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| Travelling by scenic routes and landscapes
The Bernina Express is a famous Swiss train route through high alpine regions, with spiralling sections of track, hairpin turns, breathtaking views of waterfalls and mountains.
Cultural and natural World Heritage sites in Switzerland
More about Swiss chocolate
Swiss German and French children's songs and rhymes
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What about William Tell?
No other Swiss person is so widely known as Wilhelm (William) Tell, a national hero of Swiss liberty - but did he really exist?
The story is well known, thanks to the German poet Friedrich von Schiller and his drama Wilhelm Tell.
Set in the early 14th century period when the Swiss peoples were first trying to build their confederation and break away from foreign domination. The local sheriff Gessler represents the Habsburg count in central Switzerland. He requires everybody to bow to his hat set on a pole in the town centre of Altdorf. William Tell refuses. Gessler forces William Tell to shoot an apple off his son's head with his crossbow. William Tell hits the apple, but asked why he had a second arrow ready, he says that if he had hurt his child the next arrow was for the sheriff. And that's just the beginning of the legend.
As with Robin Hood in England, the story probably combines the exploits of several heroes who resisted the occupiers. But there is no doubt that the legend of William Tell became a symbol for resistance against oppression, both in Switzerland and across a much wider world.
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