The Ancient Switzerland you rarely hear about

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Last episode, it was our first ever time in Germany. And while a lot of our adventures have trended towards southern Europe, we are starting to make progress across the more northern and central parts. And for the next couple of episodes, we're taking a journey across Switzerland, back across into Germany and beyond. We had been in Switzerland before, sort of. We'd flown into Geneva when we were heading to Avenue and southern France. And we had a few hours on the final day to see Geneva, but a missed train meant it was basically straight to the airport, meaning our total Switzerland experience so far was a coffee and pastry and a quick glance outside. Funny enough, rather than doing lots of mountain stuff, you know us by now, or well, perhaps you don't yet.

[00:00:41]We're chasing ancient places across Europe and beyond. And while the Swiss plateau doesn't have the drama of the Alps to the south, it does have all the major cities and a shocking amount of Roman and other ancient stuff. You might not associate the Romans with being here, but there's spectacular amphitheaters, baths, all sorts. We were there in summer, and that was also quite a surprise. Again, the postcard image you have of Switzerland is of a snowy alpine region. So, it was quite a different experience of the country, not only to be breaking a sweat, but seeing little lizards skittering around and all sorts. So, with all of that said, we are Forest Archaic Collective and as well as making Jungle and Drummond Base, we followed ancient sites across Europe and beyond. Whether it's Neolithic standing stones, Roman arches, or Romanesque churches, if it's ancient, we're into it. By the way, we have some unfinished business from the game at the end of the Greece episode one before last. So, stick around to the end cuz we're going to go for another round.

[00:01:44]Well, our first day was incredibly slowm moving. Having delayed our flight 2 hours, EasyJet then took a casual extra 45 to actually get in the air. I hadn't realized that a Geneva flight is only about an hour 15 long. And yet, EasyJet held us up the same time it would take to fly there and back again with time to spare. Then what should have been a pretty smooth transit through Geneva took about an hour while the people in front of us just did it at the higher car desk. I don't know what they were doing, possibly writing their last will and testament. So eventually we were grateful for the short drive to our hostel which was just outside the bustle and the high prices of Geneva in a town called Neon. What should have been a casual 8:30 arrival became midnight, but there was still someone at the front desk, so that was a relief to finally be able to rest. Okay, past all of that, the next morning, the hostel was impeccably clean. And you know, it's a cliche, but it's it's true. Pretty much all of Switzerland is like that.

[00:02:42]Everything is just immaculate. From the streets to the houses, just perfectly swept and maintained. You'll see that as we go. Had a coffee and a chance to inhale the air. And shortly, we were on our way. Firstly, to have a quick look at Neon. This wasn't a major target, but it was a first look at Lake Geneva. The castle looking every bit the fairy tale edifice and the town also has quite a sprinkling of Roman heritage. These columns have been reerected, giving this rather nice framing with the lake. And from a cloudy start, the blue skies and sun were emerging, weaving back through the quite small old town, briefly popped into the Roman museum, which is actually in the ruins of the Roman Forum Basilica. Uh there was a good selection in here, though I had to keep it brief.

[00:03:25]And then with a quick look at the lake, it was time to go. Oh, there was also an amphitheater there. It was a little bit covered, but um yeah, you know, it's there it is. As you're already seeing, the trend is that just in the little details, even though the buildings you're seeing are for the most part not of considerable age, just vibing with the rather irresistible Swissness was already a thrill. Low angle flag shot. I mean, it's practically the national flag. Let's be >> I was here with these guys, all of whom have been with us on other trips as the collective on the road and even the light covering of clouds from the morning was clearing into a beautiful and remarkably hot day. Quick stop at a supermarket and um perhaps a bad sign when little is proving quite pricey, but well, this was just the start. Onwards a little further. Enjoying the landscape was flashing by the window. To be honest, while this was a great day, it was a bit of a relaxed start to the trip because compared to some of the incredible places we're going to be getting to, just the way it worked out, we were starting off with some much smaller sites and things to catch. Uh, for starters, on the west side of Lake Noatel is a selection of Neolithic survivors, which are pretty gorgeous, if slightly more humble in their own right.

[00:04:32]But before we get to those, this first stop is a rural site renowned for its mosaics. This is the Villa um, Dorb Boscas.

[00:04:42]Uh the archaeology of the site is for the most part under the soil where it will doubtless survive better than being exposed to the elements and particularly the snow of Switzerland. But the most noteworthy mosaics have been given their own little houses. A that's cute. It's a mixed bag. There's these more simple generic patterns that are little dime a dozen as far as Roman sites. So I I don't want to sound ungrateful, but yes, you can find fragments of these in almost any country, whereas the figurative scenes are much more impressive. There's the usual mythology vignettes. I'm quite taken with this slightly lower resolution cart scene which has survived remarkably well. It's also nice when you have those geometric puzzles for your eyes. 12 Franks in was, you know, not nothing. They had a staffer there at the front. I know you got to pay a salary with the shelters.

[00:05:30]Felt like the jeopardy of this site being unmanned is pretty minimal, but you know. Okay. A short way later, we stopped off in the town of Idon Luba. Uh yeah, funny you should say that. No, I'm not fluent in Swiss French. Was uh was that obvious? Um we dropped in on this beach on the southern tip of Lake Nohatel. Um this may have proved a good opportunity for a first swim, but even though the clouds had been clearing, the temperature was still mild. So I recommended we kept dry till a spot later in the afternoon. However, I did quickly disappear into the trees to see this, which was way more impressive than it had looked in the pictures. These are the standing stones of Cendi, and they're here in remarkable numbers. Some clearly missing, sure, and some needing a bit of a hand to remain upright, but a pretty incredible set of stones. You know, lots of alignments. Well worth a look. Interestingly, these had been underwater and were only discovered when Lake Noel was partly drained to a lower level as part of engineering works in the 1800s. Uh, we got back on the road and to keep the turnarounds brief, we stopped off at a coffee place just on the edge of town. you know, it saves time heading into the center, finding parking spaces, you know, just to keep us moving. This was perhaps the main hint that we may be in trouble. This espresso was okay, if not great, but it was four Franks. That is pretty much exactly £4. The pound was pretty much in par with the Swiss Frank, except all the prices were pretty much double what you'd expect and added to a few baked goods, it only went upwards from there quite alarmingly fast. You know, for context, this was the Hian days of 2024 where an espresso in the UK would still sit comfortably at the two pound mark and the runaway inflation of the next 2 years was yet to really kick off. Of course, going around Europe, especially like Italy, I'm kind of used to dropping barely 1 on Nespresso. So, yeah, £4, the idea that we might be able to keep costs down if we just went further a field outside of say the middle of major cities where prices are usually higher.

[00:07:27]Yeah, seems we were not going to be able to escape the Swiss Frank exchange rate.

[00:07:31]Uh perhaps this is common knowledge to the rest of you. I had not clocked that going in because our flights were so cheap and the accommodation at the hostels was yeah very reasonable indeed.

[00:07:40]Anyway, keeping to the north of the lake for now, we were hunting for Neolithic bits and there was a great selection such as this standing stone luxuriating in a vineyard or this partially restored dolman next to a main road or these four standing stones or this one all nested in rather delightful countryside and if I may pay a strange compliment. You know, going hill foring or stone bothering in the UK is an exercise in finding just how inhospitable roads can get. So, imagine my shock. I mean, credit to the Swiss. The roads to reach these were immaculate. You never saw such well-kept rural asphalt. Uh, but heading further along the lake shore, we stopped off just beyond the town of Nohatel. Something you're going to see a lot of this trip. Just winding back a moment. If you saw our Lake Garder episode, which you probably didn't, uh, no idea why that episode didn't get anywhere, but, you know, hey, do loop back and give it a watch. It's actually a pretty good one. Anyway, you would have seen me get very excited about the Pile Dwelling Museum on the shores of Lake Ledro. These are, broadly speaking, Bronze Age dwellings on the edge of wetlands or lakes. You find them scattered all through the Alpine region.

[00:08:48]And this, the Latenium Museum, has several dwellings that are reconstructed. These are always a rush to photograph. By the way, without the reconstructions, these are some of the original piles. you know, on the one hand, incredible they're still here in situ, but also a little harder to get your friends excited about. So, I was very much enjoying these. There's also this reconstructed dolman. I mean, I I should say relocated as in form and materials. These are the original stones just moved to here. While I was doing all this, I suggested the boys might want to take the chance to get a swim in. So, I looped to join them a short way along the shore and also took a quick swim. It is unusual to be swimming in fresh water. As you walk in, you can kind of feel the gravel and twigs under your feet and sharing the space with ducks and other fowl. You know, for those outside the UK, while yeah, of course, there are wild swimming enthusiasts here in the UK, our water companies have spent the last decade pumping sewage into all of our waterways. So, quite apart from the cold almost all year round, it's not something you just get to do on a whim.

[00:09:50]You have to plan it quite carefully with locations, unless you're not fussed about breaking your streak of being cholera free. But here, well, Europeans had this crazy idea of keeping environmental protections in place.

[00:10:02]Yeah, crazy stuff. So, yeah, the pleasure of swimming in a lake really feels like a treat. From there, we were almost done for the day. So, we headed around the top of the lake to the north and down its eastern side to our accommodation in Avanch. Really hope that is how it's said. Um, can't really do much with either French or Swiss French. Just do my best here. This is excessively pleasant. It's a modestly small town. Uh this was our accommodation, a youth hostel in Southtown, which was yeah, pretty great.

[00:10:32]I stepped out into town to catch some of the Roman bits and didn't have to go far. Just up some steps into the medieval core of town. And wow. Okay, so that's the amphitheater of Avanch, which well, I mean, it it's been altered somewhat, but still not nothing. You're not just a speed past this. Let's just take a moment to enjoy this.

[00:11:00]Then a short distance away, there's these temple ruins known as uh L signeier or basically the temple of the stalks. Uh not because the Romans worshiped stalks. It's an anacronistic name because this chunk of masonry survived so high it would invariably have a stalk nest at top it, you know, throughout the years. We did see a number of stalks around here, which while I'm used to seeing these in the much hotter Spain, I would not have placed up here. Headed across this sort of open park field bit to get to the Roman theater. Again, not content with having a absolute banger of an amphitheater. It also has a Roman theater surviving in pretty good shape as well. And there are other fragments around town, too. Feeling pretty amazing about everything. Uh, we ran into a snag. So, I said Avon is small. I mean, goodness knows it punches way above its weight for incredible history, but it's not like a tiny village. It supports a modest number of shops, a pretty large out of town supermarket. Oh, at least two of those actually. So, plenty to choose from, if any of them had been open past 7, so I had not clocked this at all. I was just trying to make the most of the light. And I suggested to the boys that we just keep it cheap. We could maybe cook something at the hostel. But nowhere was open past 700. For reference, I think this was a Thursday.

[00:12:19]It's not a weekend. Don't think it was any sort of public holiday. Just any sort of shop, you know, even a really small corner shop. Closed by 7 or even earlier. Um, we ended up heading to a petrol station. I mean, it had a few snacks. It's not really the uh Yeah, I mean, it's a petrol station. It's kind of has limited gastronomic flexibility.

[00:12:41]So, we'd hoped to keep it thrifty. We decided you we just need to hit a restaurant. Everyone was hungry. There were at least a few of those still open in the center. There was a pizza place just by the amphitheater.

[00:12:52]It was basically fine. You know, not the greatest, but it did the job. It probably cost about the same that a pizza restaurant in the UK would cost. I mean, I say that it nearly cost us £983.

[00:13:04]When the waiter brought the card machine, I tapped my contact list and I saw my Monzo app pop up with declined.

[00:13:10]you did not have £983.

[00:13:13]I was like, what? I knew Switzerland was expensive, but was one of these pizzas topped with like a Rolex or something?

[00:13:19]Yeah, it turned out it was a fat finger error by the waiter who only spoke French. I tried with some gesturing and after a few looks, his eyes suddenly widened as he noticed the amount on his card reader had one too many zeros.

[00:13:30]Anyway, uh saw the castle lit up at night and generally just had a really nice evening with the boys. Uh the hostel was pretty hot, you know, given where we are. Walls are very well insulated, but cooling, well, that pretty much just came down to a rotary fan brought out of a cupboard, so it was harder to fall asleep in the heat. I made a point of getting up as early as I could. It was proving a good summer for 5:00 a.m. starts, as the Hamburg episode no doubt demonstrated. What followed was just one of those alltime incredible dawn memories. I have quite a lot of these where I get up early with the sun somewhere on a trip and I catch a whole bunch of ancient things in the golden morning light before anyone else is up and around. The extent of Roman Aventicum extends to the east of the modern town across what is mainly fields and it's a little walk up the hill overlooking the town. And this is the reconstructed eastern gate. Yeah, you can see from the perfect geometry it's been neatened up as it was restored. But the views over the town, the views like the spires of the medieval town built at the edge of the crumbling Roman edififices.

[00:14:38]So yeah, just walking around what is essentially countryside with the dew of the grass making my trainers damp. Uh, funny enough, while I mean I do appreciate the restorations down near the train tracks of the town, you can see what the Roman walls look pre-restoration. More jagged by far and camouflaged by weeds. Oh, just briefly caught this bath complex, including probably my favorite shot of a hypercourse ever. So much more to say.

[00:15:04]The Roman heritage of Switzerland. I mean, this will be a whole episode one day, probably several episodes, but this would prove to be the most incredible joy to see and film. You know, if you're not already aware, all of these places we are going, while it's fun to make some travel episodes, you know, this is barely 10% of the footage we're taking.

[00:15:21]We are storing up for some big series whether it's Roman sites around Europe.

[00:15:26]We've been getting around more of Bronze Age Greece recently. That has been a thrill. It's also Neolithic monuments, Roman-esque churches and particularly Norman England and beyond. The Normans built a vast amount across Sicily and southern Italy. So, those are all in progress. But in the meantime, why not catch our Italy playlist? There's a huge amount in there from how much of ancient Rome we could catch in 5 days. Loads from Sicily. We're going to be adding our travels from Naples and down to Calabria very soon. Those episodes are upcoming. As far as history goes, a huge part of our journey was chasing the Venetian Republic around the Aian and the Adriatic. That has been a massive part of our lives. So, have a look through those in the playlist. Last autumn, we kicked off our long pending hillfort series. So, have a watch through that. It's been really exciting to talk to archaeologists and people who work in the field. We were talking to Toby Driver ahead of more episodes about Iron Age Wales coming later this year and it was absolute goals to get a chat with Miles Russell about the Jurrigz. So there's loads there to explore and if you hit the notification bell you'll have a chance to catch more from us as it comes. Yeah, honestly the way the platform has been burying our stuff under the floorboards this year of the 5K plus people who are subscribed barely 200 seem to be actually shown that we have new stuff going up every week. So yeah, definitely hit the bell so you don't lose us from your feed forever.

[00:16:48]Well, floated back for the complimentary breakfast out in the garden of the hostel. Even the coffee was yeah, pretty good. Hopping in the car, we popped out of town and the short distance to the shore of Lake Noatel, although ran into a snag. The pile dwelling site I wanted to go in was cash only. And we so far avoided getting Swiss Franks in cash and there was no ATM for miles around.

[00:17:10]Instead, we headed the short walk to this beach and took a morning dip in the south of Noel, which was absolute bliss.

[00:17:18]You know, this is a swim I think about quite a lot. You know, with the morning sun, the views off in all directions, just incredibly special. And a last minute stop I'd only learned about on arrival, looking at the historic sites around the area. This is the church of St. Donatire. I assume that's cognate with St. Donatus elsewhere around Europe. While the church is principally from the 1100s, I think this is built on the foundation of a Roman church. I've lost the citation for that, so I might have that wrong. You not a lot online to read about this, but if I recall, that's the info I had at the time. We just briefly dipped back into Avanch to see the museum before we left. This is housed in the tower above the amphitheater. Some great exhibits, just really good all round. So, it was a shame to leave Avanch behind. It was sort of the dream town to visit in Europe, just hitting all the amazing points on the list. We'd be back in this area later in the trip. We still had some other things to catch, but we had some progress to make east. The roads made for very easy driving, though. We didn't just stay on the motorways the whole time, which would have been somewhat faster. Instead, to break up the drive, we had a few stops, such as the small town of Oberip, uh, mainly to catch this dolman. The town was surreal, as there was next to no one around. You know, last time I mentioned that in northern Germany, visually the similarities to the UK are abundant and the differences are in the subtleties.

[00:18:40]Well, here you could be in no doubt that we were in Switzerland. I mean, everything just looked and felt completely different. Uh, quick stop in Unigan. Um, much that would have been nice to see the castle had we had time.

[00:18:52]It was mainly an easy place to park up for coffee without hugely deviating off our route. I mainly recall this as a battle with wasps for our baked goods.

[00:19:01]There was one more major stop to the day. The town of Windsish is not one you often hear about, but it contains this amazing Roman amphitheater in what was Roman Vindonissa.

[00:19:13]However, not to spoil things cuz I am glad we got to catch this, but okay, you remember how the Roman walls that have been restored in Avon looked like this, but before the restorations, they looked like this. Well, look at the amphitheater now. plenty of heritage sites kind of level off their ruins and to tidy things up a bit, you know, rather than leaving them jagged. Sure.

[00:19:36]But this, well, I'm not actually sure we're seeing any of the original masonry. I need to do more research on this. I haven't been able to pull up much substantive in advance of this episode. I think you are seeing a trend in Switzerland where excavations were done across the 19th and 20th centuries, you know, finds recorded and stored, etc. But it seems that concrete and newer stones were built into these sites to make them more visitor friendly. And sure, I mean, it makes the site easier to make out than, for example, the Roman amphitheater in London, which is uh a little thin on the ground for original masonry. Yeah, honestly, a few years back, I might not have noticed this at all. And look, this isn't some huge gotcha, by the way. This is quite common. For example, this temple in Newington, Kent, along the line of Watling Street. This was excavated while a new housing estate was going up. And as you can see from the perfect masonry, yeah, they must have simply built a 21st century evocation of the ruins in the footprint of the excavations, which probably left little to nothing to see.

[00:20:40]And look, fine, that is okay. But anyway, we just also briefly caught the porter principal. This was part of a huge Roman fort here in antiquity. But we were back on the road soon. I was in a bit of a sleepy haze later in the afternoon. So I did drop off for some of the road further in the east. By this time we'd made our way across the entire country as Switzerland does enjoy excellent roads. I mean of course it does. And at its northeastern extent we were actually crossing over into Germany which I think I just about caught in this shaky shot and heading around the eastern side of Lake Constands. Now there was a lot more to come. In some ways, we're only just getting started.

[00:21:18]As well as exploring around the lake, we're crossing more borders, and we'll be back through Switzerland to catch even more in a couple of episodes time.

[00:21:26]So, I'll save final thoughts for the tail end of this miniseries. But, we have something else to attend to. I had finished a 4K bounce of the Hamburg episode, and that was almost uploaded before I realized I never got to rounding off the game from the tail end of the Greece episode. So, apologies about that. If you didn't see it, we were having a go to see if people could match me for sights spotted from the window of a plane. You know, not easy when you have no internet at the time to gauge your position. You just have to use the clues in the landscape. Well, results first and was quite pleased that quite a few did manage to get these. You know, the first not far from our takeoff from Mkos, this was Siros. Had hoped to make it there on that trip to catch the ancient zlatic site in the north of the island, but wasn't to be next. This was in fact Kia and at time of writing we were just there this last week. Um got a chance to see it from the ground catch.

[00:22:20]Yes, an ancient zclatic site. I have explained why you should get hyped about these in the recent Greece episodes. I have a watch of the Athens episode to see what the fuss is about. Uh so those two are a little hard. You need a pretty good working knowledge of the cichlides to be able to spot those. The next two I feel like these are somewhat better known. This was flying over the Greek mainland. This drastic line here could only be the Corinth Canal. We've passed over this a couple of times. You barely get 3 seconds of it when you're driven across. Like oh, there it went. This This majorly cracked me up. You're aware that in older builds of Google Maps, well, I mean, it's it's basically draping a series of aerial photographs over a terrain map that gives height and rough shape, etc. Well, this is what the bridge ended up looking like. Breaking news. In a tragedy sending shock waves across Greece, a bridge over the Corinth Canal has collapsed after it was discovered it was made of wet cardboard.

[00:23:16]Okay. And finally, from a little far out, but you can see the huge suspension bridge, and so it must be the other major access point over to the Pelpineese. It is the suspension bridge at Patric. So, okay, quite a hard round to start with. I feel on balance, you know, especially for UK residents. But, you know, people did get the answers.

[00:23:35]You know, not surprisingly, I think this was mainly Greek nationals, which, you know, that tracks. But, well done everyone who had a crack at it. Now, um, I don't have an infinite amount of these. I mean, a lot of flights either have cloud cover over much of Europe or the light just isn't there. I mean, it's not really much point showing the shots from this trip as it's pretty much just Lake Geneva in the dark. But, I did want to play another round. So, I'm pulling another trip out of the bag. This was on our flight back from Calamata. And out of the right hand side of the aircraft, we caught some incredible views. So after the mountain of the Pelpine, actually a much clearer shot of the Patra suspension bridge. We will do these in order. Well, first one. Now I might not have got this except well hint, we do reference a lot of these places now and again. If you have seen some of the recent episodes, you will get this particular one. Uh, next, and this hint may not help you, but we have an episode coming up in the near future where we're going to be going here. It's obviously a major city and port, so that's a big clue. Next. Yeah. Okay. Not the greatest contrast in this shot, but while these islands, it's been a while now, but these were referenced in one of our most successful episodes. You can get these. We've been there. Here's a clue. Yeah, actually that's not that helpful if you haven't been following us for a while, but anyway. Okay. And another bridge. Why not? This one is pretty internationally significant, too.

[00:25:00]So, okay, four to get. Answers in the comments. I'm interested to see if I'm still pitching these too hard or if people will actually get them. So, well, let's see. We'll try and remember to give you the answers next episode. And if you've been enjoying the music in the background, it's ours. We make all the music for these episodes and you can catch it on bandamp.com. If you want to support the channel, that's the place to do it. I mentioned that actually this episode was shot in 2024. You know, we're often filming things that are a th00and 2,000 or more years old. So, I feel like waiting, you know, 21 months is not the biggest deal. But, if you want to see what we're doing on more of a week-by-eek basis, follow us on Blue Sky. And yes, please do subscribe and hit the bell. We've got more coming from this area. So, keep an eye on the channel and we'll catch you very soon.