When in Rome... Go to the Swiss Alps

My family loves to travel. We do it so much that we make a clear distinction between a trip and a vacation. A trip means that there is little down time and the point of the traveling is to site-see and learn about a new area. A vacation means that we are sitting on our bums and not moving for at least a week.

This Christmas was, without a doubt, a trip.

Starting on December 26th, we began an 11-day sojourn through Switzerland and Italy. The first plane we took between Prague and Dusseldorf was a normal plane. The plane between Dusseldorf and Geneva was panic inducing. It was so small that you could see the propellers and we were bused across the tarmac to get on it. I don’t love to fly as it is, so this was, without a doubt, the worst part. Flying is very much a necessary evil in my book. I love to travel, so I tolerate the planes.

Once we landed in Switzerland, things became way more fun. I like to call this part of our travels “The Nerd Trip.” Let me explain. The first thing I did in Geneva was drag my family all the way out to CERN to take pictures of the building….. even though it was closed for the holidays. The next day, I made them get up and go to the UN Headquarters in Geneva even though that was also closed for the holidays. Does anyone notice a mildly unfortunate trend? This is a good time to mention that I also made them look at multiple statues and monuments to various other nerdy things. One was the Reformation Wall, which paid homage to all the great religious reformers. The other was a statue of Frankenstein’s Monster, as Mary Shelly’s great novel Frankenstein was written here.

From Geneva, we boarded a train going west to Chur, Switzerland. We only stayed here one night, as we intended to ride the Bernina Express first thing the following morning. This train is consistently rated as one of the most beautiful train rides in the world. For those of you who don’t know, my father LOVES trains. I thought that this would be a cool thing to do with him. It turned out to be the highlight of the entire trip. The train travels up into the Alps and the scenery was some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. I put a picture below because words cannot do it justice.

The Bernina Express ended in Tirano, Italy. We transferred trains here and headed to Rome. We decided to spend a week here and use it as a base to make a couple of day trips. While we were in Rome, we hit all of the touristy stuff, including the Trevi fountain, the Vatican, the Pantheon, and, of course, the Colosseum. We actually got a super cute family photo that I included!

Our day trips were to Florence and Pompeii. Florence remains my favorite Italian city because of its winding streets and the Duomo. The crew wanted to see Michelangelo’s David and do some leather shopping. I just wanted to eat. My favorite things about Italy are the food and wine!

Pompeii was a super cool experience. Everything felt frozen in time and was beautifully preserved. I was incredibly impressed by the frescoes and the mosaics that are still clearly visible. One thing that struck me was that in one of the houses there was a mosaic of the Egyptian deities on the walls. It reminded me that the ancient civilizations that we learn about interacted with one another. In our modern bubble, it is so easy to feel as though these civilizations occurred in vacuums. It helped me to recognize the impact that these great civilizations had on one another.

Even though I felt like I needed a vacation from vacation by the time school started, it was a really great trip!

Lovelies, until next time!

***Hunter

PS. There was snow on Mount Vesuvius. This type of cold is unusual for the region, so of course it happened to me.