BOOKPATHS

Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Tony Perrottet visits "Lake Geneva as Shelley and Byron knew it."

Byron and Shelley got on famously and soon decided to rent adjacent summer houses in the hamlet of Cologny, about four miles north of Geneva. Byron took a grandiose villa with his doctor and servants, while Shelley, Mary and Claire settled into a more humble house by the lakefront.

Switzerland

John Walsh follows Lord Byron’s “trail to the Jungfrau.”

Byron's Alpine journal is a record of travel rather than mystic urgings, but its legacy was obvious. Filled with a new Wordsworthian passion for nature, and its power to affect the human mind, he wrote Manfred, a three-act ‘dramatic poem’ about a reclusive demi-god and magician who lives alone on a mountain, maddened by guilt and longing extinction; instead he is tormented by the spirits of the universe who offer him everything but the death he desires. – from “In the Swiss Footsteps of Byron,” by John Walsh, The Independent

England, France, Switzerland

Jon Ronson recreates a great James Bond adventure, following Bond’s Goldfinger route from London to Geneva.

‘Well,’ Zoe says, ‘in Goldfinger, Bond drove an Aston Martin DB3 from London to Geneva. He stopped at the Hôtel de la Gare in Orléans, had dinner, drank an awful lot, drove the next day to Geneva, checked into the Hôtel des Bergues, ate and drank an awful lot, and then the journey ended with him getting captured and tortured by Goldfinger's henchman, Oddjob, in a villa near the hotel.’

‘It's perfect!’ I say. – from “The Name’s Ronson, Jon Ronson,” by Jon Ronson, The Guardian

Bookpath: Hermann Hesse Museum, Montagnola, Switzerland

Hermann Hesse was born in Calw, Germany on July 2, 1877, but in 1919, at age 42, he settled in the village of Montagnola, Switzerland. It was here that he would write classics such as Siddhartha and Steppenwolf and paint canvases inspired by the Ticinese landscape. Hesse died in the village in 1962. On the 120th anniversary of his birth, the Hermann Hesse Museum was dedicated in “the rooms of the Torre Camuzzi,” an “ancient” tower in Montagnola. The tiny museum celebrates the 47 years Hesse spent in the village, with exhibits ranging from books from Hesse’s library, to paintings, to letters that share insights into his years in Montagnola. After visiting the museum, you're invited to join a walking-tour that follows in Hermann Hesse’s footsteps.

Visitor Information

Fondazione Hermann Hesse Montagnola
Ra Cürta
Toree Camuzzi
Casella postale 214
6926 Montagnola

Phone +41 (0)91 993 37 70
Fax +41 (0)91 993 37 72
E-mail [email protected]

Hours
March – October
Every day
10:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.

November – February
Saturdays and Sundays
10:00 a.m. – 5;30

Visit the Fondaziona Hermann Hesse Montagnola website for additional information on the museum and walking-tour.