Recently we have been on our summer vacation in Switzerland! The dreamland of the Alps, snow, waterfalls, glacier water, wildflowers, cheese, chocolates! Everybody knows the natural beauty of Switzerland.
The moment our plane started landing in Zurich I could actually see, how sustainable Switzerland is. You get to see many roofs of homes covered in solar PV cells. This has to be the most sustainable country amongst all countries I have visited in my life.
Swiss Water
The water in Switzerland is heavenly. The best thing we loved about water here is, there are many drinking
water fountains in the middle of busy roads in cities and also everywhere in small villages in the countrysides. And you can drink this water and it tastes heavenly, fresh, chilled and with a lot of natural minerals.
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| Water fountain, Staubbach fall, Lake Lucerne, stream from the lake |
Compared to other countries, Switzerland has over-averagely large water reserves to fall back on with its many lakes, glaciers, and natural groundwater. Solely 2% of annual rainfall makes its way into drinking water reserves. The majority of water is collected in artificial lakes and dams from which electricity is generated. More than half of the electricity produced in Switzerland stems from these sources – in other words, it’s renewable energy and CO2-free at the same time!
80 percent of drinking water stems from natural springs and groundwater, and the rest from lakes. Strict regulations concerning water and the quality of it have led to such positive development that, in some places, you can drink straight out of the lake without second thoughts!
In the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland, we could see how this water, melted from glaciers, flows down the mountains creating numerous beautiful waterfalls (72 nos. in Lauterbrunnen valley, where we stayed). My paragliding pilot told me that the beautiful cyan color of the water comes from the minerals.
There is hardly any water pollution in water bodies in Switzerland. Every lake, river, stream we saw had such clear water, it felt almost unreal.
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| It’s not a toy train 🙂 |
Sustainable Switzeralnd
Swiss people are generally particular people so no surprise to see that there are segregation bins kept
for recycling, everywhere – on a train station, throughout cities, and even in small towns in the Alps. More importantly, these bins were filled with the right recyclables in them. I have seen in Dubai, many residents don’t throw the recyclables in the right bin (you get to see PET in General waste and Aluminum cans in plastics). We visited Zoo Zurich and even there we could see their large in-house facility for recycling. According to statistics, 94% of old glass and 81% of PET containers make their way to special collection points instead of household bins. This is definitely a great thing we all can learn from Swiss people. Though the systems here in Switzerland are perfect, because of particular common people, these systems are running smoothly.
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| Solar Power |
Another amazing thing I observed is; solar power is well-established in Switzerland. Individual houses had Solar PV and solar thermal installations on their roofs. Even on Jungfrau, the tallest mountain in Europe; I spotted installed solar panels!
Public Transport in Switzerland
The fantastic network of public transport (mainly trains) contributes to making this country very clean and pollution-free. Unlike many countries, even in cities, you can breathe the freshest air. We came to know that Zurich has only 22 taxies in total!!! This shows how public transport makes people rely on it. According to myswitzerland.com; on the roughly 3,000-kilometer-long SBB railway network a total of 9,000 trains are underway daily. In fact, every 12 minutes a train runs over one of Switzerland’s rail routes. The entire 5000 kilometer-long national and regional rail network is, in addition, practically all electrified. The trains thus run through 671 tunnels and over 6000 railway bridges at minimal cost to the environment.
And of course, there are many car-free villages all over Switzerland like Zurich’s old town, Appenzell town, Murren-Gimmelwald, St. Gallen.
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| Campanula, Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Teasel, Unknown Wildflower (clockwise) |
Hiking in Switzerland
Fitness-conscious Swiss people cycle and walk a lot. They live in the most beautiful part of our Nature and they live very close to Nature, (the epitome of sustainable living). During our hikes, we went through funny situations because the fitness level of an average Swiss person is so high that the hike times mentioned for them almost doubled for us. It also reminded us how the sedentary lifestyle we lead in UAE.
To make our vacation in sustainable Switzerland even greener, we traveled on our own by public transport all the time and walked, hiked whenever we can. We introduced hiking to Ruhaan, I felt 2.5 years is a great age to start exploring. He enjoyed that a lot, he used to tell us how he’s climbing the mountain and naming different colors of wildflowers. I totally loved the constant ringing sound of cowbells. We had one of the best hikes in Appenzell canton, we went up to Ebenalp by cable car and walked up to a restaurant in the middle of Ascher Cliff, and hiked back after lunch. We passed through caves and old churches. Ruhaan was stunned by this experience. There were cows all over the mountains grazing on the slopes.
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| Ebenalp- Ascher cliff restaurant, Swiss Cows |
After that we hiked to see Seealpsee, that was the most satisfying experience we had. The lake water was so clean and the surroundings were so serene it felt like Nature is meditating. Read here more about our Appenzellerland visit.
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| Seealpsee |
Another hike Ruhaan enjoyed was from Murren to Gimmelwald, it was the most scenic walk we had.
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| Murren to Gimmelwald Scenic Walk |
Snow-capped Alps, beautiful valley, wooden chalets, and wildflowers. We played a game of naming colors. He was particularly fascinated by cable cars! At the end of our long walk, he slept holding tightly a pine fruit he had picked up on the way. Which I’ll always preserve as Ruhaan’s souvenir from Switzerland. One more activity Ruhaan loved on our trip is watching swans in lakes in Zurich and Lucerne. Ruhaan learned many things on this trip; his first ride in a real train, cable car. He saw a natural waterfall for the first time. Showing the highest in Europe – Staubbach falls to the first-timer is a great thing. He used to see that from our window and used to explain to us in the cutest way how water is falling from that height.
One of the major highlights of our trip was obviously playing in the snow on Jungfrau. It was the first time for Ruhaan and me too. Seeing Great Aletsch Glacier in front of you from Jungfrau Plateau, was an awesome moment!
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| Aletsch Glacier- UNESCO world heritage natural site |
In the end, I would say Switzerland is heaven on earth, more importantly, Swiss people are making efforts to maintain their country that way. It is not just the Swiss government that is giving high importance to sustainability but also all citizens have understood well and made their lifestyle sustainable.
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| Wildflowers of Switzerland |
Climate Change is visible in Switzerland
When we traveled to Switzerland it was one of the hottest years. During my paragliding experience when I mentioned that I’m a sustainability professional my pilot told me about it. One visible sign of climate change he mentioned is that grass doesn’t get this yellow every summer! And from up in the sky I could see what he meant. He said you see more shades of dark green and green, not the yellowish shades!
We too expected cooler weather and packed accordingly but we had our share of the hotter afternoons too. I feel it’s important to share such details from our trip which otherwise we feel not very significant. Since our trip in 2015 though every year is hotter than before and therefore it’s important that all of us are doing our part. For example, if you are traveling, try sustainable tourism. Here are some tips about sustainable travel planning.
If you are an adventure sport lover or adrenaline junkie try paragliding, flying on zero emissions! Just remember to choose a paragliding company committed to environmental conservation. Watch my video here,
One Comment
These summers saw us touring Switzerland too. Another good article and it refreshes my memory of the green valleys, turquoise water, wooden houses, flower balconies, chocolate slabs and the most picturesque railway routes. However, we were naive enough to buy expensive water everywhere and surprised that there were no complimentary water in our hotel room( Staying in the UAE has spoiled us a bit 🙂 ). Only later we came to know that tap water as well as water fountains was drinkable! Switzerland is picture perfect and we cant wait to go back.
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