Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
17. Switzerland
I reached Brig, by way of Domodossala and the Simplon Pass, at about five in the evening. It was
darker and cooler here than it had been in Italy, and the streets were shiny with rain. I got a room in the Hotel
Victoria overlooking the station and went straight out to look for food, having had nothing to eat since my
two bites of Mashed Fig Delight in Locarno at lunchtime.
All the restaurants in Brig were German. You never know where you are in Switzerland. One minute
everything's Italian, then you travel a mile or two and everyone is talking German or French or some variety
of Romansch. All along an irregular line running the length of east-central Switzerland you can find pairs of
villages that are neighbours and yet clearly from different linguistic groups - St Blaise and Erlach, Les
Diablerets and Gsteig, Del￩mont and Laufen - and as you head south towards Italy the same thing happens
again with Italian. Brig was a nipple of German speakers, so to speak, between the two.
I examined six or seven restaurants, mystified by the menus, wishing I knew the German for liver, pig's
trotters and boiled eyeball, before chancing upon an establishment called the Restaurant de la Place at the
top of the town. Now this is a nice surprise, I thought, and went straight in, figuring that at least I'd have some
idea what I was ordering, but the name Restaurant de la Place was just a heartless joke. The menu here
was in German, too.
It really is the most unattractive language for foodstuffs. If you want whipped cream on your coffee in
much of the German-speaking world, you order it 'mit Schlag'. Now does that sound to you like a frothy and
delicious pick-me-up, or does that sound like the sort of thing smokers bring up first thing in the morning?
Here the menu was full of items that brought to mind the noises of a rutting pig: Knoblauchbrot,
Schweinskotelett ihrer Wahl, Portion Schlagobers (and that was a dessert).
I ordered Entrecte and Frites, which sounded a trifle dull after Italy (and indeed so it proved to be), but
at least I wouldn't have to hide most of it in my napkin rather than face that awful, embarrassing cry of
disappointment that waiters always give when they find you haven't touched your Goat's Scrotum En Crote.
At all events, it was an agreeable enough place, as much bar as restaurant: dark and plain, with a tobacco-
stained ceiling, but the waitress was friendly and the beer was large and cold.
In the middle of the table sat a large cast-iron platter, which I assumed was an ashtray, and then I had
the awful thought that perhaps it was some kind of food receptacle and that the waitress would come along
in a minute and put some bread in it or something. I looked around the room to see if any of the other few
customers were using theirs as an ashtray and no one seemed to be, so I snatched out my cigarette butt
and dead match and secreted them in a pot plant beside the table, and then tried to disperse the ash with a
blow, but it went all over the tablecloth. As I tried to brush it away I knocked my glass with the side of my
hand and slopped beer all across the table.
By the time I had finished, much of the tablecloth was a series of grey smudges outlined in a large,
irregular patch of yellow that looked distressingly like a urine stain. I casually tried to hide this with my elbow
and upper body when the waitress brought my dinner, but she saw instantly what a mess I had made of
things and gave me a look not of contempt, as I had dreaded, but - worse - of sympathy. It was the look you
might give a stroke victim who has lost control of the muscles in his mouth but is still gamely trying to feed
himself. It was a look that said, 'Bless him, poor soul.'
For one horrible moment I thought she might tie a napkin around my neck and cut my food up for me.
Instead, she retreated to her station behind the bar, but she kept a compassionate eye on me throughout
the meal, ready to spring forward if any pieces of cutlery should clatter from my grasp or if a sudden spasm
should cause me to tip over backwards. I was very pleased to get out of there. The cast-iron pot was an
ashtray, by the way.
Brig was a bit of a strange place. Historically it was a staging post on the road between Zurich and
Milan, and now it looked as if it didn't quite know what to do with itself. It was a reasonably sized town but it
appeared to offer little in the way of diversions. It was the kind of place where the red-light district would be
in a phone box. All the shops sold unarresting products like refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and televisions
from behind shiny plate-glass windows. Then it occurred to me that the shops in most countries sell
