Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large b... — Ernest Hemingway

Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.

Author: Ernest Hemingway

Insight: Hemingway captures something real about how travel reveals our prejudices. We visit a place expecting grandeur or authenticity, and instead we find it cluttered with exactly what makes it profitable—the clichéd version of itself. Switzerland, in his view, doesn't exist separate from the hotels built to satisfy tourist expectations. The mountains are there, but they're basically scenery framing the commerce. What's sharp here is that he's not entirely wrong, even if he's being a bit unfair. Places do reshape themselves around tourism. But the funnier part? We do this to ourselves all the time. We show up to experiences we've half-imagined, then feel disappointed when reality doesn't match the postcard. The cuckoo clock hotels aren't really the problem—it's that we expected the country to be one thing while the people living there have their own priorities. Hemingway wanted Switzerland to be Switzerland-as-he-imagined-it, not Switzerland-as-it-actually-operates. It's a useful reminder that our letdowns often say more about our assumptions than about the place itself.

Source: Toronto Star, 1922