT and it’s hard to get anywhere near a summit and not find WWI-era or later artillery emplacements, war materiel, barbed wire, the Maginot line blockhauses, alpine troop caves, etc. Where we climb in IT/CH border there are lots of WWI ‘Via ferrata’ scarring the mountains – these are steel cables and ladders bolted to the mountains to aid the troops in getting to the summit to defend against the enemy. Oh and crosses – there are lots of crosses on the summits. Lots of war graves too (seen any of _those in CH? Bet not)

That’s what war gives mountains what I listed above and what you’re likely not seeing in CH.

So give me playgrounds and ski resorts over gun emplacements and war graves any day. Crosses on summits I could go either way…(pardon the rather Cartesian pun there)

You are a great traveler in terms of decision making I think and your blogs are articulate, funny, honest and clever. Talented photog too. Thank you.

BTW: it’s fairly straightforward for a Canadian to get temporary and legal work in CH. I did. My boss did. Something to think about eh?

BTW: Lausanne (and perhaps Venice) is probably the most spooky beautiful city I’ve ever visited if you have a chance going back to Geneva and you have a chance – I _think there’s a ferry from Lausanne to Geneva that stops in Evian les Bains in France.

Let me offer on good authority that mountains do get jealous and at times vengeful. Monte Pilone (about 130 k east from Interlaken where you are right now) did her best to throw my GF and me off her east slope last year – and that just for _mentioning her taller sister mountain to the south, Monte Nava.

Have you noticed all the hospitals in CH? Isn’t it amazing? They all have those cool white-on-red cross flags flying…they’re _everywhere.

Can you get a picture of on of the many ‘nuclear bomb shelter this way’ signs in Geneva? (another artefact of 500 years of peace I suppose)

BTW I recall a few watch sellers in Geneva if you’re looking to pick up one cheap.

Ciao – b