Most of you have probably arrived at Zurich airport, much applauded for its short ways, excellent public transport connection and a fantastic shopping and restaurant scene. But when did you last stop to visit the city of Zurich?

Only recently, did I have the opportunity and I am simply thrilled by the many opportunities that this city in the heart of Europe has to offer.
The arrival in Zurich airport is easy and breezy. City center is ten minutes from the airport. Buy a 24- or 72-hour Zurich card at the main railway station, a must for tourists.

We chose the famous hotel “Schweizerhof” for our stay, conveniently located across from the main train station and next to the famous “Bahnhofstrasse” with its excellent shopping opportunities but still a quiet oasis in the midst of the town center.
Built in 1876, the hotel was last renovated in 2007 with its historic, classicistic outside façade completely restored. The daily gourmet breakfast buffet is a good way to start your day leisurely and let’s you skip lunch. A dinner at the hotel’s Swiss-French restaurant „La Soupière”, however, should not be missed.

From here it is only a quick walk of 20 minutes to Old Town, where there are numerous cafes along Limmat River.
Stop at the „Oepfelchammer” (apple chamber), a traditional pub that was much frequented by Switzerland’s famous author Gottfried Keller. For a romantic escape from the city, hop on a 90-minute river cruise with nearby snowcapped mountains.

For a some cultural highlights, slip into St. Peter’s Church with the oldest clock face in Europe and a Giacometti stained-glass window. The Baroque and Gothic Fraumünster church offers an otherworldly experience where you can admire the five large stained-glass windows by Chagall. The twelfth-century Romanesque-style Grossmünster cathedral with its twin spires is also well worth a visit. Once you catch sight of the stunning city view, you won’t regret climbing the 200 steps of the church’s north tower. Here, you simply feel a bit closer to heaven.

For more information, visit Zurich Tourism: www.zuerich.com
For flight information on SWISS International Airlines: www.SWISS.com

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Bechtler Museum

An art collection started more than 70 years ago in Switzerland has now become a major cultural attraction in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art is being billed as the only museum dedicated to mid-twentieth century art in the southeastern United States. It is named after the family of Swiss-born Andreas Bechtler, who now lives in Charlotte and is heir to this spectacular collection. Bechtler commissioned leading Swiss architect Mario Botta to design the museum for his adopted city. Opened the first week of January 2010, the Bechtler Museum includes over 1,400 works of art by modern masters such as Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miro, Jean Tinguely, Max Ernst, Andy Warhol, Picasso and others. Swiss Ambassador Urs Ziswiler was also on hand in November to dedicate the outdoor sculpture The Firebird by Niki de Saint Phalle.
(Photo credit: Gary O’Brien)

Source: Swiss Embassy

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Source: Swiss Embassy

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"Home"

HOME by Ursula Meier

Finally the veil is lifted ! “HOME” by the young and talented Swiss Director Ursula Meier has been selected to compete at the Academy Award 2010 in the Best Foreign Language Film section. The film will be released in the USA on November 29^th, 2009 in New York City and will be shown at the upcoming Palm Springs Film Festival on January 8^th, 2010. No additional screening in Los Angeles has been confirmed yet but be sure that we will keep you posted on that.

Synopsis:

A family’s peaceful existence is threatened when a busy highway is opened only meters away from their isolated house in the middle of nowhere. Refusing to move, Marthe, Michel and their three children find innovative ways to adapt to their new environment. They continue their happy-go-lucky routine despite the daily stress of hundreds of noisy speeding cars. But suspicions about the highway’s unknown long-term dangers cause family tension. Remaining in the disrupted household might not be so easy, but it’s still their home.

www.home-lefilm.ch

The Director: Ursula Meier

Born in Besançon (France) in 1971, part Swiss part French, from 1990 to 1994 Ursula Meier studied film-making at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD) in Belgium, graduating with “Great Distinction”. The success of Le songe d’Isaac, her end-of-course project, then of Des heures sans sommeil, enabled her to pursue an independent career, while at the same time working as assistant

director on two films by Alain Tanner (Fourbi and Jonas et Lila, à demain). Ursula Meier’s films alternate between genre blurring works of fiction and documentaries as strange and different as Autour de Pinget

and Pas les flics, pas les noirs, pas les blancs. Her films have won many awards at international festivals: Tous à table alone has been shown at more than eighty festivals and taken more than twenty prizes. The enthusiastic reaction to her films has won this film-maker a growing reputation. As a result,

she was selected to contribute to the Arte series of television films Masculin Féminin, shot in video. For Arte, she made Des épaules solides (Strong Shoulders), which has been kinescoped and is now on the world festival circuit.

In spring 2008, she finishes her first feature-length fiction film, Home (selected for the 2006 Cannes Cinefoundation Award as part of the Festival Workshop, finalist in the Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Price NHK/2007). She is a winner of the Prix de la Fondation Beaumarchais, the Prix Les Espoirs du Scénario au Manuscript de Vercorin, and the Prix du concours de scénario SSA. Home has been since selected for screening at the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week and also won many prices in different festivals around the world.

Ursula Meier’s film has also been awarded with the Swiss Film Prize Quartz of the Best Fiction Film of 2009.

www.home-lefilm.ch

http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/index.html

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Schokolade - Chocolate

Tasty, flavourful, healthy, stimulating and depression killing, compact and easily hideable in a jacket pocket or an office drawer – CHOCOLATE – the most famous famous Swiss export has definitely conquered the world, even more since health specialists have come to recognize the benefits of Cacao and especially dark chocolate. Consumption has been encouraged especially also in the US, where many different kinds of chocolate bars decorate cashier stations at health food stores. The famous mood lifters come in all shades of brown and even white, wrapped in colourful and elegantly designed packages.

Switzerland is Chocolate heaven’s heaven – no doubt – famous for its varied creations. Swiss citizens abroad cannot leave their home country without loading their suitcase full of the many delicious Chocolate products that exist on the market. Not that chocolate would not be available here in the US – but the Swiss beat their rivals in regards to quality and innovation. Chocolate products are widely available in every Swiss village – all grocery stores, big and small, discount or high end – they all carry an enormous selection, making it difficult to choose. They are mostly reasonably priced from $ 1.50 upwards per bar. Have you tasted yet the more recent daring creations “Dark chocolate with Chili” and “Dark chocolate with lemon and peppercorn”?

Various Swiss chocolatiers invented milk chocolate and made it into the most popular sweet treat in the world. There are surely many other very good chocolate producers around competing with the Swiss brands, who exist since 1819, when François-Louis Cailler opened one of the first mechanised chocolate production facilities in Corsier near Vevey, establishing the oldest brand of Swiss chocolate still in existence today.

The following excerpt from www.chocosuisse.ch tells more about Chocolate’s history:

From cocoa to chocolate

The great botanist Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) was by no means the first to recognise the unique merits of the plant to which he gave the botanical name of “Theobroma Cacao L.”.”Theobroma” means “food of the gods”. Cocoa was already recognised as such by the Toltecs, Mayas and Aztecs, from whom we got the name “cacauatl”. Around 600 AD the Mayas were already cultivating cocoa in Central America. They used the cocoa beans to prepare a very nourishing drink, which they called “Xocolatl”, from which we probably get the modern word “chocolate”.

The Spanish Conquistadors of the 16th century were also interested in chocolate. In 1528, Cortez took the first cocoa to Spain, along with the equipment needed to prepare the exotic drink, and it soon met with great approval in the Spanish court. In 1615, the infanta Anna of Austria, who grew up in Madrid, introduced drinking chocolate to the French court when she married King Louis XIII. In Paris it became a badge of status and the fashionable drink of the aristocracy, and from there it spread throughout the whole of Europe. Whereas in the 19th century, the importance of drinking chocolate declined, solid chocolate, which had its origins in France in the years following 1830, grew in importance.

Chocolate arrives in Switzerland …

In 1819, François-Louis Cailler opened one of the first mechanised chocolate production facilities in Corsier near Vevey, establishing the oldest brand of Swiss chocolate still in existence today. Thus chocolate had finally arrived in the country where it was soon to find its greatest patrons and pioneers. Philippe Suchard set up a chocolate factory in Serrières in 1826. He was followed by Jacques Foulquier (predecessor of Jean-Samuel Favarger) 1826 in Geneva, Charles-Amédée Kohler 1830 in Lausanne, Rudolf Sprüngli 1845 in Zurich, Aquilino Maestrani 1852 in Lucerne, later moving to St. Gallen, Johann Georg Munz 1874 in Flawil, and Jean Tobler 1899 in Berne.

François-Louis Cailler (1796-1852)	Philippe Suchard (1797-1884)	Rudolf Sprüngli-Amman (1816-1897)
Aquilino Maestrani (1814-1880)	Rudolf (Rodolphe) Lindt (1855-1909)	Daniel Peter (1836-1919)

Daniel Peter founded a chocolate factory in Vevey in 1867. After many attempts, he succeeded in combining chocolate with milk, an obvious but difficult move, thus inventing milk chocolate in 1875. Rodolphe Lindt opened a chocolate factory in Berne in 1879. He developed “conching”, a process which created the world’s first “melting chocolate”. Many other Swiss entrepreneurs set up companies over the next few years, their activities helping to shape the reputation of Swiss chocolate, which soon became known throughout the world.

Swiss chocolate flourishes

The years between 1890 and 1920 saw a real blossoming of the Swiss chocolate industry, coinciding with the golden age of Swiss tourism. Members of the top echelons of society throughout the world who spent their holidays in Switzerland came to know and appreciate Swiss chocolate, and took its reputation home with them. The initiative of Swiss chocolate producers conquered the world chocolate market between 1900 and 1918. Up to three quarters of Swiss chocolate was exported. Thus “little Switzerland” became a world power in chocolate. Of course, “Swiss chocolate” owed its global reputation not just to the quantities exported, but above all to its quality, which made it stand out above the great amount of chocolate produced in other countries.

Through crises to a new golden age

1920s saw the beginning of hard times for the Swiss chocolate industry. Increased protectionism, and the economic crises of the 20s and 30s, led to the loss of export markets. The Second World War brought strict import restrictions on sugar and cocoa, with rationing being introduced in 1943.

Since 1950, the Swiss chocolate industry has enjoyed constant growth. Automation and new chocolate production technologies have made great strides forward. Advances in economic integration, and the dismantling of customs controls throughout the world, have promoted the international exchange of goods. Manufacturers recognised the signs of the times and extended their market position in many parts of the world.

The development of new products and product forms in keeping with modern consumer habits, the maintaining of quality, the consistent pursuit of modernisation in factories, and the promotion of professional training for employees, are the methods being employed by the Swiss chocolate industry to assert its global market position into the 21st century.

Due to all the facts it’s no surprise that Switzerland tops the world in chocolate consumption. In 2008 the average per capita consumption was 12.4 kg (27.28 lb) of chocolate products.

We hope that your taste buds are now sensibilized and you are now ready to check out some of the most amazing Chocolate recipes from Switzerland.

Chocolate Recipes: Get inspired and check the link below to try out the delicious Creations!

http://www.myswitzerland.com

www.chocosuisse.ch

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