A French man traveling through Switzerland was stunned to receive a bill for 9,241 Swiss francs ($10,000) from the firefighters who rescued his pet dog after she became stuck in an underground pipe while chasing a fox.

A couple of months ago, Alian Chichignoud, a 25-year-old Frenchman traveling through Europe with his three pet dogs, went through a stressful ordeal after one of his pet dogs disappeared in Switzerland. Gaia, a 12-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, ran after a fox near the town of Vaulruz and didn’t come back. Gaia went missing on a Friday, and Alian and his other two pets canines, Bocka and Zuni, spent almost two days looking for her. It was only on Sunday morning that Boycka heard Gaia’s muffled cries coming from a grate on the side of the road and alerted his master. The dog had become stuck with the fox it had been chasing in a very narrow pipe, and Alian realized very quickly that he would need help to get her out.

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A Swiss man ended up in the hospital after reportedly putting his head into the Jet D’Eau, a giant water fountain on Lake Geneva, and being thrown several meters into the air.

According to eyewitness reports, the 20-something man, whose name has not been revealed, somehow breached the security perimeter around Geneva’s famous Jet d’Eau water fountain and put his head into the nozzle of what is essentially an extremely powerful water cannon. The Jet D’Eau pumps out 500 liters of water per second, at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, to a height of 140 meters (460 feet) into the air. When the water sprouted out of the fountain, the young daredevil was catapulted backward by the force, which was actually a lucky outcome considering the alternatives. However, this was only his first attempt…

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Teachers in Switzerland recently reported a worrying number of students, some as old as 11, still coming to school in diapers because they never learned how to use the toilet.

In Switzerland, some children begin school at age four, so it is not uncommon for them to still be wearing diapers. However, they are not the problem that many teachers in the European country are reportedly facing these days. According to multiple sources, students as old as 11 years old are coming to school in diapers, and teachers are expected to clean and change them if necessary. Apparently, the problem has become widespread enough that one headmaster in Aargau is organizing events to inform parents that children have to be ‘dry’ when they return to school after the summer holiday, while another school is putting out flyers to inform parents that teachers are not responsible for changing schoolchildren’s diapers.

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High up in the Swiss Alps, at an altitude of almost 3,500 meters (11,332 feet), lies Jungfraujoch, Europe’s highest train station, a wonder of human engineering that has been around for over a century.

The train doesn’t seem like the best means of transportation when trying to climb a mountain, but the Swiss would beg to differ, and they have proof to back up their claims. At the end of the 19th century, they began work on a project unlike any other – the Jungfraubahn, a steep railway through the Bernese Alps all the way to the ‘top of Europe’. And, at the end of the Jungfraubahn railway, they built Jungfraujoch, a spectacular train station perched on a rock between the Jungfrau and Mönch mountains, both of which soar over 4,000 meters. Today, Jungfraujoch is officially recognized as the highest train station in Europe and is one of Switzerland’s most popular tourist attractions.

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On March 24, 2022, the whole of Switzerland was shocked by the unexplainable act of a family of five from the town of Montreux who jumped from the balcony of their seventh-floor apartment.

A year ago, in the span of about five minutes, Nasrine Feraoun, 41, her twin sister Narjisse, her husband Eric David, 40, and their two children – an 8-year-old girl and a 15-year-old son – all jumped from the balcony of their 7th-floor apartment on Rue du Casino street, in the town of Montreux. Only the 15-year-old son survived, but after spending months in a coma, he has no recollection of the tragic events of March 24, 2022. After investigating this bizarre case for a year, Swiss authorities recently revealed that the family had planned and even rehearsed their jumps beforehand, which explains how they could jump one after the other without making so much as a sound.

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A new study recently revealed that some Swiss hospitals still rely on a medieval prayer known as ‘The Secret’ to protect patients from excessive bleeding after surgeries.

We live in a time when medical professionals have access to a variety of scientifically-proven tools to prevent excessive bleeding in patients, but according to data presented in a recent study, several hospitals in Switzerland still rely on a “healing formula” dating back to the Middle Ages to keep people from bleeding to death. Known as The Secret, this “blood charm is widely practiced in the French-speaking part of Switzerland,” and reportedly works by mobilizing “superior forces to help cure the patient”. The Secret was recently the subject of a study designed to test the efficacy of the ritual.

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To celebrate the 175th anniversary of Switzerland’s first railway, a railway company created the world’s longest passenger train ever, a 1.2-mile-long monster snaking through the Swiss Alps.

Switzerland’s mountain railways are regarded as feats of engineering, but they are hardly the best place to attempt a world record for the world’s longest passenger train. And that goes double for Rhaetische Bahn railways. Not only is the alpine terrain itself a challenge, featuring sharp turns and constant gradient changes, but the railway itself is considerably narrower –  just one meter apart, compared to the standard 1.435 meters. In order for the 25 “Capricorn” electric trains (a total of 100 passenger cars) to complete their voyage successfully on the UNESCO World Heritage Albula Line from Preda to Alvaneu in eastern Switzerland, everything had to be perfect.

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Institut Le Rosey is generally considered to be the most expensive school in the world, with the annual tuition per student surpassing $130,000.

Switzerland is home to some of the world’s most expensive and exclusive schools. The European country is home to at least 10 schools with yearly tuition fees of over $75,000, but the most expensive of them all is Institut Le Rosey, an old and reputed boarding school with an ultra-impressive list of alumni. There’s a reason why Le Rosey is known as the “school of kings”. King Juan Carlos of Spain, King Fuad II of Egypt and King Albert II of Belgium were all students here, as were the Shah of Iran, the Aga Khan and Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, among others. Having educated some of the best-known families in Europe for over a century, it’s no wonder Institut Le Rosey has an annual tuition fee of over $130,000 per student.

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Julio, a 30-year-old Swiss educator has an impressive collection of four, five, six and even seven-leafed clovers, which just might make him the world’s luckiest man.

Clovers with more than three leaves are considered lucky charms in many cultures, and if a person’s luck would be measured in the sheer number of such clovers in their possession, a Swiss collector of rare clovers would almost undoubtedly be the world’s luckiest man. 30-year-old Julio has been collecting lucky clovers since he was only nine, and has since amassed an enviable collection of 3,467 four, five, six and even seven-leafed clovers laminated to protect them from the elements.

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A Swiss man has found himself at the core of a modern mystery after discovering that he had been by a bullet that seemingly came out of nowhere.

Last Thursday, the unnamed 38-year-old man was walking with his two children and an acquaintance in Frauenfeld, a town around 45 kilometers northeast of Zurich, when he felt a sharp pain in his lower body. Unable to explain the pain, the man headed to the emergency room of the local hospital, where doctors informed him that he had been shot. They removed the projectile and treated his wound, but neither they nor the patient could explain how the bullet had entered his body.

Thurgau canton police spokesman Matthias Graf told reporters that an investigation in this bizarre case is currently underway and that there are currently no leads. Neither the shot man, the people he was with at the time of the incident, nor anyone else in the area heard any gunshot or saw someone with a firearm. It’s like the bullet came out of nowhere.

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Thanks to a new law, a Swiss man was able to change to officially change his gender so he could retire and receive his pension a year earlier.

On January 1st, 2022, a new law came into effect in Switzerland, one that allows any Swiss resident with the “intimate conviction” that they do not belong to the sex they are registered as in the civil status register to change their gender as well as their first name, for just 75 francs ($81.50). Technically, there are supposed to be regulations preventing individuals from taking advantage of the new rules for nefarious purposes, but in reality, civil servants have “no obligation to verify the intimate conviction of the persons concerned,” and usually assume that they are acting in good faith. Sadly, that’s not always the case…

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People on the lookout for affordable housing in the Swiss city of Zurich can now opt for a two-person tent on an open balcony offering “a view of the starry evening sky” for just 500 Swiss francs ($540) a month.

Finding a cheap place to rent in Zurich is almost impossible these days, because of the city’s competitive property market, so one resourceful tenant decided to subsidize her own monthly rent by subletting the balcony of her apartment on the open market. The offer includes a waterproof tent complete with an insulating mat, mattress and pillows, as well as access to the apartment’s kitchen, living room and bathroom. Believe it or not, the woman, known only as Sandra, has already had a good response to the ad she posted earlier this month.

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Residents of an industrial area of Olten, a town in north-western Switzerland, have been reporting chocolate powder raining from the sky for several days now.

If chocolate was ever going to fall from the sky anywhere in the world, it had to be in Switzerland. The European country is well-known for making perhaps the best chocolate in the world, so it kind of makes sense that a chocolate rain occur here. Anyway, reports of chocolate powder falling from the sky in the town of Olten started showing up online a few days ago, accompanied by photos of cars covered in the brown stuff. People could hardly believe it, but then authorities confirmed it and so did the company responsible for the bizarre phenomenon.

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Solothurn is a picturesque town in the north-west of Switzerland known primarily for its special affinity for the number 11. It seems like everything in this place was designed around this magical number, from the fact that there are precisely 11 churches and chapels, as well as eleven historical fountains, eleven museums and eleven towers in Solothurn, to the rather bizarre clock in the town square that features an 11-hour dial and the number 12 missing.

Although virtually everyone in Solothurn knows about the town’s obsession with the number 11, its origin is shrouded in mystery. Some say it was inspired by a folk legend about magical elves coming down from the nearby Weissenstein mountain to hearten the people of Solothurn, who worked hard but never prospered. The grateful inhabitants started incorporating the number 11, or ‘elf’ in German, as a tribute for the creatures’ aid. But there are also those who claim that the number 11 has biblical connotations, deeming it holy and prophetic. One thing’s for sure, though, Solothurn’s obsession with this number can be traced back centuries.

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A Russian woman who used her credit card to pay for coffee and a cake at a cafe near Zurich, in Switzerland, accidentally typed in her PIN code as the tip and ended up paying 7709.70 Swiss francs ($7,732) for a 23.70 francs ($23.76) bill.

Back in February, 37-year-old Olesja Schemjakowa and her son stopped for coffee and a cake at a New Point cafe in Dietikon, near Zurich. Little did she know that this would turn out to be the most expensive snacks she had ever paid for, and one of the most expensive in human history. When it was time to pay the bill, the woman, who lives in Mullhouse, France, opted to pay with her card, but somehow managed to enter her PIN code (7686) as the tip, and ended up paying a total of 7709.70 Swiss francs instead of 23.70. Interestingly Schemjakowa only realized her mistake at the end of the month, after receiving her credit card bill.

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