Slow Train To Switzerland

Author : Diccon Bewes
Publisher : Nicholas Brealey
ISBN 13 : 1473644917
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Slow Train to Switzerland written by Diccon Bewes and published by Nicholas Brealey. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Bewes' breezy prose makes him a pleasant traveling companion ... he clearly knows Switzerland inside and out." - The Spectator In June 1863 an English lady set off by train on the trip of a lifetime: Thomas Cook's first Conducted Tour of Switzerland. A century and a half later, travel writer Diccon Bewes, author of the bestselling Swiss Watching, decided to go where she went and see what she saw. Guided by her diary, he followed the same route to discover how much had changed and how much hadn't. She went in search of adventure, he went in search of her, and found far more than he expected. Slow Train to Switzerland is the captivating account of two trips through the Alps: hers glimpsing the future of travel, his revisiting its past. Together they make a journey to remember. This is a tale of trains and tourists, of the British and the Swiss, of a Victorian traveller and a modern-day Englishman abroad. It is the story of a tour that changed both Switzerland and the world of travel forever.

Author : Diccon Bewes
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 1857889916
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Swiss Watching written by Diccon Bewes and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2012-03-09 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Financial Times Book of the Year and international bestseller.

Author : Clive H. Church
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107244196
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Concise History of Switzerland written by Clive H. Church and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-23 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its position at the heart of Europe and its quintessentially European nature, Switzerland's history is often overlooked within the English-speaking world. This comprehensive and engaging history of Switzerland traces the historical and cultural development of this fascinating but neglected European country from the end of the Dark Ages up to the present. The authors focus on the initial Confederacy of the Middle Ages; the religious divisions which threatened it after 1500 and its surprising survival amongst Europe's monarchies; the turmoil following the French Revolution and conquest, which continued until the Federal Constitution of 1848; the testing of the Swiss nation through the late nineteenth century and then two World Wars and the Depression of the 1930s; and the unparalleled economic and social growth and political success of the post-war era. The book concludes with a discussion of the contemporary challenges, often shared with neighbours, that shape the country today.

Author : Pascal Mercier
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 1555849237
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Night Train to Lisbon written by Pascal Mercier and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling novel of love and sacrifice under fascist rule, and “a treat for the mind. One of the best books I have read in a long time” (Isabel Allende). Raimund Gregorius, a professor of dead languages at a Swiss secondary school, lives a life governed by routine. Then, an enigmatic Portuguese woman stirs his interest in an obscure, and mind-expanding book of philosophy that opens the possibility of changing Raimund’s existence. That same night, he takes the train to Lisbon to research the book’s phantom author, Amadeu de Prado, a renowned physician whose principles led him to confront Salazar’s dictatorship. Raimund, now obsessed with unlocking the mystery behind the man, is determined to meet all those on whom Prado left an indelible mark. Among them: his eighty-year-old sister, who maintains her brother’s house as if it were a museum; an elderly cleric and torture survivor confined to a nursing home; and Prado’s childhood friend and eventual partner in the Resistance. The closer Raimund comes to the truth of Prado’s life, and eventual fate, an extraordinary tale takes shape amid the labyrinthine memories of Prado’s intimate circle of family and friends, working in utmost secrecy to fight dictatorship, and the betrayals that threaten to expose them. “A meditative, deliberate exploration of loneliness, language and the human condition” (The San Diego Union-Tribune), Night Train to Lisbon “call[s] to mind the magical realism of Jorge Amado or Gabriel Garcia Marquez . . . allusive and thought-provoking, intellectually curious and yet heartbreakingly jaded,” and inexorably propelled by the haunting mystery at its heart (The Providence Journal). Night Train to Lisbon was adapted into Bille August’s award-winning 2013 film starring Jeremy Irons, Lena Olin, Christopher Lee, and Charlotte Rampling.

Author : Diccon Bewes
Publisher : Bergli
ISBN 13 : 9783038690009
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to be Swiss written by Diccon Bewes and published by Bergli. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The art of being Swiss isn't an easy thing to master, even if you have a head start by being born that way, but How to be Swiss will help you make it (or fake it). This instruction manual is the result of years of hard work by the authors themselves, one British and one Swiss.

Author : Andrew Martin
Publisher : Profile Books
ISBN 13 : 1782832122
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Night Trains written by Andrew Martin and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Night trains have long fascinated us with the possibilities of their private sleeping compartments, gilded dining cars, champagne bars and wealthy travellers. Authors from Agatha Christie to Graham Greene have used night trains to tell tales of romance, intrigue and decadence against a rolling background of dramatic landscapes. The reality could often be as thrilling: early British travellers on the Orient Express were advised to carry a revolver (as well as a teapot). In Night Trains, Andrew Martin attempts to relive the golden age of the great European sleeper trains by using their modern-day equivalents. This is no simple matter. The night trains have fallen on hard times, and the services are disappearing one by one. But if the Orient Express experience can only be recreated by taking three separate sleepers, the intriguing characters and exotic atmospheres have survived. Whether the backdrop is 3am at a Turkish customs post, the sun rising over the Riviera, or the constant twilight of a Norwegian summer night, Martin rediscovers the pleasures of a continent connected by rail. By tracing the history of the sleeper trains, he reveals much of the recent history of Europe itself. The original sleepers helped break down national barriers and unify the continent. Martin uncovers modern instances of European unity - and otherwise - as he traverses the continent during 'interesting times', with Brexit looming. Against this tumultuous backdrop, he experiences his own smaller dramas, as he fails to find crucial connecting stations, ponders the mystery of the compartment dog, and becomes embroiled in his very own night train whodunit.

Author : D. Birmingham
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780333800140
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Switzerland: A Village History written by D. Birmingham and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-05-09 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Switzerland is a remarkable country half of whose territory lies in the Alps. The raising of cattle and the making of cheese eventually brought a modest wealth to the peasants but the destructive Napoleonic invasion brought revolution and poverty. The democratic unification of Switzerland created a common market and a single currency. This history of one alpine village illustrates a one-thousand-year struggle for survival on the edge of this white wilderness.

Author : Padraig Rooney
Publisher : Nicholas Brealey
ISBN 13 : 1473645026
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Gilded Chalet written by Padraig Rooney and published by Nicholas Brealey. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part detective work, part treasure chest, full of history and scandal, The Gilded Chalet takes you on a grand tour of two centuries of great writing by both Swiss and foreign authors and shows how Switzerland has always been at the center of literary Europe. Two centuries after the Romantics went there to invent Gothic horror, the lure of Switzerland hasn't left us. Writers from the Fitzgeralds to Fleming, Highsmith to Hemingway, Conan Doyle to le Carré, came to escape world wars, political persecution, tuberculosis. They came for sanctuary (from oppression or the tax man), for fresh air and nude sunbathing, for scenery resembling, as Rooney puts it, 'Mother Nature on steroids.' Patricia Highsmith spent her last years in a granite home in Ticino with a fridge containing little but peanut butter and vodka. Hermann Hesse had himself buried to the neck as a cure for alcoholism. Nabokov chased butterflies and played tennis on the hotel courts. When it comes to literature, it seems all roads lead to Switzerland. Padraig Rooney peers through the chalet windows and discovers how Switzerland has influenced some of the greatest authors and characters of literature.

Author : Diccon Bewes
Publisher : Nicholas Brealey
ISBN 13 : 147369972X
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Swiss Watching, 3rd Edition written by Diccon Bewes and published by Nicholas Brealey. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New updated edition, new statistics and Epilogue One country, four languages, 26 cantons, and 7.5 million people (but only 80% of them Swiss): there's nowhere else in Europe like it. Switzerland may be almost 400 km from the nearest drop of seawater, but it is an island at the centre of Europe. Welcome to the landlocked island. Swiss Watching is a fascinating journey around Europe s most individual and misunderstood country. From seeking Heidi and finding the best chocolate to reliving a bloody past and exploring an uncertain future, Diccon Bewes proves that there's more to Switzerland than banks and skis, francs and cheese. This book dispels the myths and unravels the true meaning of Swissness. In a land of cultural contradictions, this is a picture of the real and normally unseen Switzerland, a place where the breathtaking scenery shaped a nation not just a tour itinerary, and where tradition is as important as innovation. It's also the story of its people, who have more power than their politicians, but can't speak to one another in the same language and who own more guns per head than the people of Iraq. As for those national clichés, well, not all the cheese has holes, cuckoo clocks aren't Swiss and the trains don't always run exactly on time.

Author : Diccon Bewes
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9783905252248
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Swisscellany written by Diccon Bewes and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A treasure-trove of serious and not-so-serious facts about Switzerland that will amuse and enlighten you with statistics and details you never dreamed you'd enjoy knowing.