Camping Is a Good Way to Canvass Switzerland

Campers in Switzerland hear more cowbells, more glaciers grinding and rivers rushing, more languages and more genuine Swiss opinions than tourists staying in Switzerland’s posh hotels. They can even hear the pulse of a nation celebrating its 700th anniversary.

To discover the reality of Swiss lives in this anniversary year of 1991, one must get out of the cities and onto the tiny blue highways that link villages and scale mountains.

Traveling by rental car and camping, one can stop at will to explore more spontaneously than travelers with a strict itinerary predetermined by hotel reservations. And since Switzerland is only 215 miles wide but densely packed, distances are short and roads are excellent.

The Swiss take their camping seriously, and practically every village has a campingplatz just outside of town, marked by directional signs with the logo of a tent. In fact, there are no less than 450 campgrounds, all classified from one to five stars according to amenities and location.

The word camping is universally understood and usually results in a friendly offering of directions. Most campgrounds are relatively new and privately owned, and many are converted orchards or farmlands left uncultivated, the revenue collected from campers more lucrative than a harvest. Some are along rivers or lake shores.

Swiss campers look like they’ve settled in for the season, with tall tents standing foursquare, most with porches and clear plastic windows. Some even have lace curtains or shutters painted on the tent canvas. In the morning you’ll see these campers sweeping out their porches, inviting neighboring campers over for tea and the morning paper. Then it’s off on a hike or a visit to a nearby castle. It’s all very civilized.

And in the evening, they gather around the common area in the center of the campingplatz for beer or ice cream on picnic benches, shared with local residents. There, talk drifts from the age-old concerns of harvests and taxes, to the issue so much on the minds of the Swiss--the emerging new Europe and where Switzerland will fit in.

For the camper with an open ear and eye, as well as a good map, a loop route from Zurich through the lesser-traveled northeastern cantons of Schaffhausen, St. Gall and Appenzell reveals the essence of rural Switzerland, while a loop through the Bernese Oberland in south-central Switzerland unfolds the heart of the Alps.

In the northeast, smaller roads thread together medieval villages untouched by tourism. Two such village gems due north of Zurich are Marthalen and Stammheim, where all buildings are half-timbered. Cow bells and the clop of horses’ hoofs, roosters and morning doves, the trickle of water in ancient water troughs--awakening to these morning sounds from a tent at the edge of town, or seeing the village on foot, one feels the wholesome timelessness of Swiss farming life.

From a dock at Stein am Rhein, a medieval town that preserved its frescoed houses, steamers ply the Rhine toward Schaffhausen, at the head of the Rhinefall, where, for centuries, goods were transported overland around the impassable cataract of water that rivals Niagara in force and spectacle.

Schaffhausen’s merchants and transport magnates grew wealthy, and their 17th-Century homes lining the main street with baroque oriel windows are still intact, thanks to Swiss neutrality in the World Wars.

The Swiss Rhineland, dotted with vineyards and villages, is well suited for bicycling. It’s relatively flat and untrafficked, and every village has an excellent restaurant, usually connected to an inn or gasthaus, often bearing the name hirschen (deer), adler (eagle), lowen (lion) or bern (bear).

A string of monasteries along Lake Constance leads eastward to the hamlet of Appenzell, clearly off the common tourist route, though served by a campsite just outside of town. Church bells still summon women to prepare the midday meal, and men only vote in the square by a show of hands, a tradition known as landsgemeinde. When asked why women still can’t vote, their answer is simple: “Then we wouldn’t all fit in the voting platz .”

On steep hillsides, men and women scythe the grass by hand while boys bring milk into town on bicycles and girls carry eggs to market in baskets.

The loop returns through Winterthur, where industrialist Oskar Reinhart’s collection of Renaissance and Impressionist art is on view to the public at Samlung Oskar Reinhart, his manor house secluded in a Hansel-and-Gretel forest. The collection has some fine Renoirs and Cezannes, a whole room of Daumier and several famous Van Goghs, including “L’Hopital a Arles,” which vibrates with enough nervous energy to make your heart ache.

A strikingly different loop tour, also ideal for campers, is in the heart of the Alps, the Bernese Oberland, where there are scores of campgrounds. In this steep countryside, life still throbs with the rhythms of haymaking and milking, while on upper slopes are the world’s most formidable mountain resorts.

The route into the Bernese Oberland from Lucern negotiates the Brunig Pass. Slow down. Here’s prime country for off-the-highway wandering. Poking down a narrow side road invariably leads to landscapes forbidden to tour buses, straight out of “Heidi,” where emerald pastures rise to pure white crags. Sight after sight invites picnicking, and lakeside camping is idyllic.

From Brunig Pass, the road splits. To the east lies the great alpine passes: Furka, where the blue-white Rhone Glacier practically nudges cars off the road, and the formidable St. Gotthard, which provided passage from the Mediterranean for ideas as well as goods. Near the split at Meiringen (campsite nearby), the Aare River courses through an eerie, naturally sculpted gulch, a continuous heady thrill for the price of an hour’s walk.

To the west of Brunig Pass is Interlaken, a resort town surrounded by some of the most spectacular peaks in the Alps, including the Eiger and Jungfrau, and water--a lake, rivers and waterfalls plunging over cliffs. Four campgrounds ring the town, and 40 cog railways, funiculars and aerial trams lift people to the peaks.

The tram with the longest span takes visitors to the top of Shilthorn, which affords a terrific view across to the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau. Near Europe’s longest chairlift, the Firstbahn at Grindelwald, a large campground lies on the flanks of the Eiger.

GUIDEBOOK

Campgrounds

in Switzerland

Where to stay: Campground rates average $13 a night for two. Most have communal shower and dishwashing and laundry facilities. Midday arrival usually assures space, even on weekends. Lists of campsites are available from the Federation of Swiss Camping Clubs, Habsburgerstrasse 35, 6000 Lucerne, or the Swiss National Tourist Office, Bellariastrasse 38, CH-8027 Zurich.

Maps published by Freytag & Berndt, sold at travel bookstores here and in Switzerland, are excellent and identify even small campgrounds with a green triangle.

For more information: Swissair (800-221-4750) offers reduced Kemwel car rental rates on fly-drive packages; Kemwell (800) 678-0678, and the Swiss National Tourist Board, 222 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 1570, El Segundo 90245, (213) 335-5980.