Travel Tips & Tools
Country Demographics
SWITZERLAND
Area: 15,952 square miles
Capital: Bern
Languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansch. English is widely spoken in tourist and business circles.
Location: Switzerland, in central Europe, is the land of the Alps. About the size of New Jersey, it is surrounded by France, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Italy.
Population (2004 est.): 7,450,867
Religion: Roman Catholic (49%), Protestant (48%)
Time zone: Switzerland is on Central European Time, six hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time.
HOLLAND
Area: 16,036 square miles
Capital: Amsterdam
Language: Dutch is the official language. A large percentage of the Dutch are also fluent in English and German.
Location: Situated on the coast of the North Sea, Holland borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south.
Population (2004 est.): 16,318,199
Religions: Roman Catholic 34%, Protestant 25%, Muslim 3%, other 2%, unaffiliated 36%
Time zone: Holland is on Central European Time, which is six hours ahead of U.S. EST: when it's 6 am in New York, it's noon in Amsterdam.
GERMANY
Area: 137,846 square miles
Capital: Berlin
Language: German is the official language. Many Germans are impeccably fluent in English. Italian and French are also widely spoken.
Location: Located in central Europe, Germany is bordered in the north by Denmark and in the south by Austria and Switzerland. On the west are the Benelux Countries and France; on the east are Poland the Czech Republic. Germany has coastlines on both the North Sea and the Baltic.
Population (2004 est.): 82,424,609
Religion: Protestant, 38%, Roman Catholic, 34%, unaffiliated or other, 28 %.
Time zone: Germany is on Central European Time, which is six hours ahead of U.S. EST.
The Rhine River
The Rhine starts high in the Swiss Alps, runs a course of some 840 miles through or alongside six countries—Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, France, Germany, and Holland—then empties into the North Sea at Rotterdam. Though the Danube is twice as long as the Rhine, it is the latter that, throughout history, has served as the most important route for river-trade between the European continent and the North Sea.
Of particular significance is the segment of the Rhine that forms a natural geographical boundary between Germany and France; this stretch of the river was once Europe’s major link between Basel and the Atlantic, before the onset of efficient land transportation. Prominent cities—such as Strasbourg, Mainz, Cologne, and Dusseldorf—cropped up along the Rhine’s shores, and further established the river’s commercial importance, not only to this region, but to all of Europe.
For the artistic community, too, the Rhine has been an endless source of inspiration—from Heinrich Heine’s famous poem about the Lorelei legend to Wagner’s epic operas, Der Ring der Nibelungen, to William Turner’s paintings of the Rhine’s foggy sunsets to Lord Bryon’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Indeed, to travel the Rhine by boat, and witness the rising mists enshrouding the castles perched above, is to comprehend why the river has so strongly stimulated the creative imaginations of Germany’s greatest poets and composers.
Recommended Reading
Guidebook
Insight Guide: The Rhine published by Apa Productions. Lavish color photographs and insightful essays bring to life the Rhine’s unique history, landscape, flora and fauna, winelands, river ports, and local people. Also includes maps, practical travel tips, a language glossary, and further reading section.
Michelin Green Guide: Switzerland
This guide covers the cultural and natural highlights of Switzerland and features a section on Lucerne. Includes more than 70 color photos and line drawings, plus a Lucerne city map.
Fodor’s 2000 Switzerland
Abundant practical information for travel in Switzerland is provided; highlights Lucerne in a section on the central area of the country.
History
Germany and the Germans by John Ardagh. A contemporary study of the Germans, written by a noted British author and historian.
Why Switzerland
by Jonathan Steinberg. This book is based on the author’s premise that Switzerland is a unique country from which the world can learn much about how democracy rests ultimately on the community level. The author has been a lecturer at Cambridge and is married to a Swiss-German woman.
The Low Countries, 1780-1940 by E. H. Kossman
. Published by Oxford University Press as part of their History of Modern Europe series, this is one of the definitive resources on the political and cultural events that shaped Belgium and the Netherlands over the last two centuries.
Tourist Board Addresses
For further information, contact:
Switzerland Tourism
608 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10020
Telephone: 212-757-5944
Fax: 212-262-6116
The Netherlands Board of Tourism
225 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1854
Chicago, IL 60601
Telephone: 1-888-GO-HOLLAND (1-888-46-4655263)
Toll-free in USA and Canada
German National Tourist Office
122 E. 42nd St.
New York, NY 10168
Telephone: 212-661-7200
