In 1936 Augusto Gansser (1910-2012) joined another Swiss geologist Arnold Heim (1882-1965) for the first Swiss expedition to the Himalayas that lasted for eight months. During the expedition both Heim and Gansser kept
History
The Tourist, a Puzzle
Does an ideal type tourist exist at all? The manifestations of tourism are certainly as manifold as people themselves. Instead of an impossible definition, history, classification or typology we are presenting a few scattered impressions from the wide
He who looks shall find: letters to and from Carl Gustav Jung in the ETH Zurich University Archives
With whom did Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, correspond? Over 32,000 letters, carbons, transcripts and copies from six decades are now described in the ETH Zurich University Archives database and can be searched for online.
Walter Mittelholzer, tour operator
Commercial air travel for tourists began in Europe after the First World War in 1919. In Switzerland, Walter Mittelholzer and Alfred Comte, the driving forces behind the Swiss airline company Ad Astra Aero AG, started conducting tourist flights to the Alps in the early 1920s. As these ceased in the winter months, two tourist flights to Africa in 1929/30 and 1930/31 were just what the doctor ordered for Mittelholzer. Not only
International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development 2017
As early as 2002 the United Nations proclaimed the International Year of Ecotourism and was then heavily criticized for it. The year 2017 has now been proclaimed as “International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development”. The hope of the international year is
On the 60th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising
In the autumn of 60 years ago, from 23 October to 4 November 1956, dramatic events took place in Budapest, known as the Hungarian Uprising or Hungarian Revolution. In this struggle for freedom, the Hungarian population turned against the government of the Communist Party and the Soviet occupying power.
Mittelholzer’s Double
Recently while researching an image of Arnold Heim with an Orang Utan I came across the first journal of Heim’s expedition to Sumatra in 1928. To my surprise in the journal there was a photograph showing a doppelganger of the Swiss pilot Walter Mittelholzer. Mere two years ago in 1926 Arnold Heim had been on a trip to
The Döttingen Ghost
After the Ghost of Kyburg Castle today it is the turn of another specter. Enter Döttingen Ghost, who seems to be far less notorious, than its crony from the Kyburg. Maybe the lack of publicity has to do with its having no castle to dwell in and its roaming the streets instead. For this is
“I, Hedwig Delpy” The first woman to complete a doctorate at ETH Zurich
No sooner had a new regulation enabling the Federal Polytechnic School (now ETH Zurich) to award doctorates come into force on 1 October 1909 than half a dozen applications were submitted. The final of these first six was from a woman.
The construction of the Gotthard railway – the southern access route to the Gotthard tunnel
Those who are allowed to make drawings for the Gotthard line here in the open air in 1875 should themselves lucky! The tunnel workers toiled in the often far too stuffy pits in the north and south. The construction company Favre allows this and numerous other