Not in Appenzell

(photo from Der Spiegel)

You know, those Germans are always getting naked. In the park, at the beach, in the mountains – you name the activity, some German has done it naked. Can you really become one with nature, I now wonder, with all those constraining clothes? (Sad, I shall never know.)

The growing "free body culture" movement, though evidently rather accepted in Germany, is not so popular across the border in Switzerland, where the idea of being oppressed by anything, much less clothing, does not compute. The recent invasion of au naturel hikers into the canton of Appenzell pushed creeped-out locals to immediate action. "We have do something to prevent this objectionable behavior before the weather gets warm again," the local official there said. "After all, children also spend time in the mountains in the summer." So, in true Swiss fashion, they will put the issue to a vote.

Soon, if you get naked in the Swiss part of the Alps, it's going to cost you – 200 CHF (about $175) to be exact. Where you will come up with the cash they do not care. They just "want to live a quiet and undisturbed life." Without noisy nudists tramping around their mountainside. Is that so much to ask?