espite Harry Lime’s assertion in Graham Greene’s “The Third Man” that Switzerland’s contribution to world culture is the cuckoo clock and chocolate, there is a long tradition of artistic achievement in this tiny country of six million.

In fact it is a country that so loves their artists that their profiles grace Swiss Francs rather than those of politicians.

Switzerland owes much of its tourism to the Romantic poets. In the 18th and 19th Century, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Rousseau, the English painter J.M.W. Turner and others discovered the beauty of this land and promoted it.

In the past the impregnable mountains and snow covered peaks of the Alps were to be feared and avoided. The Romantic Movement in art and poetry changed all this forever with the “Cult of Landscape,” and Switzerland became a destination for the young English nobility taking the “Grand Tour.”

Much of the intellectual history of the modern world has its roots in Swiss soil. Many creative souls have produced some of their greatest masterpieces here and thrived on one of the world’s most beautiful and inspiring canvases. Switzerland became a destination for the world's greatest writers, poets and philosophers.

T.S. Eliot wrote “The Wasteland” while living in Lausanne. Herman Hesse lived in the hills above Lugano for over 25 year. Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" while touring through Switzerland.

Other notable residents included James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Henry James, Voltaire, Dickens, Stravinsky, Vladimir Nabokov and Charlie Chaplin. Peter Ustinov lived in a hotel in Montreux and currently singers Tina Turner, Shania Twain, and Phil Collins call Switzerland home.

It could be argued that the greatest poem and novel of the 20th century were created in Switzerland, Eliot's "The Wasteland" and James Joyce's "Ulysses." Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Dostoyevsky, Hugo and many other writers came to Switzerland for the creative stimulus. Even Lenin wrote his manifesto in Zurich before returning to Russia for the Revolution in 1917.

In Zurich, Kronenhalle restaurant was a famous haunt of expatriate writers and artists and the walls are full of work traded for meals. James Joyce regularly got the corner table and Giacometti, Chagall, Picasso and Miro are among the artists represented on the walls.

It is a country with over 400 museums. In 2005 the Paul Klee Center opened in Bern to celebrate the work of the country’s greatest home-grown artist.

The cities of Vevey, Montreux and Lavaux, which lie next to each other along the banks of Lake Geneva, have published “The Poet’s Ramble,” a guide to famous artists who have lived in the area. Over 40 of the world’s greatest thinkers, artists and writers were inspired by the beauty of this land. The book is available through Switzerland Tourism.

Town of Vevey's stunning beauty was muse to many of the world's greatest artists.

By the way, Harry Lime’s creator, Graham Green, lived and worked in Switzerland for many years and is buried in Vevey, the city where Swiss chocolate was created, and presumably, cuckoo clocks still keep the time.

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