瑞士深度游：和平之都，人间天堂

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若在欧洲旅游国度意大利、法国、德国中三选一，你会作何选择？还是去瑞士吧，为什么呢？请往下看。

Hello and welcome to Travel Blog, a weekly feature for people who love to travel and enjoy new experiences. We take you on fascinating journeys where you'll rediscover familiar places and find out about new and unusual travel experiences. And we provide you with all the practical information you need to plan your own trip.

Well, if you could travel through only one European country, which would you choose? Italy? France? Germany? How about a taste of three in one? That can only mean Switzerland.

Today, we'll start our journey from the heart of Europe - Switzerland. Switzerland might bring several key icons to mind- watches, multifunctional pocket knives, cuckoo clocks, chocolate and fashion.

However, that's not all there is to Switzerland. With the incomparable beauty of its mountainous landscape, pristine lakes, lush green countryside and picturesque towns, Switzerland is unique and truly a land like no other.

Now we have Feng Hui from the Beijing office of the Swiss Tourism Bureau. She'll be with us to take a closer look at this beautiful country.
 

"When we talk about Switzerland, everybody, just like you, getting in mind will be the Alps, chocolate, Swiss Army Knife, banking, and skiing. To give you an overview of Switzerland, it's really a mini country in the middle of Europe, with the neighborhood country like Germany, Austria, France, Italy. It's only about 40,000 square meters, let's say it's (as big as) two and half Beijing city, with only 7 million population.

The country is situated in Western Europe, where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. That's why Switzerland comprises three main linguistic and cultural regions that include German, French, and Italian. Moreover, compared with the 70 percent of the population who speaks German, 1 percent of the Swiss population speaks Romansch, which is a local language.

"But as a traveler, when you travel to Switzerland, you don't need to speak to all these four languages, if you can speak English, that's already enough, because all people in Switzerland, especially young people, they can speak quite good English. I tell you that when you travel in Switzerland, just smile, smile is really a common world language, you know. Swiss people are kind, warm hearted. When you need help, you would like to help you."

People in different language region are often marked by distinct characteristics. Feng Hui says when she's traveling in Switzerland, she has found big differences between people who speak different languages.

"For example, in German speaking area, people are more like German style, they're well-organized. They do everything as scheduled. For French speaking area, they are more Romantic, more fashion there. And in the Italian speaking area, everybody smile to you, say hello to you; you'll feel people there more open, they are quite good at designing things. A lot of artists are from this region. You'll see that's very interesting."

When it comes to quality of living, Zurich, Geneva and Bern have for years occupied top slots in international rankings.

So what is the uniqueness of these cities? Have they gotten these laurels only because of their modern facilities?

"I think they say the highest quality of life doesn't mean what we imagine here, (such as) big cities or high modern buildings. For example, Zurich is the biggest city in Switzerland, the most important commercial city in Switzerland, but when you walk in the city, you'll find it quite close to forest, but (you'll also find it) convenient for your life. The public transportation in advanced, developed, so it's very convenient to go to work, go for shopping, even go out to do some outdoor sports."

Swiss people live very peaceful life, they enjoy their life together with the nature. They really know how to enjoy life. Usually the railway station is the busiest place as they will do some outdoor sports in the mountains.

All right, with that we come to the end of this edition of travel blog. Next week, we'll visit the capital of Switzerland, where you won't go long without hearing or reading the name UNESCO. And we will also take a closer look at the Olympic Museum in the hilly city of Lausanne. Our expert will let you know how to enjoy budget travel in Switzerland.