Category: Switzerland

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Another Peak Milestone

For the first time ever, i.e. since I started working on my dark-tourism website project almost 15 years ago, I am fully caught up on all the material from my own travels. All this time I had always been more or less behind (at some points quite seriously behind – years!). Now I’ve reached what at the moment is the finishing line, as it were.
The (for now) final chapter in question is one that was left over from my summer trip to Switzerland in 2020, namely the one about the Matterhorn and Zermatt. The featured photo above is

5 April 2022 1 Comment

2022

climate change and all that rarely features in dark tourism (DT), probably because DT is predominantly about dark pasts, not about the future. Moreover, climate change symptoms already in evidence rarely produce visitable concrete tourist sites. But there are a few exceptions, most notably retreating glaciers.

Most glaciers in the world are shrinking due to global warming. And occasionally the shrinkage is marked by signs on tourist walking routes. Here’s an example I spotted in Norway en route to the Briksdalsbreen

6 January 2022 1 Comment

Halloween

Today it’s the 31st of October – Halloween! But of course in the currently escalating pandemic crisis, there cannot be a proper Halloween party. And it’s even a Saturday, so it would have been ideal for partying. Such a shame …

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not missing all the commercialization of Halloween. In fact it was that very over-commercialization that had put me off Halloween for most of my life. It wasn’t until 2014 that

31 October 2020 No Comments

Switzerland and its Darker Sides

Just back from Switzerland this morning! It was a nice eight-day trip, mostly in the Alps, but also a bit of city (Zürich). The main emphasis was on the spectacular Alpine scenery. Around Zermatt this is indeed dominated by the Matterhorn, the planet’s most iconic peak.
As for the dark elements: well, the building of the Jungfrau Railway cost several workers their lives during the tunnelling. At the touristified complex at the summit one section commemorates those victims of the project (which took decades to complete from the late 1890s to the 1920s). Most names looked Italian. But there was also

30 August 2020 2 Comments

Change of Plans – More Travel – Poll Extended

My wife and I have another final week of this summer break left and spontaneously decided on our return from Venice (see previous post), to spend it in Switzerland. I wouldn’t have thought of Switzerland as a travel destination so soon, but – as with Venice – this may be a good time to go there, what with the absence of large international (esp. Chinese) tour groups. So we quickly booked our train to Zurich and a few hotels. In the country we’ll use the Swiss Travel Pass for maximum flexibility.

There’ll only be a few dark elements lined up, the main thing is to see the Alps, esp. the Matterhorn, which I have so far

21 August 2020 3 Comments
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