Low season Swiss mist.

“This world is a desert that is a circle.

Heaven is closed and hell is empty.”

Octavio Paz, Elegía interrumpida (Interrupted Elegy), mid-20th century

I recalled these lines of this great (though not all that well-known) Mexican poet just recently on my latest travels – driving across Switzerland. Have to say I wasn’t expecting low season here to be this low. Place was practically deserted, with most of the hotels practically empty too. But of course: Summer is a distant memory, and neither Christmastime nor skiing-time has fully kicked off yet…

Making the place even more eerily desolate was the thick fog that had descended…

Not a horror movieRocking

Not a horror movieBustling

Not a horror movieHumming

Not a horror movieThronging

But to show you it’s not all doom and gloom here in December, here’s a couple of pics to show another side of the place – early morning:

Swan lake, Swiss styleClement

Swan lake, Swiss styleCharming!

We arrived here after speeding along 800 kilometers of autobahn. Not that that was as good as it sure could have been: we were appropriately feeling the need for speed, of course, but never reached any. The traffic was just too heavy, and then at times visibility was reduced real low – as low as the season – because of dense fog.

Foggybahn

Foggybahn

Hmmm… in the photos – only fog, none of the ‘heavy traffic’. Believe me it was there at times!

En route we passed (sadly there wasn’t enough time for a stop) the unique Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum – the only place in the world where the two supersonic civil aircraft, Concord and Tu-144, sit beside each other.

Btw, the deserted foggy place in the pics above is Lucerne (not to be confused with Lausanne), the Swiss neutral-pacific-peaceable resort. We stopped off there for the night on our way to Italy – about which I’ll be following up on shortly…

Back soon!…

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