Swiss Alps
— — the country where the weather lives upstairs.
Not only on a wall.
“The Alps cover about 60 percent of Switzerland, from Lake Geneva east to the Engadin. The high country is mostly granite and limestone, cut by glaciers and threaded with red trains that keep running through the snow. Cowbells in summer, lift cables in winter, the same villages doing both. The Matterhorn, the Eiger, the Jungfrau — each a name people learn long before they arrive. — from the studio
Swiss Alps, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Swiss Alps run roughly 300 kilometres across the southern and central country, divided into the Western Alps around Valais and the Eastern Alps around Graubünden and the Engadin. The range covers about 60 percent of Switzerland's land area and contains 48 peaks above 4,000 metres, including the Matterhorn at 4,478 metres above Zermatt and the Dufourspitze at 4,634 metres in the Monte Rosa massif. The Aletsch Glacier, the longest in the Alps, runs about 20 kilometres down from the Jungfrau region and was inscribed by UNESCO in 2001.
Two clear seasons. Winter runs roughly December through April, with reliable snow above about 1,800 metres and a deep lift culture in resorts like Zermatt, Verbier, St. Moritz, and Wengen. Summer runs June through early October, when the high passes reopen, cattle move to alpine pastures for the alpaufzug, and the Swiss network of marked hiking trails — over 65,000 kilometres maintained by Schweizer Wanderwege — fills up. The shoulder months, May and November, are quiet, often grey, and the lifts mostly stop.
Most journeys begin at Zürich or Geneva airports and continue by train. The Swiss rail network reaches into the mountains by cogwheel lines: the Jungfrau Railway climbs to 3,454 metres at the Jungfraujoch, the Gornergrat Bahn rises from Zermatt to 3,089 metres facing the Matterhorn. Scenic routes — the Glacier Express, the Bernina Express, the GoldenPass — connect the major resorts. A Swiss Travel Pass covers the trains, most boats, and many lifts. Cars work as far as the village; from there the trains and gondolas take over.