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Subscribe to RSSParticipants prepare to swim during the annual Lake Zurich crossing, in Zurich, Switzerland, Aug. 22.
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Steffen Schmidt / EPA
Lightning strikes in Switzerland
Arno Balzarini / EPA
Arno Balzarini / EPA
A lightning bolt strikes out of dark storm clouds, as a camper watches the storm near the Piz Titschal near Obersaxen in the Grisons, Switzerland, during the night of Aug. 21.
Alessandro Della Bella / EPA
Milky Way flickers over Switzerland
A man looks for meteorites while standing on the Col du Tronc path above Verbier, Switzerland on Aug. 10, 2012. The Mont Blanc massif mountain range lies in the background of this one-second-exposure photograph.
Alessandro Della Valle / EPA
High-country herding in Switzerland
A herd of cows climb the narrow trail from Adelboden to the high plateau at Engstligenalp for their 70-day-long summer stay, in Adelboden, Switzerland, June 23. Accompanied by experienced cowherds, around 400 cattle master the 600m altitude difference in a little over one hour.
Solar plane takes off for its first transcontinental flight
Fabrice Coffrini / AFP - Getty Images
The Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse takes off on May 24, in Payerne on its first attempted intercontinental flight from Switzerland to Morocco. Solar Impulse, piloted by Andre Borschberg, is expected to land in Madrid for a stopover before heading to Morocco without using a drop of fuel. Bertrand Piccard will pilot the second leg on to Rabat, scheduled to leave Madrid on May 28 at the earliest.
Fabrice Coffrini / AFP - Getty Images
The president of the Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse project, Bertrand Piccard, helps pilot Andre Borschberg prepare for takeoff on May 24, in Payerne on its first attempted intercontinental flight from Switzerland to Morocco.
AP reports -- An experimental solar-powered airplane took off from Switzerland on its first transcontinental flight Thursday, aiming to reach North Africa next week.
Pilot Andre Borschberg planned to take the jumbo jet-size Solar Impulse plane on its first leg to Madrid, Spain, by Friday. His colleague Bertrand Piccard will take the helm of the aircraft for the second stretch of its 1,554-mile journey to the Moroccan capital Rabat.
Fog on the runway at its home base in Payerne, Switzerland, delayed the take off by two hours, demonstrating how susceptible the prototype single-seater aircraft is to adverse weather.
"We can't fly into clouds because it was not designed for that," Borschberg said as he piloted the lumbering plane with its 207-foot wingspan toward the eastern French city of Lyon at a cruising speed of just 43.5 miles an hour.
Before landing in Madrid in the early hours of Friday, Borschberg will face other challenges, including having to overfly the Pyrenees, the mountains that separate France and Spain.
Just in case things go disastrously wrong, Borschberg has a parachute inside his tiny cabin that he hopes never to use. "When you take an umbrella it never rains," he joked in a satellite call with The Associated Press.
Fabrice Coffrini / AFP - Getty Images
The Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse prepares for takeoff on May 24, in Payerne on its first attempted intercontinental flight from Switzerland to Morocco.
The Solar Impulse will fly from Switzerland to Morocco as the pilot and crew prepare for a trip around the world in 2014. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Swiss swimmer in an icy lake at 7600 feet in the Alps
Arno Balzarini / EPA
Swiss Ernst Bromeis pictured in the ice cold Toma Lake, at 2345 meters altitude above the sea level, near Disentis, Switzerland, 02 May. Bromeis started to his project 'The blue wonder - River Rhine 2012', where he plans to swim, wade and use other means for the 1230 kilometers from the source of the Rhine in Switzerland, to the water mouth near Rotterdam.
Arno Balzarini / EPA
Swiss Ernst Bromeis (front) pictured in the ice-cold Toma Lake.
See more images of Switzerland in PhotoBlog, and read more about Ernst Bromeis' goal to swim the entire Rhine River here.
Swiss town casts votes, reaches decisions in open-air with show of hands
Christian Hartmann / Reuters
People raise their hands to vote during the annual Landsgemeinde meeting at a square in the town of Appenzell, Switzerland, April 29.
Appenzell is one of Switzerland's two remaining Landsgemeinde, a 700-year tradition of an open-air assembly in which citizens can make key political decisions directly by raising their hands. The practice has been abolished in all but two cantons, as many believed true democracy could not be achieved since there was no anonymity in voting and the process simply became too unweildy as populations grew.
Arno Balzarini / EPA
Moon and starlight shines over the snowy Alp Zavragia near Obersaxen in the Swiss canton of Grisons, Switzerland, March 29.
Edible fashion on the runway in Switzerland
Steffen Schmidt / EPA
A model presents a creation made of chocolate at a fashion show on the occasion of the 'Salon du Chocolat' in Zurich, Switzerland on Thursday, March 29, 2012
Steffen Schmidt / EPA
Models present creations made of chocolate, at a fashion show on the occasion of the 'Salon du Chocolat' in Zurich, Switzerland.
Christian Hartmann / Reuters
A model receives the last touch-ups before presenting a creation at the first Salon du Chocolat.
Christian Hartmann / Reuters
Doves are seen inside a dress made of chocolate.
Steffen Schmidt / EPA
A model presents a dress made of chocolate.
The 'Salon du Chocolat', the world's largest event dedicated to chocolate, takes place in Zurich from 30 March to 01 April 2012.
Hundreds gather to honor the 28 dead in Switzerland bus crash
Yorick Jansens / AFP - Getty Images
Coffins are displayed during a remembrance service at the Soeverein hall in Lommel on March 21 for the 28 victims of last week's fatal school bus crash in a Swiss alpine tunnel. Belgium's king and the Dutch crown prince joined thousands of mourners in a highly emotional homage in the sleepy northern town near the Dutch border, home to 17 of the dead, six of them Dutch nationals. Swiss investigators are due to travel to Belgium soon to question the children on board the coach in attempts to ascertain the cause of the accident.
At least 28 people died in Switzerland after their bus crashed on the way home from a ski trip. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Arno Balzarini / Keystone via AP
A touring skier is on his way towards the Piz Maler, near Sedrun, Switzerland on Friday.
Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters
The sun shines through Martin's Hole, a natural gap just underneath the jagged ridge of Mount Grosses Tschingelhorn (2849 metres/9347 feet) near the eastern Swiss alpine village of Elm on Wednesday. Twice a year, about eight days before the start of spring and again about eight days after the beginning of autumn, the rising sun sends its rays through the 19-meter wide hole in the mountain face before clearing the ridge.