By Peter Hulm Remembering a Glarus native who bubbled with new ideas his whole life. Deputy editor of Global Geneve Magazine Peter Hulm reports. Ninety years ago, on 16 February 1933, Fritz Zwicky posited the existence of dark matter. It then took three decades for cosmologists to accept his ideas (three years after his death), […]
Swiss driverless buses a hit despite accident
By Peter Hulm Sion’s driverless public shuttle buses celebrated their first anniversary of experimental operation in the mainly pedestrian precincts of the Valais capital on 23 June 2017. Switzerland’s PostAuto/PostBus, responsible for the 11-seater yellow electric vehicles built by the French company Navya, said the two SmartShuttles carried more than 21,500 people through the Sion […]
The sometimes weird but wonderful Valais Festival of New Music – 1 to 5 June 2017
By Peter Hulm Music from helicopters, a Swiss men’s choir swinging back and forth on hydraulic pistons in a church, a political Tibetan pop-rock group — ForumWallis’s excursions into experimental music might sound more weird than wonderful, unless you’re there. In fact, the Festival of New Music has developed a reputation over the past 11 […]
Wine cellars in Valais open their doors this weekend
By Peter Hulm The icy weather of 19th of April 2017 launched catastrophe week in Switzerland’s finest wine growing region. The Valais “wine village” of Salgesch/Salquenen will probably lose 80-90% of its harvest, growers predict, as a result of frost damage to the vines (and apricot trees). Nevertheless, the canton’s wine cellars will be open […]
The Swiss commune that inspired a Nobel-prize-winning theory on communal ownership
A traditional village in the Upper Valais helped give the world two of the most influential modern ideas in sociology and environmental activism. The region’s also worth visiting for its breath-taking 300˚ view of the Alps, visible from the top of an amazing high marshland, and for a super restaurant 2048 metres up above the […]
A literary hiking tour across a Swiss language border in Pfyn or Finges
The forest of Pfyn/Finges, on the French-German language border between Sierre and Leuk, is home to one of Europe’s last large-pine forests. Once the haunt of robbers and highwaymen, it is now a nature paradise prized for its diversity (from insects and amphibians to plants and birds) with rich literary associations. If you can manage […]
