Rediscovering Switzerland

Lucerne & Bern – from 2016 to 2026

As someone from Switzerland, it doesn’t happen often that I get to show people around my home country. Not because nobody wants to visit. More often than not, the first thing I hear when I introduce myself is that people dream of coming here. Proximity shouldn’t be the issue either, since many people I meet on the road eventually travel through Europe and its neighboring countries. Lately, one reason has simply been that I don’t spend much time in Switzerland myself. The other, of course, is the hefty price tag that comes with travelling here. So I completely understand when friends would rather meet somewhere else. That makes me appreciate it even more whenever I get the chance to show them around my own country. There’s something strangely exciting about becoming the local for once. After years of being the guest in other people’s countries, suddenly I’m the one recommending restaurants, explaining history and pretending I know the train schedules by heart. The first opportunity I had to do so was back in 2016, shortly after returning from London.

While working there, I was living with Cinzia and Alice from northern Italy. We quickly became friends and, in the years that followed, regularly visited each other. One time, Cinzia and I spontaneously met up in Lugano on a shared day off, exploring the city and its surroundings together. Being the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, it felt slightly familiar yet still different to both of us. On different occasions, Cinzia and Alice also visited my hometown of Lucerne. At first, I struggled to come up with places worth showing them, but over time I perfected my go-to itinerary. Of course, it included my favourite spots and places filled with childhood memories, but I also made sure not to skip the tourist highlights. We’d stroll through the old town, cross the famous Chapel Bridge and stop for lunch by the river with a sandwich from the self-proclaimed “King of the Baguette Sandwich.” Afterwards, we’d walk up to the Musegg Wall, where I’d spent countless hours as a child visiting my dad at work or helping build carnival floats.

Naturally, a visit to the lake was never missing either. When Cinzia stopped by with her parents on the way from Italy to Germany, my parents and I picked them up for an hour of sailing on our boat. And when Alice came for a day trip, we headed up to the Bürgenstock to enjoy the view from the top. It also made me realize how differently locals and visitors experience the same city. I’d crossed Chapel Bridge hundreds of times without giving it much thought, while they stopped every few metres to take another photo. Watching them discover the places I’d grown up with reminded me not to take them for granted. The following year, Valentin, who had hosted me in Santiago de Chile during my South America trip, briefly visited Lucerne. By then I was working for Lucerne Tourism, so we made use of the free tickets for the newly opened Bürgenstock Express. Through his questions about Lucerne’s history, I started seeing the development of Switzerland from a completely different perspective and learned things about my own country that I’d never thought about before.

The employee partner offers also came in handy when Ellie, whom I’d travelled with in Ecuador, stopped by during her Europe trip. After a delicious breakfast at my parents’ house, we went up Mount Pilatus by cable car, back down the other side by funicular and finally returned to Lucerne by steamboat. In the years since then, opportunities to show foreign friends around my hometown have become rare, simply because I’ve spent most of my time abroad. Almost ten years later, I suddenly found myself in the opposite corner of the country. Instead of showing people my hometown of Lucerne, I had become the local in Kandersteg. Once again, friends travelling through Europe started stopping by. During the beginning of the season in Kandersteg, I already had the pleasure of meeting up with my Indian friend Muskan, whom I got to know in Mongolia. She was travelling through Switzerland with her family, and we decided to spend the day together in Interlaken. Coincidentally, I had a day off while they were there, so we explored the town before taking a trip to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald.

Given the rainy weather, I wasn’t sure they would enjoy themselves, but a cheese fondue for lunch and a hot chocolate stop in the afternoon quickly made everyone happy. They even invited me to stay the night at their Airbnb, where we made chai and worked our way through some of the many Indian instant meals they had packed for dinner. Later that evening, Muskan and her aunt decided they wanted to visit the casino in Interlaken. Since it was pretty much the only nightlife on offer, I eventually agreed. Walking through the empty streets late at night, her aunt couldn’t believe how quiet everything was, especially compared to Mumbai. It was one of those moments that reminded me how unusual everyday life in Switzerland can seem to visitors. Another time I realized that was when my friend Takuya came for a spontaneous visit. We’d travelled together quite a bit across Japan (where he’s from) before, and now I was excited to finally show him some of my own homeland.

Arriving in Kandersteg, he was immediately starstruck by the Swiss Alps. On my workdays, Takuya explored Oeschinensee, Gasterntal and even spent a night up at the Gemmi Pass. What impressed him most, though, was how accessible everything was. On one of our hikes in Kyushu, we’d spent half an hour just looking for the trailhead. Here, every junction is clearly signposted and even remote mountain villages are connected by trains or buses. Growing up in Switzerland, I’d always taken that for granted, but it certainly isn’t the norm in many parts of the world. On my days off, I also wanted to introduce him to one of my favourite summer activities: swimming in lakes and rivers. We took the train to Spiez and Bern and met up with one of my childhood friends along the way. Back in Kandersteg, we spent our evenings cooking Swiss and Japanese dishes together and even made gyoza with my friends from work.

After spending so many years being welcomed into other people’s homes around the world, it feels special to finally return the favour. Looking back, every friend who has visited Switzerland has shown me something different. Cinzia and Alice reminded me not to take the places from my childhood for granted. Valentin made me curious about the history I had always overlooked. Muskan helped me appreciate the quietness of everyday life, while Takuya made me realize just how extraordinary our hiking network really is. In the end, showing people around my home isn’t really about showing Switzerland. It’s about sharing a place that has shaped me, while rediscovering it through someone else’s eyes.