Did you know that the 225 residents of Bivio, canton of Graubünden, speak seven languages and dialects?

In the village of Bivio, canton of Graubünden, three languages have been spoken since the Middle Ages. In addition to the official language, Italian, most residents speak German and Romansch. Since the spoken German – just as the Italian – breaks up into several local varieties (i.e. standard German, “Bündnerdeutsch” and Zurich German) linguists have counted up to seven dialects.

Thanks to its unique location, grapes, figs and other tropical fruit grow in the Swiss village of Quinten. A village of 55 inhabitants on a small ledge between the Walensee and the rising Churfirsten rock faces, Quinten's location next to the mountains - which are also popular with hikers - mean that it is protected from the northerly winds ensuring mild temperatures all year round and a perfect environment to grow decidedly un-Swiss tropical fruit 434m above sea level.

Paddle steamers from the turn of the 19th century still cruise on Lake Lucerne. Along with Lake Geneva, Lake Lucerne boasts one of the biggest paddle steamer fleets in the world and the steamers operate all year round. Prior to the construction of the Axenstrasse between 1863 and 1865, the waterway provided the only route between the canton of Uri and the Gotthard Pass and was thus the best route from the hanseatic towns in the north to the ports and commercial towns of the Mediterranean, like Genoa and Venice.

Switzerland's four highest mountains are the Dufourspitze (4,634m), the Dom (4,545m), the Weisshorn (4,506m) and the Matterhorn (4,478m). Although Switzerland is renowned as a country full of mountains, the highest mountain in the Alps and western Europe is over the border in France - Mont Blanc, which stands at a height of 4809m. With the exception of the peaks in the Caucasus range, Mont Blanc is the highest summit in Europe.

A total of 48 mountains in Switzerland have peaks over 4,000m (13,125 feet) above sea level. The most famous is the Matterhorn, which reaches for the sky at a height of 4,478m - although it is not the highest peak in Switzerland. The first men to reach the summit of the Matterhorn were a group of seven mountaineers on July 14, 1865, led by Edward Whymper from Great Britain. Four of these seven adventurers died on the way back down.

The Geneva-based World Economic Forum said that Switzerland was the most competitive of the top 125 world economic powers in a 2006 survey – and also praised Switzerland's capacity for innovation and its sophisticated business culture. The United States took sixth place and the UK tenth in the rankings. Switzerland generally seems to do well in opinion polls and surveys, as it also did in 2005 when it took eighth place in the World Competition Yearbook rankings. At that time, the US occupied the top position and the UK the 22nd.

Acclaimed Swiss film director Marc Forster has agreed to bring James Bond's next adventure to the big screen. Forster will direct the as-yet-unnamed film from a script which he will develop in collaboration with Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis, that stems from a draft by previous Bond collaborators. Forster is the son of a Swiss doctor and German architect, who was born in Germany in 1969 and grew up in Davos - in the east of Switzerland.

Switzerland may be famous for watchmaking and banking, but the nation also has an impressive record in science, boasting 27 Nobel prize winners. Winterthur-born Richard Ernst won the 1991 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, while other notable recent achievements saw St. Gallen-born Heinrich Rohrer share the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics while Riehen's Rolf Zinkernagel was a joint recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. In total, 113 Nobel prize winners have some connection with Switzerland, not least among them Albert Einstein, who was born in Germany but completed his schooling in Switzerland, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics.

The highest-lying settlement in Europe is called Juf - a village inhabited throughout the year and found in Switzerland. Situated at a height of 2,126m, it is part of the Avers valley community in the canton of Graubunden. Six families live in the village, giving it a total population of 24. The Italian village of Le Baite, near Trepalle, has also claimed the title of Europe's highest village but most evidence still supports Juf's claim.

The biggest underground lake in Europe is at St Léonard in the Valais canton. Tourists can take a comfortable boat ride even when it is pouring with rain outside in the 300m-long, 20m-wide and 10m-deep lake which was discovered by Jean-Jacques Pittard in 1943. The lake was opened to the public in 1949 and now a 40-seater boat allows visitors to take an unusual subterrannean cruise.