I first went to Europe in 1968 at the age of 14. I arrived in Naples with my family on the Italian liner Michelangelo after a seven day crossing from New York City. We were moving as a family to Rome as my mother took a job as a director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN. I’m not sure I had spent much time thinking about Europe before that having grown up in Latin America, the Midwest and the Northeast. I spent the next three years learning about Europe as a resident during an awakening time of life (adolescence). well, I mostly learned about the city of Rome during those years, I also learned a lot about Italy and some about Europe. My European experience consisted mostly of ski trips into Switzerland and motorcycle rides throughout middle Europe from my base in Rome. I won’t claim to have learned about Europe in a particularly balanced way, but there were lessons learned. During my college years I flew back to Rome several times to spend time with my mother, but it wasn’t until 1979 that I started traveling to Europe for business when I expanded my understanding of the continent. During that trip, I went as a banker on a survey trip to London, Paris, Milan, Zürich, and Frankfurt, the primary locations where my bank, Bankers Trust Company, had offices.
For the next 25 years I travel to Europe on business and for leisure on a regular basis, covering many of the places, I hadn’t yet been and spending of time in the major financial centers as well as the well-known playgrounds, including Tuscany, Bavaria and Provence. I spent extended periods of time in London and Frankfurt in particular. I had the opportunity as the walls of communism broke down to travel to Eastern Europe and see what was going on there. Now I rarely travel to Europe for business and when I come, I come for pleasure to fill-in with experiences of all the wonderful things that Europe has to offer.
This trip ticked the box for me that I have long thought of, and that is to travel the Rhine and see that historic and famous demarcation point between the Francophone world, and the Germanic world. I feel like much of that was new to me even though I have previously spent time in Amsterdam and in a few of the cities along the line like Düsseldorf. The last five days here in Switzerland has been a little bit different for me because I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Switzerland and three context. I’ve come skiing to places like Zermat. I’ve done business in Geneva and Zürich, having been responsible for Swiss banking subsidiary here. And kim and I have even taken a short vacation Switzerland dozen years ago. Nevertheless, I’ve seen a lot of Switzerland from ground level that I haven’t seen before and that is always a good thing.
Even though we went up onto Mount Pilatus on Thursday, yesterday was our true Swiss mountain scenery day. We took the scenic route to Interlaken, basically traveling through the Central Valley of Switzerland past Lucerne Lake, Sarnersee Lake, Lungerersee Lake, and Briensersee Lake. The scenery was as stunning as the towns were unknown (Sarnen, Lungren, Brienz), with alpine hillside homes clinging to the high pastures like mountain goats. The Swiss rail system is nothing if not fully choreographed, so at Interlaken we hustled right onto a departing train to Lauterbrunnen. That was reasonably busy, but nothing like the chaotic transfer at Lauterbrunnen, where we caught the tram up to Grutschalp. There were a gang of unruly American pre-teens on a field trip who insisted on being loud and pushy, but we made it on the tram only slightly worse for wear. Then, with continued Swiss precision, we transitioned to a small cog rail train to the carless hillside village of Murren. That’s where the views of the Eiger and Jungfrau were spectacular. We walked the hilly town and found a nice quiet lunch spot before turning around and doing the rail/tram/rail/train tango back to Interlaken and on the IC direct to Zurich via Bern. We did this minus Kim’s credit card wallet, which had been left inadvertently on the scenic train through the lakes.
We got back to Zurich Central Bahnhofplatz at 6pm, early enough for Pete and Nancy to run back to Santa Lucia restaurant for some takeout pizza and pasta for us to enjoy back in the lounge at the hotel.
Today we are yet again on Swiss Rail, making great use of the last day of our Swiss Rail passes, heading for a day in Lugano and Bellinzona. Nancy had an old friend Anna who lives in Lugano, and while she’s off on business in Ghana, her husband Bryan and daughter Sabrina were nice enough to meet us and show us the local sights. We arrived at Lugano station and took the funicular that leaves from the station itself to the downtown, from where we walked downhill) to the Piazza Cioccaro where Bryan met us. Bryan showed us the centre of the city and the lakefront whereupon we took a boat across the lake to eat at a typical Ticinese grotto. Then we boated back across the lake to Paradiso to Bryan and Anna’s apartment and Bryan drove us to Bellinzona (20 minutes away) to visit the UNESCO castles so that we could see a typical Tyrol village. From there we caught the train back to Zurich from Bellinzona.
Tomorrow is our relaxing Sunday Zurich day. We have only a very loose plan of activities, focused on a morning boat ride during which I will film a video clip of Kim for a commercial audition. The set up is that she is out whale watching and showing off as many expressions as she can to help her get selected. Nancy will be her goofy pal in the skit, so we’ll see how that goes. After that we will wander away the day doing whatever looks interesting and probably find a friendly bistro for dinner. The things we want to do are the Chagal windows in the Fraumunster church, the larger Gtossemunster, and what’s called the Lindenhof hill. It seems that being in Europe makes me much more willing to wander randomly and sit at a cafe for longer than normal stretches. It’s the European way. We will fly home on Monday and start thinking about our next visit to the continent in February, when we come back for our Greek Odyssey cruise…again on Viking. Between now and then we have NYC trips, a quickie to Hawaii and another to Mexico City. Those will both be interesting, but nothing beats Europe for a relaxing time. uh