The Colours of Switzerland

In 1291, three mountain communities met on a meadow above a lake and swore an oath of mutual defence. That handshake on the Rütli meadow became Switzerland, and the confederation has now run, in some form, for over 700 years, no kings, no conquest, just neighbours agreeing to figure it out. It might be the longest-running successful startup in history.

Where it all began

The Alps made invasion miserable and independence natural. Swiss pikemen became Europe's most feared soldiers, the Vatican still keeps its Swiss Guard, hired in 1506, and then Switzerland did something radical: it stopped fighting entirely. Neutral since 1515 in practice and guaranteed since 1815, it turned peace into infrastructure. Geneva gave the world the Red Cross in 1863, one Swiss businessman, Henry Dunant, horrified by a battlefield, founded it and won the very first Nobel Peace Prize, and the Geneva Conventions that protect the wounded and prisoners everywhere carry the city's name. The Swiss flag inverted, red cross on white, is literally the Red Cross emblem. One country's colours became the universal sign for help is coming.

The minds

Einstein worked out special relativity in 1905 while employed at the Bern patent office, the universe was rewritten on a Swiss lunch break. Euler, from Basel, is maybe the most prolific mathematician ever; half of maths notation is his handwriting. Paracelsus founded toxicology; Carl Jung mapped the collective unconscious from Zürich; Le Corbusier redrew modern architecture; Rousseau of Geneva lit the fuse of modern democracy. And CERN outside Geneva hosts the largest machine humanity ever built, the Large Hadron Collider, found the Higgs boson in 2012, and, almost as a side effect, invented the World Wide Web on its premises in 1989. The web's birth certificate is Swiss.

Made in Switzerland

The watch: Geneva and the Jura valleys have measured the world's time since the 1600s, Rolex, Patek Philippe, Omega, the first watch on the moon. Pharma giants Roche and Novartis from Basel supply the world's medicine cabinets. Nestlé from Vevey feeds it, milk chocolate itself was perfected here in 1875 when Daniel Peter borrowed his neighbour Henri Nestlé's milk powder. Add banking, precision machines, and the humble Swiss Army knife, standard issue since 1891, carried in every toolbox and several space missions. Quality as national religion.

Where to go

Zürich for lake swims between art museums; Geneva for the jet d'eau and the international quarter; Bern's arcaded medieval old town, UNESCO-listed, with Einstein's flat open for visits; Lucerne's wooden Chapel Bridge under Mount Pilatus.

Then the Alps proper. The Jungfrau region: ride the train through the Eiger to Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe at 3,454 metres, a line finished in 1912, they drilled it by hand. Zermatt, car-free under the Matterhorn, the mountain on every chocolate box, first climbed in 1865 at terrible cost. The Lauterbrunnen valley's 72 waterfalls, Tolkien walked here and Rivendell followed. The Glacier Express, the slowest express train in the world and proud of it, eight hours of the planet's best window. And Appenzell's green hills, where villages still vote by raised hands in the square.

Culture, on a plate and in the ear

Fondue is a system: bread cube, fork technique, lose your bread and tradition names the forfeit. Raclette scraped molten off the wheel, rösti at altitude, and chocolate consumed at the world's highest per-capita rate, when you make the best, why share politely? Four national languages coexist, German, French, Italian, Romansh, and the country votes on everything, several times a year, direct democracy as a lifestyle. Alphorns actually get played, yodelling actually echoes, and the trains actually run so precisely you can set your Swiss watch by them. Which, of course, is the point.

Every colour is someone's home. I print it the way memory keeps it: vintage-washed, distressed, made to order.

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P.S. A white cross on red, one of only two square national flags on Earth (the Vatican's Swiss Guard flies the other, fittingly). Small, square, unmistakable. Find your flag.