Pronounced “sauce fay,” this southern Swiss ski town is on the other side of the hill from Zermatt and the Matterhorn.
I’ve spent time in the Rockies, which are far higher, yet this “hill” and the whole range surrounding the town feels bigger. They seem to climb straight up all around you, like standing at the bottom of a bowl.
I jumped on a train and headed up one weekend to check out the European Graduate School which, for a few weeks each year, holds classes in the town during the off-season. They offer media studies with a line-up of lecturers changing each year and have included philosophers the likes of Baudrillard and Derrida, and sci-fi author Bruce Sterling.
I just showed up, a day before school started, and me and a couple of actual students talked our way into the building.
Raccards, used traditionally for grain storage, are elevated and separated from their stilts with stone slabs to prevent rodents from climbing up.
I was leaving the next morning after a late night of philosophy talk, trying to keep up with the twenty-something students. The bus to the train station would give me only minutes before my train departed. I asked the man at my hotel if he was sure the bus would leave on time. He just looked at me. Right… Switzerland.