Day 26: Lucerne to Paris

Day 26:  Lucerne to Paris         Wednesday, January 5^th

As we have been driving on our first leg, Victor has been telling us an interesting historial perspective about Switzerland.  The following is what he told us.   Remember dear blog followers that I am writing these things down so that I remember them, so if you are not interested in this history, just skip a couple of paragraphs.

Until the industrial revolution, Switzerland was one of the poorest countries in the world, but now it is one of the richest. The largest volume of trade for any country were products used for food or clothing production:  spices, wheat, silk, wool etc.  Switzerland had none of these products to export: it is mostly mountains and has very little farming land.  The only commodity that Switzerland had to trade was man power.   Every male from the age of 15 had to enter the Swiss Guard.   They remained a guard until the age of forty and so gained the reputation of being high quality soldiers.  They were the guards of choice for all the world’s dignatories: kings, queens and of course, the pope.

While away in other countries being guards to the wealthy who were using all these new inventions, these men became very knowledgeable about the world and as the industrial revolution rolled on, they gathered knowledge and ideas associated with all the new inventions they were seeing and using in their jobs.   Leaving the Swiss Guard at forty years of age, they were still young enough to act on those ideas once they returned to Switzerland.  Furthermore, as Swiss Guards, they were quite well paid and they sent money back to Switzerland.  There was so much money going back to Switzerland that a systemmatic way of handling money had to be devised.   They developed a Western Union type of system for money handling.  Therefore, in the years following the industrial revolution, there was huge potential and ready finance to start industry in their country.   So it is that Switzerland is now one of the most industrialised and wealthy countries in the world.

We travelled through Burgundy on our way to Paris and I can certainly see that it would be a lovely area to poke around in.  Although crisp and very cold out of the bus, it was a sunny day so was a very pleasant trip.

Upon arrival in Paris, most of the group headed off to Moulin Rouge.   This didn’t interest us so we joined a small group which went to the Louvre.  The three hours we spent there just flew by – mind you we spent the first hour grabbing a snack, orienting ourselves and buying tickets.   However, once in the gallery, we were amazed at its size and the immensity and detail of some of the paintings.

No - I'm nott putting in the Mona Lisa - everyone knows what she looks like and I thought she gets a little too much hype!!   I loved this 1823 portrait of a young girl holding flowers by Sir Henry Raeburn.

We have already had a couple of first hand experiences of French arrogance and their negativity towards English but I haven’t time now to write more in detail.  May do so tomorrow.   Right now, I just want to get to McDonalds for the free wi-fi so that I can post the last three days.   We have had a frustrating time with the internet but hope to have success tonight.   I’ll post without photos for now and add the photos later.

Tomorrow we go up the Eiffel Tower and to Versailles, so we are really looking forward to both.