Headline: why I like to come to Europe so much

One major reason has to do with distances. Distances between cities, towns, villages. Nothing explains this better than overlaying an (rotated) outline of Switzerland with one of the Greater Sydney region.

I've prepared one earlier, just to see, and have lined up the arrow (over Crows Nest, a Sydney suburb) with Zurich.

To add to this, Wikipedia tells me that As of 2005 there are an estimated 4,254,894 people living in the Sydney Statistical Division with a population density of 345.7 persons per square kilometre. and that Switzerland has an estimated 7,507,000 people, with a Density of 182 /km² .

(add to that the populations of Newcastle, Woolongong, Katoomba, Cambelltown, and all the others..), or, If I'd rotated it the other way, we could probably include the population of Canberra, and we're getting even closer...

It's also interesting to note that the valley's in Swizterland are long and flat, so you can ride for 100-200km's without having to go up a major hill, whereas Sydney, at least from a North Shore perspective, has lots of choppy hills you have to battle first.

I've reduced the size of the Swiss google maps outline to 82% - as the scales of the 2 maps didn't match - frightening - Switzerland is even smaller