Swiss Watching trivia, no 31: Records
August 31, 2010, 8 Comments
Switzerland isn’t the biggest country in the world (in fact it’s number 131 on the list), but it manages to punch above its weight in some areas. To end my month of Swiss trivia, here’s a handful of records that Switzerland holds, starting with its world records:
- highest chocolate consumption: 12.4kg per head per year
- longest staircase: 11,674 steps up to the top of Niesen
- largest tiramisu: 50 sq metres weighing 2310 kg
- highest train usage: 2422km per person each year
- longest tunnel: the new Gotthard tunnel will be 57km long when completed
- steepest cog railway: up Mt Pilatus at maximum gradient of 48%
- longest underwater breath: 19 minutes & 21 seconds by Peter Colat
- most consecutive minutes without conceding a World Cup goal: 559
And some European records:
- oldest vegetarian restaurant: Hiltl in Zurich, opened 1898
- highest railway station: Jungfraujoch at 3454m
- oldest surviving wooden house: built 1287 in Schwyz
- highest permanently inhabited village: Juf in Graubünden at 2126m, population 30
- first mountain railway: Rigibahn, opened in 1871
- longest glacier: Aletsch glacier at 23km
- highest brewery: Monstein in Graubünden, 1627m
- largest waterfalls: the Rhine Falls are 150m wide and 23m high
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8 Comments on "Swiss Watching trivia, no 31: Records"
I have thoroughly enjoyed this series of posts, Diccen – thank you. This one in particular brought back memories of time spent living in Switzerland – I can tick off more than a few of the places mentioned, having visited many of them on odd jaunts away from the less exciting Basel. And consumed copious amounts of chocolate too. Natürlich.
Ack! I spelled your name incorrectly. Diccon. So sorry.
No problem about the typo. I’m fairly used to it 🙂
I’m so glad you liked the trivia series. It proved to be more work than I anticipated at the start (a post a day isn’t that easy when working as well), but I enjoyed researching the posts. For now it’s back to ones every few days as I’m rather busy with all the events!
I have a question about the highest mountain railway station. Jungfraujoch is frequently touted as the highest, but according to the Zermatt website, Zermatt has the highest!
http://www.zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/experience/peaks/matterhorn_glacier_paradise
Do you know the story behind this?
Hi Anneliese. Good question – but at 3454m Jungfraujoch is undoubtedly the highest railway station in Europe. Zermatt itself is only at 1620m above sea level. From there you can take a train up to Gornergrat at 3089m, which is the highest open-air station in Europe (Jungfraujoch’s station is underground so that it can be used all year round; Gornergrat is summer only). And the station mentioned in your link is only a cable car station – so it might be at 3883m but it’s not a train station so doesn’t count. The tourist board touts it as the highest in Europe, which it is but for cable cars. Not quite the same.
Wonderfully well written piece of writing…
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