SWITZERLAND might seem like an anomaly among the countries located on the European continent. The country doesn't use the Euro, it has its own complex system of democracy which differs from other European countries and many of us would only ever consider visiting the country for the amazing winter fun offered by the country's Alps.
But if you're interested in literature, you might have come across quite a number of literary legends who do not appear to have anything in common except major success with the written word. How, for example, do Vladimir Nabokov and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have anything obvious in common?
The answer lies in the allure of Switzerland for a huge list of literary artists, some of whom were among the pioneers of wider literary movements.
We've picked some of the most famous writers to have been influenced by Switzerland below.
Lord Byron's persona is well established among those with a passing knowledge of his life and work: a swashbuckling literary rebel who toured the world and whose literary career produced Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
As a result, he's perhaps one of the most famous figures from the Romantic literary movement and was a contemporary of both Percy Byshe Shelley and John Keats.
Lord Byron travelled widely by the standards of his peers and died at Missolonghi in Greece. But his life in Switzerland having sailed up the Rhine River and settled in Geneva provided him with the inspiration to write the third canto of his Childe Harold work.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus features on a huge number of standard literary courses. Shelley, who visited Lord Byron at Villa Diodati in Cologny near Lake Geneva and was inspired by conversations with Byron in which he challenged his friends to write ghost stories.
Mount Tamboro in Indonesia had erupted in 1815, producing volcanic ash which led to the 'year without summer' of 1816. Lord Byron's apocalyptic work Darkness refers to the atmosphere while Europe's weather was altered.
Mary Shelley was just 18 when she began writing the story, and 20 when it was published anonymously in London during January 1818.
Shelley's book is now one of the most famous books in world literature, and Mary Shelley is an icon for female authors around the world.
Nabokov was born in St Petersburg as part of an aristocratic Russian family, who were forced to flee Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution.
He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge (where he was famously the football team's goalkeeper).
Years later, when he had achieved international fame having written Lolita, he sold the film rights to the book to Stanley Kubrick and then moved to Montreux in Switzerland. Nabokov and his wife took up residence in the Montreux Palace Hotel.
Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories have sold across the world - in the UK, one of the most successful recent television series is based on his work.
The author loved visiting Switzerland and especially loved taking long trips through the Swiss mountains on skis. He actually claimed to have introduced ski-touring to the country.
Conan Doyle moved to Davos in 1893 to take up permanent residence there.
The Nobel Prize winner wrote both Steppenwolf and Siddhartha while living in Montagnola, where had arrived in the midst of both personal and artistic crises.
He lived in this area of Switzerland for the rest of his life, until his death in 1962.
Hesse took up painting seriously while in Switzerland - he was apparently inspired by the amazing natural light around where he lived. It's now possible to follow in his footsteps along the walking routes around his home which he found so inspiring.
This editorial was sponsored by Franklin University Switzerland, to find out more about their courses take a look at their profile.
