Switzerland: Into the Highlands

The wonderful, civilized city of Geneva was just the beginning.  Past Geneva were those famous Swiss Alps, where rumor had it cows with bells roamed alpine meadows under glaciers, and friendly locals ate fondue and other delicious hearty mountain food.  Could it be true?  

I love a good road, and holy s&*t are Swiss roads good.  I bet you $10,000 (ok, just kidding, I'm not Mitt Romney) that you couldn't find a single pothole in the entire country.  The roads just go off into the mountains, and then sometimes they dive under the mountains when the Swiss feel like it.  And there's no one on them!  Because Switzerland also has the world's best train system so no one actually drives!  I thought back to America where we don't really have trains but our bridges are falling into rivers anyway.  Sigh.  

This is motorcycle rider paradise.  That's it - my next motorbike holiday is going to be in Switzerland - but only if I win the lottery first.  

The part about cute little mountain hamlets - that's all true too!  Switzerland is 100% as advertised and even better.  Any surprises?  Yes, the deluge of country and 80s on the radio.  Other than the questionable music it is a wonderful place.

Into Switzerland: Geneva

Switzerland is high-class all around.  It's like one of those premium outdoor "lifestyle" centers, if you could build one of those next to a beautiful mountain range with emerald lakes everywhere.  That's the first thing that came to mind:  a nice, upscale suburb.  The cities were clean, everyone's  lawn was mowed, people stopped for pedestrians, the parks were full of families... you get the idea.

But perfection has its price, right?  Sure, in Bolivia there are still cases of plague and you probably shouldn't drink the water, but you can live for a dollar a day!  I'm not sure a dollar buys you anything in Switzerland.  A  latte at Starbucks will set you back eight.  Are you thinking of living here?  I hope you work at a hedge fund because this place makes New York look cheap.

People who have lived in Switzerland say it is beautiful but boring.  I can see that.  It's a non-aligned country full of NGOs, private bankers and watchmakers.  Fine - but all those "J" personality types have turned this place into a sweet place to live if you can entertain yourself.  Geneva is classy, it's on the water, it's next to the mountains, it's full of cafes and parks, and it is immaculate.  Have I already mentioned how clean and organized everything is?  

Welcome to the Olympic museum.  It is... you guessed it... extremely well organized and quite pleasant to visit.

Just relax and enjoy the view - it's free!

A preview of things to come in China.

In France they have ducks and pigeons.  In Switzerland they have swans and bluebirds.

High class.

I couldn't help myself.

You can spot the Germanic influence in the flower beds.

European Parliament

What happened to the architecture of post-war Europe?  It feels like Europe cities are either grandly beautiful or awfully modernist.  The old stuff, basically everything from the Romans until the late 19th century, was symmetrical and beautiful.  Then came along the modernists, or some other avant-garde movement, and they decided ugly architecture was in.  Well, welcome to "new" Straussburg, home of the new European Parliament.

The building had a lot of potential.  This was, after all, going to be the seat of the new European Parliament, the legislative arm of the grand European Project.  But but the building, like the institution it would ultimately host (especially given the benefit of hindsight), is a little underwhelming.  Despite its blockbuster $400mm budget - which still didn't stop big cost overruns - it doesn't quite get across the feel of the "new" Europe, unless the new Europe is supposed include confusing corridors, cheap finishes and a collapsed ceiling (which, somehow, saved EU taxpayers 1.8mm Euros).  There's no doubt it looked great on paper - the central tower geometry is impressive, as is the symmetry of the columns, but there's just something missing.  Did they aim for grandeur and miss?  Or did the EU consciously decide to make the place feel like a community college? 

They weren't holding session that day... or the day after... or the day after...

Inside parliament.

Interesting geometry and lighting.

What about 4-8?

It is almost brilliant, but mostly looks like a building out of the Jetsons.

The international court of human rights brings sets a whole new bar for ugly architecture.  Is that a refinery?  A boiler assembly?  WTF?

Not much better from this angle.

But it had so much potential in the blueprints they saw!

Freedom Fries in Beaune

Ok, so if you can't tell by now, I find France's attitude toward business kind of amusing. Ok, not amusing, worse.

So, driving out of French wine country I couldn't help notice the awkward location of a new McDonald's. I also couldn't help notice that breakfast at our hotel ran 20 euro a head and there was no other place where breakfast would take less than an hour or two.  McDonald's was going to save our morning.

The exit wasn't marked from the main road and it took a few near missed before we hit the right driveway.  Was it that someone was deliberately trying to stop people from going to McDonalds?

For folks who have been to McDonald's in Europe, you'll know how nice they are compared to ours - fresh croissants, pain au chocolate, espresso - you name it.  Breakfast was delicious, and it was cheap (relative to the other options at least).  Thank you America, for customer-centric businesses and ruthlessly efficient supply chains.

Curious about the strange location of this little fast food joint, I chatted up a guy in McDonald's business casual, sitting at a table with his iBook.  He happened to be a regional VP and knew a lot about this particular store.

It turns out this place had a great story.

McDonald's had been trying to get a restaurant in Beaune for years, but the mayor wouldn't allow it.  He hated all fast food, categorically.  He forbade anyone from building a fast-food joint anywhere in the city limits, and the city limit covers a lot of the countryside.

But... he missed one little patch of real estate right next to the off-ramp, which technically belonged to the city on the other side of the highway.  Those guys didn't like McDonald's too much either, but they hated the arrogant mayor of Beaune even more.  To spite him, and to earn some coin, they let McDonald's buy the land and build their restaurant.

McDonald's was now the first thing people would see when visiting Beaune.  Touche!

Furious, the mayor of Beaune won't allow McDonald's to place any of its signage in the city limits.  So that explains the awful access and total lack of signage.

How is the restaurant doing?  Above plan, says the VP.  He says the lack of competition is good for business (there isn't another fast food joint for 50km), and he feels pretty damn sure there isn't going to be any other competition any time soon.

Go away and take your pomme frites de liberte with you.

Vin

France without wine would be like America without Bud Light... or maybe America without burgers?  It's far more than a beverage - wine is ingrained in the culture, is part of daily life and is as much part of the French identity as fashion or the 35 hour work week.

This fact helped explain a lot of the quirky facts about wine production in France.  

Just about anywhere in the New World, wine is a beverage, and like any beverage, entrepreneurs have the right to make it where and how they want, market it and charge whatever price they please.  They typically don't enjoy government subsidies either - why would they?  If anything, wine is taxed at a premium because of its alcohol content.

But, because its national status, wine is more a means than an end in France.  Wine producers are the small-town heroes of France, maintaining traditions and culture that urbanites like to visit on the weekends but not actually commit themselves to.  Most producers can point to ancestors in the 17th or 18th century who made wine from the very same plot of land.  Wine is not about marketing or process - it is about the characteristics of the earth, the terroir.  Many producers make no more than a few thousand bottles of wine - it is literally made and bottled in their garages.  This is the stuff of Subaru-driving, sustainable-locally-sourced-organic farmers market legends. 

Unfortunately for these producers, however, their wine is usually not very good, nor is it very cheap.  The best of French wine dominates auctions around the world.  The middle of the market holds its own too.  But there is an enormous glut of not particularly good wine, that isn't particularly cheap, and why would anyone want to buy that stuff when there is perfectly good wine coming out of Chile, Argentina or South Africa for half the price and twice the quality?  Well, the French believe you should support the local farmers, and they do, by buying the wine or at least paying to turn the wine into ethanol.  But consumers outside of France - and especially in the UK, Nordic Countries and US - well, they don't really care.

This is why I felt two powerful and intensely conflicting emotions as we drove through wine country.  Part of me thought it was all so quaint, charming, romantic.  And then the other part of me - the part of me trained to care about efficiency and money - thought it was incredibly bureaucratic, inefficient, and an enormous waste of resources.  

As a French wine producer, you are less an entrepreneur than an arm of the state.  You cannot choose what to grow, or where to grow it, or how to take care of the vines, or even necessarily how to price it or market it.  It is a quasi-state monopoly designed to protect the mediocre at the expense of the best.  And, unsurprisingly, it does not create a tremendous amount of value for consumers (here is more from the BBC).  The New World continues to gain share at the expense of the old, a trend that's unlikely to be reversed any time soon.

Maybe the timing of my visit was good.  With the looming fiscal crisis in France as elsewhere, it's an open question of how France can continue to preserve this way of life for others to enjoy.  But, until then, enjoy the throwback to an earlier time and visit the castles, medieval village, and charming vineyards of French wine country.

The label hasn't changed in generations - because it's regulated by the state.