Technically this isn't the first time that I have set foot in Switzerland as I had to change planes here once when I was flying somewhere else a few years back, but any traveller worth his salt will tell you that in order to really claim that you have seen a city you need to do more than set foot on a slab of tarmac and then hop back on a plane again and bugger off to someplace else.
It raises a good point, however, as to what really counts as visiting a place these days.
Do you have to get your passport stamped, cos not many cities do these days?
Do you have to try the local cuisine, cos again I've found that finding genuine traditional restaurants harder to find than I first thought?
Do you have to buy a postcard and stamp and post it from that city, or can just buying one and sending it back home count, are ecards valid and what about printing sticky labels saying "wish you were here" on it to save time writing the same damn thing over a hundred times of more?
Do you have to use a method of public transport, or ask directions from a local while looking a pathetic tourist map that shows only the train station and a recommended hotel that sponsored the map production?
Do you have to have your photo taken actually at the place, and do you have to visit one of the prescribed places of national interest on a guided tour?
What about if you are visiting friends or family for the first time, it may be that you do no more than stay in another persons house as their guest for a week, but certainly it must count, mustn't it?
Maybe its a time issue, less than 4 hours is nothing more than a glorified a stop over and anything between 4 and 24 a brief encounter at best?
Legend has it that when sailors and mariners were roaming the seven seas, and fearful of pirates and sea monsters, often they got no more shore leave than the chance to stop off a the local port to grab supplies, get legless at the nearest tavern and possibly score with a wench or working lass in a nearby whore house but they certainly claimed that they had seen the places where they were allowed to debark for a time.
Perhaps it is a matter of who and how many locals you come into contact with rather than for how long you remain that defines if you have truly visited a place?
Over night it occured to me that if someone affects the world around them then they have clearly been there { i.e .if a plague victim passes through, however briefly, and infects any of the population } and so it would appear that if you leave behind a memory of you on that place, however fleeting, then you can certainly say that you have been there.
Anyway, whatever your personal view or logical arguement is for visiting a place is, I always feel that I want to cover as many bases as possible, { for my own enjoyment more than anything else as I love new experiences }, and so I always try to talk, eat, drink, walk, take local transportation, shop, make merry, visit, photograph, interview, collect, blog and stay someplace local that is reasonably authentic to the region to get as much of a taster as possible in the relatively short time that I have there.
It may not be everything, but for me its enough and its also all that I have time for.
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