When the Kramnik-Leko world championship match was announced for Brissago, Switzerland, I hope I wasn't the only one whose first reaction was "Where?" I consider myself geographically informed for an American. I can name the leaders of Canada AND Mexico, something fewer than 10% of my countrymen can do. (Weep weep.) I've even been to Switzerland, but the tiny (population 1,981) resort town on Lake Maggiore stumped me. It wouldn't have had I remembered my Hemingway. It's the town where Frederic and Catherine escape to from Italy in A Farewell to Arms. (My memory was refreshed when the 1932 film version with Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper was on cable today.)
Brissago looks charming and I hope a chess match there will receive at least as much attention as the 1999 FIDE KO did in that other chess Mecca, Las Vegas. For cigar-maker sponsor Dannemann the Leko-Kramnik match is a boutique highlight for their various cultural sponsorships. They aren't trying for the major media coverage and PR a bigger sponsor would want. So they are holding the match in their backyard. According to the Brissago website (conveniently in Italian and German) one of the main attractions in Brissago is the old tobacco factory. For pure chess PR purposes, a larger metropolis would be nice, but some great matches have been played in out of the way places. Reykjavik, for example.
Come on, you knew the Prime Minister of Canada? You know they recently had an election, right?
I will admit that I had to google him...