In Geneva, schools close next Monday, 29 June, and do not reopen until 15 August. In Zurich, they close on 13 July and reopen in August. And when schools close here, the country doesn’t wait around: it goes on holiday. The neighbours disappear, local restaurants put up ‘fermeture annuelle’ signs for two or three weeks, workshops leave an emergency number on the door, and the city takes on that strange atmosphere of places that aren’t empty but aren’t quite inhabited either.
For someone coming from Spain, this defies all expectations. August in Spain is the busiest month: packed beaches, local festivals, terraces open until 3 am, families gathering in the village, and bars bursting at the seams. July is the warm-up month. Here, it’s exactly the opposite. The Swiss head off in July. By August, when the real heat sets in, many have already returned and are back at work. And it’s at that point, in August, that we Spaniards start seriously thinking about taking our holidays to go to Spain.
We haven’t been in the same place at the same time for years. They leave when we’re working. We come back when they’ve already packed up. In July, the neighbourhood is quiet. And the Spaniard who’s just arrived in Switzerland and thought this was the high season wonders where everyone has gone.