Simply previous 11 p.m., flickering stage lights lit up a rainbow of colours within the crowd at Zurich’s lakeside Landiwiese park. Guys in tank tops and loads of colourful wigs swirl about, with various rainbow flags waving within the distance. Switzerland’s just lately topped Eurovision winner, the 24-year-old Nemo, who just lately got here out as nonbinary, walked out on stage to a thousand shrieks and cheers. In a protracted, pleated skirt and a pink, fluffy hat, Nemo’s funky style matched the enjoyable ambiance at Zurich’s satisfaction competition.

Performing an eight-minute prolonged model of their successful track “The Code,” I sang alongside to the joyful lyrics alongside drag queens and different followers holding stuffed “Discovering Nemo” fish. Their lyrics, “This story is my reality… to search out myself on monitor, I broke the code…” rang by the viewers. Their theatrical track particulars their expertise of “coming to a spot the place I really feel comfy with myself,” they informed me in a quick interview earlier than happening stage. “It’s a really dramatic piece.”

The truth is, Switzerland is a really dramatic place. Its mountains, the snow-capped Swiss Alps with 1000’s of glaciers, stretch upwards of 15,000 ft to the sky, whereas within the south, the nation’s deepest lake creates a subtropical (and really humid) local weather. With 4 official languages and in a spot the place you possibly can expertise all 4 seasons in a single day, Switzerland’s uncommon construction of 26 regional governments (every with its personal distinctive customs, cultures, and traditions) makes it an exhilarating place to discover. The nation’s status for excessive particular person privateness, secret financial institution vaults, and worldwide neutrality fosters a type of inner strife and drama, permitting for inclusivity and private expression.

Zurich, and Switzerland basically, isn’t in your typical homosexual journey itinerary. Nonetheless, with Nemo’s massive win at Eurovision in Could (solely the third time Switzerland gained; the final time was Celine Dion in 1988), Switzerland is abruptly on the homosexual map. Subsequent 12 months, the nation will host the 2025 Eurovision Track Contest, which is definitely one among Europe’s greatest LGBTQ occasions of the 12 months.

I’ve been visiting Switzerland for the final decade. First, like many vacationers, as a result of I used to be captivated by its unbelievable nature, after which once more once I found an underground queer scene within the picturesque Lausanne. When my sister moved to Switzerland just a few years in the past, that sealed the deal. It’s a spot I like returning to as a result of the character right here is ever-changing, and the LGBTQ nightlife and tradition — now expanded with Nemo’s propulsion to the world stage — is regularly rising.

Listed here are my picks for LGBTQ-friendly issues to do and see in Switzerland.

Zurich

Switzerland’s most populous metropolis, Zurich, has the nation’s largest focus of LGBTQ folks. This 12 months’s Pleasure competition had almost 60,000 attendees; it’s Switzerland’s largest LGBTQ occasion of the 12 months and attracts guests from throughout the nation and even various LGBTQ vacationers from all over the world. I met a handful of different People who had been on Eurotrips on the similar time.

Zurich’s Altstadt neighborhood, divided by the picturesque Limmat River, which feeds into the expansive Lake Zurich, is the place you’ll discover the very best issues to see and do. The neighborhood is residence to Barfüsser, which was one among Europe’s first assembly spots for LGBTQ folks since homosexuality was first decriminalized in Switzerland within the Nineteen Forties. Members of Der Kreis (The Circle), a global group for lesbians and homosexual males, produced magazines and held annual galas within the house up till the Sixties. That authentic location is now a homosexual bar, KWEER, serving cocktails, whereas Barfüsser’s namesake is a gay-friendly sushi restaurant just some doorways down. The cobblestoned Spitalgasse avenue can be residence to an LGBTQ basement nightclub, Heaven, which hosts drag reveals, sweaty events, and worldwide DJs. And the Rote Fabrik warehouse is one other spot for queer tradition — coated in graffiti and host to techno events and the Zurich satisfaction afterparty.

Elsewhere within the Altstadt, I like simply wandering the streets for procuring and bar-hopping. Haus Hiltl affords a buffet lunch and holds the Guinness World Data title because the world’s oldest vegetarian restaurant. Only a brief stroll from there, you possibly can attain the Langstrasse, one other neighborhood with a focus of LGBTQ areas and nightlife.

Apart from bars and eating places, the Museum of Design (Museum für Gestaltung) has two outposts within the metropolis—one among which affords excursions by two basement flooring of its archive of Swiss design posters, furnishings, and typographic artifacts. You may also take a ship tour out on the lake, and if the wind hits good, you’ll get the candy smells from the Lindt chocolate manufacturing facility on the western fringe of the lake (the place you can even take excursions).

Lausanne & the Swiss Riviera

Whenever you cross between the German and French-speaking halves of Switzerland, you’re crossing what the Swiss seek advice from because the Röstigraben, an imaginary border dividing the 2 linguistic areas. From Zurich, it’s solely about 2-3 hours by practice to Lausanne after which one other half-hour to Geneva. A lot of the nation is simple to journey by way of practice, and between cities, you’ll not often spend various hours on the practice earlier than attending to the subsequent vacation spot. I like to interrupt it up, and even on the practice from Zurich to Lausanne, I’ll often cease over for a espresso and cake in Bern, then proceed on my manner.

One among my first-ever visits to Switzerland was to Lausanne and the Swiss Riviera alongside Lake Geneva (Lac Léman in French). The river Flon runs beneath town, creating a number of valleys, or gorges, that make for unbelievable pictures. Strolling by the picturesque metropolis middle, you consistently transfer up and down amongst completely different hills and valleys. This elevation from the lake down under gives expansive panoramic views of Switzerland and France throughout the lake.

Residence to the Worldwide Olympic Committee, Lausanne’s Olympic Museum alongside the lake has a pleasant backyard and interesting exhibitions associated to the historical past and way forward for the Olympics. For extra nature, there’s the Lavaux Categorical Practice, which takes you on a 90-minute experience by the UNESCO World Heritage vineyards simply exterior town (nice for a romantic day journey!).

Inside the metropolis, the hipster neighborhood of Quartier du Flon has loads of artsy outlets and museums. That’s additionally the place you’ll discover a few of the higher nightlife, together with the homosexual dive bar Le Saxo after which the mega-club MAD, which hosts a homosexual celebration each Sunday referred to as Gameboy. The Lausanne Cathedral affords that postcard-perfect view you’d anticipate in Switzerland. For fascinating up to date artwork exhibitions, the MUDAC (Museum of Up to date Artwork) places on an excellent present — I liked one specific exhibition on Swiss watches.

Geneva

Residence to the United Nations, Geneva isn’t precisely identified for being an thrilling metropolis. Worldwide politics and diplomacy preserve the ambiance right here calm and relaxed. Like elsewhere in Switzerland, metropolis life revolves across the lake, with the Geneva Fountain being one of many extra iconic sights.

The Buvette des Bains restaurant is situated on a pier that juts proper into the lake and serves top-of-the-line fondues in Geneva. To maintain with a relaxed metropolis journey, the outlying neighborhood of Carouge is a nice place to remain, a barely eccentric and colourful space with loads of gelaterias, fashionable bars, and outside cafes. I notably love the membership Le Chat Noir, which mixes meals, cocktails, and dwell music in a enjoyable and gay-friendly surroundings.

Lauterbrunnen

Lauterbrunnen, a valley city between Interlaken and the Jungfrau mountain, is surrounded by steep mountains and 72 gushing waterfalls you possibly can spot even from the practice. Writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and Goethe famously discovered inspiration there. Throughout my most up-to-date go to, I stayed in Mürren, a city additional up the Schilthorn mountain, itself surrounded by 200 different mountain peaks.

Mürren is legendary for its summer time journey actions, together with paragliding; you’ll even discover excursions at cafes resembling Café LIV (which sells killer scorching chocolate). For the much less adventurous, you possibly can simply take a gondola as much as the Piz Gloria restaurant and viewing platform on the summit, which has an accessible cliff stroll with guardrails for some unbelievable views. Piz Gloria was Switzerland’s first 360-degree rotating restaurant, constructed by the producers of the James Bond film for the 1969 movie “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

With Mürren’s tiny inhabitants of simply 400 residents, it’s a quiet place to remain in a single day. The Drei Berge Resort’s eclectic design of Alpine and mountaineering artifacts makes for a central place to remain in type, with lovely nighttime views. There’s additionally a brief 30-minute path you possibly can take from the bottom of the lodge all the way down to Gimmelwald, the place there’s a small brewery, Schwarz Mönch, promoting a Swiss darkish lager beer on an outside terrace wanting over the Lauterbrunnen valley.

Ticino

Additional southeast from the Lauterbrunnen valley and just some hours from Milan, the lake resort cities in Ticino (the Italian-speaking canton) are a welcome escape from the wintery mountains. The lakeside city of Ascona on Lake Maggiore (Switzerland’s deepest lake) is a superb place to remain for a style of the Sonnenstube der Schweiz — the “sunny facet of Switzerland,” the place the local weather is extra Mediterranean than Alpine. Ascona is a sister metropolis to New Orleans and hosts the annual (and free!) Jazz Ascona competition till 3 a.m. every night time alongside the water for over per week every June. The sounds of dwell jazz, the colourful homes, and the contemporary fish and risotto eaten outdoor make the quaint city the proper place to discover the area.

From Ascona, you possibly can take a ferry or personal boat to the Brissago islands in the course of Lake Maggiore. There, a historic botanical backyard (and lodge) affords a fairly spot for a picnic lunch amongst 2,000 completely different species of crops and flowers from each continent. The islands have been handed down by varied aristocrats during the last century however have all the time been a joyful place the place “dwelling is an artwork,” as Max Emden, one of many earlier homeowners, designated the place.

Away from the blue lake and up within the lush inexperienced mountains in Ticino, the tiny mountainside city of Corippo has a inhabitants of simply six folks. Since final 12 months, it’s been an Albergo Diffuso, unfold out throughout a number of restored buildings all through the village, providing an expensive resting place for hikers and thrill-seekers into cave leaping, river diving, and bungee leaping.

What You Must Know

Switzerland is a welcoming nation, and visiting it as an LGBTQ traveler is protected, enjoyable, and straightforward. Getting across the nation, you’ll desire a Swiss Journey Move practice ticket, which supplies you entry to native metropolis subways, commuter trains, inter-city trains, and even choose gondolas and mountain railways. That makes it simple to take a look at a number of cities and discover extra in shorter durations.

For upcoming LGBTQ occasions, the MySwitzerland web site outlines festivals and prides, together with Zurich CSD, a queer music and artwork competition for LGBTQ youth and even a homosexual ski week in Arosa.