Continuing on the architecture thread. As the photo above shows (not very clearly), the essence of Italian architecture seemed to be a fantastic degree of consistency with cream colored walls and tiled roofs that slope to a point or a line. So when we went out of Italy, in the first place we saw (Innsbruck, Austria) something stood out glaringly -- the use of colours in buildings :-).
Below are some photographs in Switzerland:
The buildings are very pretty. The facade is more elaborate than in Italy and they have a different kind of roof with an attic-kind-of-thing and a flat roof. The large new building in the last photo above is pretty terrible -- an example of what I was saying about trying (and in this case failing) to make modernity fit with the old architecture.
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Some trivia:
--Switzerland is often represented by the letters 'ch'. For example, Swiss websites will end with .ch (like .com or .in). 'ch' stands for 'confederation helvetica' or something similar to that in French or German and is the old name for the country.
--The Schengen visa lets you enter any of the 7 odd countries with just one visa. So what are the actual formalities at the border ? Answer: none! As far as I could see there was not even a formal border between these countries, we just whizzed through on the bus without as much as a stop. I found this really amazing. These countries have actually surrendered their territorial borders to a significant degree. It is a first of the (hopefully) next phase of the world, where the modern nation-state loses its primacy. Hats off to you guys.
--The local name of Austria is 'Osterreich'.
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