The mystical side of Europe's most beautiful town, the home of the elves
Have you seen the Lord of the Rings movie?It's a great work like a fairy tale, in fact an extension of the fairy tale The Hobbit, in which Tolkien had only a few fragments of his work in his youth, and when he was telling a story for his insomniac child after marriage, he was suddenly asked "where do leprechauns live", which led to the idea of writing.
According to his imagination, the home of the elves is a beautiful landscape, full of tranquility and beauty, enough for the elves who symbolize wisdom and tranquility to live.
These descriptions reminded Thor of his youth in a small town in Bern, Switzerland, where there was a house on top of a hill that sat on a steep cliff, and below it, there was a house, which was like a waterfall flowing down the cliff.
Tolkien fused the landscape of Switzerland with its beauty to form a place called the "Glen", the territory of the "Elven Lord" Elrond and where his story begins.
Coincidentally, shortly after Tolkien's death, Goethe named the land "Water Spirits", and thanks to the joint efforts of the two great poets and poets, it quickly became a popular tourist destination, and the endless stream of tourists became a nightmare for the town.
The Hobbit was a huge hit as soon as it came out, and sales in Europe and the United States were even hotter, so much so that some scalpers couldn't wait to remake it and changed it to a copycat version. Tolkien modified it in his second Lord of the Rings, making it easier to appear on stage, on screen, and in books, so The Lord of the Rings was adapted into a very popular film.
The book has been translated into 64 languages and has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide (conservative estimates put the number of pirated books at more than 200 million). Tolkien could never have imagined that his unintentional words would become a nightmare for the whole town for decades to come, and even Tolkien himself did not forget it.
This is Lauterbrunnen, located deep in the deepest rift valley in the Alps, flanked by steep cliffs and more than 1,000 meters above sea level, known as the most beautiful Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland, it is one of the most beautiful towns in Europe, and it dominates the list every year.
Because the Jungfrau is frozen all year round, more than 240 kilometers away is the hot and waterless Mediterranean Sea, and the interaction between warm air and warm air currents makes the average annual rainfall in Ludbena reach 136After 5 days of abundant rainfall, all 72 cascades around it were replenished, making it the largest region in Switzerland (the most in June, the least in October, and 9 in October).5 days), and at the same time, the precipitation here is also the heaviest.
Ludbena, which means "spring" in Latin Romance, was later absorbed by the German language and became "springs", a 13th-century private domain of the lords of Trakken, which was later turned into a steel factory due to a mine, and was later forced to close due to an accident.
After the First World War, Ludbena became the ** station of many mountaineers because of its proximity to the Daughter Peak, and in 1890 a nine-kilometer dental trail was built, and after the Second World War, some sightseeing equipment was added, such as electric cables, ** and so on.
Without films such as The Hobbit and later The Lord of the Rings, Ludburner would have served as a tourist destination for backcountry mountaineers and hikers without much disruption to the daily lives of the local population.
As for the tour groups, most of them come to visit, because there are too many vehicles coming and going, the traffic in the town has been very congested, and occasionally some tourists break into their yards, most of them are Koreans who like to be noisy, so the town has been plastered with a sign that says "No Koreans allowed".
In the 60s, when the border town was at its most prosperous, with a population of nearly 7,000, in 2020 there were only 2,301 permanent residents, of which nearly half of the labor force was employed in services such as tourism and hotels, and the rest were engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry.
In the eyes of ordinary people, as the number of tourists increases, so do their profits, but the population of Ludbena is decreasing year by year, and he asked a few locals to get a definite answer.
Ludbena is a very special place, there are few inhabitants here, but there are many things of faith, such as the ** religious alliance in Europe, such as Roman Catholicism, such as Orthodox Christianity, such as Judaism, such as Islam, such as Islam, such as Buddhism, such as believers who have almost no faith, such as more than a hundred believers in atheism.
What happened to a small town, more than a century, the blending of various faiths?In short, there will be all sorts of strange ideas.
In the case of the Swiss education system, for example, 9 years of compulsory education began to be implemented in the 1950s, while some countries have provided for 4-5 years of compulsory education, and after secondary school, they are divided into different grades and different grades according to their IQ differences.
But in their view, reading is a joyful and free thing, and if students are divided into different classes, it is tantamount to imposing a heavy burden on them, which is contrary to the purpose of their voluntary Xi. Therefore, Ludbena vetoed the compulsory education system, and the citizens of the towns elected to form a free compulsory education system, whether it is kindergarten, primary school, junior high school, or even secondary school and university after graduation, there are no hard and fast rules, and registered children can choose not to go to school or not to go to school.
Perhaps seeing my surprise, the old man continued: "The real life is not to follow the footsteps of the predecessors, nor to follow the footsteps of others, but to follow one's own heart. ”
The "freedom" in the old people's mouth is not the so-called "freedom", but "they" have reached a state of "freedom" from the mind to the body: they live freely, do not like to be controlled by others, and do not like others to interfere with themselves.
Their income is not high, as long as it allows them to live a good life, and the Swiss social security system, so the gap between them is not large, so the gap between them is not big, a high-income white-collar worker with a monthly income of one million, like a waiter in a café, just works in one place.
As a result, the townspeople are so disgusted with these noisy outsiders that they have not been allowed to expand large resorts and new tourist projects for several years, and they have refused to budge even on the condition that the developer promises "enough for retirement".
However, both Switzerland and the municipality of Interlaken have the right to develop the area, and most of it is public property, so people here have no right to object, and as the number of tourists increases, many people eventually choose to relocate, and some even choose to live in the mountains rather than in the noisy towns.
Those who stayed were some elderly people, or businessmen who were in the tourism business, and although they felt very uncomfortable, they had to accept this fact.
Living in such a "fairyland", you are not even satisfied?I think most people will complain in their hearts, but from another point of view, when a person is used to living a peaceful life, and suddenly is awakened from sleep by a large number of tourists, and the street is dirty and traffic-jamed, no one will be happy.
However, none of this has caused any damage to the border town, which has mountains, canyons, cliffs, and waterfalls.