Zermatt to Geneva Part 2 Great Continental Railway Journeys

I'm embarking on a new railway adventure

that will take me across the heart of Europe.

I'll be using this, my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide, dated 1913,

which opened up an exotic world of foreign travel for the British tourist.

It told travellers where to go,

what to see and how to navigate the thousands of miles of tracks

crisscrossing the continent.

Now, a century later, I'm using my copy

to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.

I want to rediscover that lost Europe that, in 1913,

couldn't know that its way of life would shortly be swept aside

by the advent of war.

'I'm continuing a Swiss railway adventure,

'which has brought me from Zermatt, near the Italian border,

'to lakeside Montreux.

'From there, I'll travel to the capital, Bern.

'Then on through artisan country

'towards the international city of Geneva.

'Along the way, I'll make my cheesiest ever train journey.'

I like a food that requires you to drink wine.

So do I.

'..and salute the bravery of a pioneering Swiss pilot...'

Only when you go up in a small plane like this do you realise

what a formidable obstacle the Alps would have been a century ago.

'..before entering a war zone with the Red Cross.'

CLAMOUR

A most extraordinary turn of events.

For many 1913 travellers,

seeing Switzerland was a remarkable experience.

They were stimulated by its beauty,

mesmerised, having seen nothing like it.

And like them, I'm now experiencing the excitement of the unexpected...

..a vineyard called Chemin de Fer which is French for railway.

It's owned by wine grower Luc Massy.

I find you in a dry corner.

-Yes.

-I was very excited when I heard about

a vineyard that was called Chemin de Fer

but I did not expect something so narrow.

How can you possibly produce wine from such a narrow strip?

Anyway, this region in Dezaley, everything is narrow.

We get walls, we get terraces, but every terrace is very, very narrow.

And we do cultivate everything by hand.

-And it stretches all along the line, does it?

-Yes, it's going far away,

all along the side of the track is Dezaley Chemin de Fer.

I don't have to ask you why it's called Chemin de Fer

but when was it first called Chemin de Fer?

The first call is something like 100 years ago

because after they built the railway from Lausanne to Milano in 1860s,

I think it was more or less 15 years after, we get the vineyards,

and it was named Clos du Chemin de Fer.

And the railway must've taken the land away from the vineyards?

Yes, exactly. But all the big wall that you can see here

is very good for the vineyards

because we say we have first the sun,

the second sun is a reflection from the lake,

and the third sun is the heat from the wall.

Well, I've never seen anything like it in my life.

The vineyard has been in Luc's family for over 100 years.

His grandfather bought it in 1915 and now they are the only family

authorised to produce Dezaley Chemin de Fer.

The Chemin de Fer is made with grape Chasselas

and the Chasselas is native from this region.

But you will taste it.

It's a great, very delicate wine.

-Very good.

-Are you happy with that?

Yeah.

2014, this wine is getting ripe now because if you drink it too early,

all the conditions are not good.

I'm enjoying it very much indeed.

I like to think that, in the early days of the railways,

when there were steam trains, some of the smut, some of the ashes,

might have fallen from the trains onto your terroir, onto your land,

and that might be tasted in the wine.

And if you don't mind me being irreverent,

I shall always remember this as Chateaux Choo-choo!

Chateaux Choo-choo, yeah.

'While I could happily linger on Switzerland's Riviera,

'Bradshaw's has more excitement in store.'

What a beautiful train.

It takes you back to a golden age.

'Each of its recommended itineraries offers a new adventure.'

Not only do the Swiss build great railways,

they market them brilliantly, too -

put glass panels in the roof,

give your trains names like Jungfraujoch,

Glacier Express or Golden Past,

and people will flock from all over the world,

possibly for the rail ride of their lifetime.

'I'm changing trains at Montbovon

'on the River Sarine in the Gruyere district.

'If you lived through the 1970s,

'you may recall that Swiss fondue was all the rage

'and, as a teenager, I had to have my own fondue set.

'So, with a real sense of bell-bottomed nostalgia,

'I joined the Train du Fromage

'to meet food historian Dominic Flammer.'

-Dominic, what do we have in here?

-We have the wine inside.

We have first to heat the wine a little bit

so that the cheese will melt better.

It's called the caquelon, this thing,

a rechaud and a caquelon in French.

There isn't an English name for that, I imagine.

We are drinking a Chasselas,

because this is a wine with a high acidity

and this will help us to digest the whole cheese we will eat.

I like a food that requires you to drink wine.

So do I.

A-ha! Open my cheese.

'Aboard the moving train,

'the Gruyere and Vacherin come pre-packaged.'

A lovely smell is arising from it now, Dominic.

-Indeed.

-It's a lovely consistency now.

'Originally, in its simplest form,

'bread, wine and cheese was a winter food for farmers

'high up in the Alps.

'But on this fondue express, it comes with one or two extras.'

-Do you want a little bit?

-Yes, please.

-With pleasure.

So this is like a cherry spirit, a kirsch?

It is a cherry spirit.

-Thank you.

-You're welcome.

Ooh!

Smell it. Bon appetit, monsieur.

Merci bien. You should not lose the piece of bread.

-No.

-You know what happens?

-I've no idea.

-You have to offer me a glass of cherry,

and you have to drink one, too.

Wow, that's good, Dominic.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-You have finished your fondue.

-Yes, already.

Spectacular! Do you like to make a fondue?

Yes, I do, but we have to be very careful with the cheese,

because, when it's too young, when you are preparing it,

there becomes a little bit of oil on the top of the fondue,

and that's very bad.

-That's very bad?

-Yes, and it's not very good to eat also.

So, if I were to cook a fondue...

-Yes?

-..and if it turned out badly, I should blame the cheese?

Yes, of course!

-You're right.

-That's great.

SHE LAUGHS

Of course!

'I can stick around no longer amongst all this Alpine cheesiness.

'The Swiss capital summons me.'

My next stop will be Bern.

Bradshaw's says that it's often mentioned

as the most picturesque town in Europe,

with wonderfully preserved medieval towers and fountains.

It's the seat of the Swiss Government.

Now, there's a couple of surprises.

I would never have included Bern on my tourist trail

and I don't suppose that many people could name it confidently

as the capital of this highly democratic country.

'Back in 1912, Switzerland's famed neutrality was tested.

'The German Kaiser paid a visit, hoping that if war came,

'Switzerland would cover Germany's southern flank against France.

'But despite a population whose majority was German-speaking,

'the Swiss resolutely refused to take sides.

'As the day draws to a close,

'I'm looking forward to exploring Bern in the morning.'

Overlooking the Aare River, Bern's picture postcard looks

belie its true claim to fame.

I'm on the hunt for Switzerland's seat of power.

Switzerland is a federation of 26 little states,

and its Parliament is behind me.

It also has a Federal Council, a seven-man joint presidency,

which has never been replaced at one fell swoop

since it was founded in 1848.

Even the legislation of Parliament

can be vetoed by public referendums.

So, the Swiss democracy relies on public consultation,

consensus and continuity.

They've done pretty well out of it.

Whilst I admire that balance and even-handedness,

I wish to explore the Swiss sense of adventure.

I'm following in the slipstream

of one of Bern's greatest aviation heroes.

Oskar Bider was a 22-year-old maverick pilot determined to become

the first person to fly across the Alps in 1913.

-Hello, Daniel.

-Hi, Michael.

-Good to see you.

'To relive that epic flight,

'I'm being taken aloft in a 1937 biplane

'by pilot Daniel Ogg.'

Now we make you look like a driver.

'Thankfully, Daniel is experienced.

'Bider obtained his pilot's licence after just a month.'

OK, Daniel. Let's go flying.

Yes, let's do it.

Even in a plane more modern than Bider's,

it all feels frighteningly flimsy.

OK, Michael, are you ready?

I'm ready.

OK. Up we go.

I must have crossed the Alps dozens of times,

but only when you go up in a small plane like this, a little biplane,

feels so flimsy and so tiny,

do you realise what a formidable obstacle

the Alps would have been

a century ago.

You had to be a very brave man to fly across them.

Following an unsuccessful attempt,

Bider set off again on the 13th of July 1913,

only a decade after the first plane ever

had been flown by the Wright brothers.

Flying in this wonderful biplane,

the Alps today are crystal clear and snowy covered.

He piloted his monoplane, rising to 11,800 feet,

across this mighty range,

setting a new altitude record

before landing safely in Milan.

Switzerland's Alps had been conquered from the air

in Bider's greatest triumph.

Just behind me is the Jungfraujoch,

the shoulder of mountain over which Oskar Bider flew.

Taking to the air helps me to appreciate

what this daring young man achieved,

and I salute his courage.

By 1913, the growing railway network

had made Switzerland a European transport hub,

as every year thousands of travellers

passed between southern and northern Europe.

They were tempted by the dizzying choice of routes

and lyrical descriptions in my Bradshaw's Guide.

My next stop will be Biel,

which Bradshaw's tells me is, "a busy place

"near the northern end of the Bielersee,

"a seat of the watchmaking trade."

It's time to see what makes Switzerland tick.

Biel in German, or Bienne in French -

the city straddles the two linguistic areas -

dates back to Celtic and Roman times.

By the time of my Bradshaw's,

it was already producing timepieces.

A key innovator in this field was watchmaking company Omega.

Hello, Petros.

Watch historian Petros Protopapas has offered to guide me

through this delicate craft.

Was there a reason why there were lots of Swiss people

who were so capable of doing this precision work?

They practically had to do it.

They had to learn it, they had to live by it,

because in the winter time,

a lot of Swiss people couldn't work the land,

so they had to learn a new trade,

like the trade to work machines,

the trade to create new pieces, to produce dials, to produce hands.

So it was a life-saving exercise.

In 1910, Omega developed the chronograph,

which included a stopwatch,

and it became a vital tool for the artillery

during the First World War.

It may be obvious to you,

but why is an accurate watch so useful to the military?

It was a question of survival.

You imagine yourself being on a trench -

you would need to know how far away you are from your enemy.

So the only way you can do this is if you have a chronograph

that has a so-called telemeter scale on it.

So imagine, you look on the horizon,

and you could make out the lighting, the flash of the gun being fired.

You would start instantly the chronograph at the flash you see.

And then when you hear the corresponding sound,

the bang of that very gun,

you would stop the chronograph,

and off the tip of the stopped seconds hand,

you can literally read the distance.

The newly developed watch on the wrist

was much easier to access than fiddling around for a fob.

I've been given very rare access to go behind the scenes.

-Hello, David.

-Hello, Michael. How are you?

-Very well.

-So many doors to come through.

-Yes.

It's like a high security place.

So, please, remove your shoes.

-Next...

-Hairnet.

-Hairnet, yes.

It may look as though I'm ready to go into space,

but the deadly enemy of precision is dust.

What do you think?

Absolutely...absolutely extraordinary.

An enormous room. Obviously, beautifully clean,

-but also almost entirely quiet.

-Yes.

Watchmaking, you know, we must be some kind of calm, you know?

Must be quiet.

Here, we only deal with the assembly of mechanical movements.

This tradition of hand-built watches dates back to 1848,

when Omega's 23-year-old founder Louis Brandt

began assembling watches from parts produced by local craftsmen.

We still need people,

we still rely on the judgment of the eye of the people.

We just leave, I would say, all the boring things to the automation,

and all the tricky things, all the assembly,

must be done by people.

David wants me to assemble the movement

used inside some of the company's most precise watches.

This one has 201 parts.

It's just like a Lego.

Remember that thing. It's an easy thing, watchmaking.

We have a main plate, we just add some wheels, we put a bridge on top,

screw them down, and it's finished.

Quite an easy thing.

But the problem is, they're rather tiny, these pieces.

Mm... We'll look at it.

You take the right one.

The right, the left one on the left.

Then...on top, you have to put the ratchet.

It's quite an easy thing.

'David is the quality control manager,

'so nothing escapes his eye.'

OK. Let me give that a go.

No. That one first.

This one first, for some reason.

-On the right.

-On the right. That's easy enough.

-The left.

-This one from the left.

-You're good.

-On the left.

-Now, this is more difficult.

-Yeah.

-Tricky little fellows.

Now, this has a square hole.

-It's in.

-I believe, er...yes.

-It's in.

If that wasn't fiddly enough,

David is going to show me how to add five tiny drops of oil.

That is the tricky part, but it's also the fun part of the operation.

OK. We'll give this...

-I don't have very good eyesight, you know.

-Let me show you.

-Each time you press the pedal...

-Yes.

-See?

-Ooh!

-..you get some grease.

Three...

..four...

..five.

-What do you think, David?

-Let me have a look.

OK.

-You know what?

-Yes?

-It's a terrible mess, you know?

There is way too much oil,

and you've put a lot of oil on top of the wheel.

-Yeah, I missed...

-Yes, you missed.

-But you're not a watchmaker.

-I'm not a watchmaker.

I congratulate the people in this room.

-That is so intricate.

-Yeah.

Ah, the Swiss didn't become famous for their watches for nothing!

Suitably humbled, I'm heading back to the station,

and south once more to Lake Geneva.

-Bonjour, Monsieur. Ca va?

-Ca va.

-Merci, Monsieur.

-Merci.

In 1913, this journey would have taken over three hours by train,

but by Swiss InterCity today,

I'll arrive in just over an hour and a half.

I've followed my guidebook pace by pace.

"From the railway station,

"the broad rue descends to the Pont du Mont Blanc,

"across the end of the lake.

"The views from the bridge and from the neighbouring quays

"are very beautiful, especially on clear summer evenings."

I'm up early to explore my final destination, Geneva.

At the time of my Bradshaw's,

this small but already prosperous city,

beneath its emblem, the Jet d'Eau,

would have been buzzing and cosmopolitan.

But what truly marks this city out as world-class

is its involvement in international affairs.

The League of Nations was headquartered here,

where the first Geneva Conventions had been signed in 1864,

and it was the birthplace of

the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Just up the road from its imposing headquarters,

I'm extremely lucky to be getting access

to a Red Cross checkpoint exercise,

run by trainer Benjamin Varen.

In real life, you must have found yourself at military checkpoints

like the one you're simulating today.

Yes. I think the one that marked me the most was when I was

at a checkpoint and the soldiers there seemed intoxicated,

and it was a very, very tense situation,

because I had trouble connecting to them.

The first thing you need to do at a checkpoint is try to connect with

the people, and if you can't do that, it can go wrong

and it can be quite scary as well.

The shock of seeing 40,000 casualties

at the Battle of Solferino spurred Geneva businessmen Henri Dunant

to found the Red Cross.

Originally, it had a paid staff of only eight,

but that quickly grew after the First World War.

Today, it has over 14,000.

I've clearly stumbled upon a checkpoint.

The road is barred with a tree trunk,

and there are four or five heavily armed guys here,

who all look pretty menacing to me.

Not the sort of people you want to mess with.

Today, Dunant's abiding principles -

to provide a permanent relief agency for humanitarian aid in wartime -

are followed often in the face of great danger.

OK. Get out. Everybody out of the car.

Red Cross staff are now deployed in 80 countries,

and for these trainees, learning how to negotiate is key.

OK, on the line. Here.

Everyone.

I want to know what you are doing on this road.

We are heading to the hospital.

Here I have the notification that we received the agreement

with your government.

Give me your passports.

Tragically, attacks on the Red Cross have become more frequent,

and workers have often been targeted.

Is it OK for you if my colleague just check very fast

if you don't have any weapons, because it's about our security.

Come on, get it done. She's injured.

It seems that the situation is really deteriorating.

They've been here an awfully long time now.

Tempers are getting a little bit frayed.

Voices are now being raised. It's not going so well.

Give back the passports.

Thank you very much.

The Red Cross worker...

Check they're all there.

..is armed only with one of the most recognisable symbols in the world -

the Red Cross on a white background,

the reverse of the Swiss flag.

Do you have any safety and security information for us?

-What we have to do?

-There's been shooting this morning in this area.

That's all I can tell you. Now, if you want to risk your life and

go this way, with the clearance you have received and the explanation

you have given me, OK, you can proceed.

It's at your own risk.

One, two, three.

Don't worry, don't worry. Stay calm.

It seems this group has successfully negotiated its way through.

GUNFIRE

Get down! Get down!

Move! Move down.

Move, move, move! Come on!

Move down!

Go to the car and move.

Now!

A most extraordinary turn of events.

Just as they'd negotiated their way through, we came under fire.

Explosions all around.

The soldiers have put them in the car.

A dramatic conclusion to events.

Seeing the Red Cross in action makes me realise what an impact

the qualities of this small nation have had.

A country dominated by mountains and, in winter, by snow,

has nonetheless possibly the world's most efficient railway system.

That suggests that the Swiss people are ingenious and exceptional.

They sell watches and banking services to the world,

and host several international organisations.

And yet, over the centuries, they've held themselves apart,

remaining neutral during two World Wars,

and staying out of Nato and the European Union.

Unlike most European countries,

neither their people nor their beautiful cities

have been devastated during the 20th century.

They have thrived on a fondue of prosperity and peace.

'Next time, I set my sights on the Italian Riviera...'

What do you say in Italian for "take that"?

Prendi la mira.

'..as I take off on a new Bradshaw's railway tour...'

My country's future depends on this.

'..for a taste of La Dolce Vita.'

-The secret of good pesto is...

-Muscle!

Buono, buono, buono! I'm so excited!