Italy/Switzerland (Eurotrip_2012)

On November 20th our ferry floated into the Bari sea port at 11am, two hours behind schedule. From the port we grabbed a bus into the train station and bought tickets for a high speed train to Rome, departing at 2:30 pm. In the meantime we walked around town and grabbed some gyros for lunch, circling back to the train station with plenty of time to spare. However, while we were patiently waiting for our train to Rome the exhaustion from the previous day of traveling finally caught up to us and we absentmindedly got on a local train that came through five minutes before the train to Rome on the same platform. After getting on the train and unsuccessfully searching for our reserves seats we finally looked at each other with wide eyes, realizing that this was all wrong. the layout, the lack of carriage and seat numbers, and the plastic non-cushiony seats all screamed that this was a local train. Scrambling to get off the train we slammed into the doors before the train had left with one arm in our jackets and the other through an upside-down backpack. But the little green light was already off, which meant no matter how many times I punched the damn open button we were forced to succumb to our fate. Standing there in the stationary train looking out at the Bari platform bottling my anger and frustration I saw the worst thing possible, an Indian kid named Shaun was comfortably resting on the train bench. 

We first ran into Shaun in Ioannina, Greece when Margot was rushing to buy our bus tickets to Igoumenitsa, he was the person right in front of her in line and when he got to the ticket counter he asked a bunch of pointless questions, forcing Margot to eventually venture to the next window down the line in order to get our tickets in time. From this point on we ran into him everywhere and each time we ran into him he was doing a better job of traveling then we were, which was really pissing us off. In Igoumenitsa he slept at the port station waking up just as our ferry arrived, while Margot and I spent this time walking all over the dock searching for our ferry’s dock number, asking to board the wrong ferry boats, and freezing our asses off as we got told to back away from the other ferry boats three times by a security guard. In Bari we spent five euros to take the bus from the sea port to the train station while Shaun walked this distance, arriving at the station before we did. And now the fucker was about to get on the correct train to Rome while we were going to Barletta. Of course during our brief encounters I learned of the stupid travel mistakes that he had made as well, giving him some advice and information, but I’ll always remember him as that damn Indian kid who showed us up when we were having a bad travel day. So while we sat on the super slow regional train that made two hundred stops per minute I shook my fist in the air at Shaun as his high speed train zoomed past us in a blur. 

                Eventually our local train made it into Barletta and we were forced to hang out in the train station for another three hours until we could catch the next train to Rome. But our luck continued to falter when our train broke down halfway between Barletta and Rome. We sat on the tracks for three hours going nowhere before moving a couple miles to the next rest destination, repeating this process several times. Our train didn’t end up getting into Rome until 12:30 AM on the 21^st, which meant that we had spent the past thirty-eight hours on the road. Luckily, the owner of our small hotel was waiting up for us when we arrived at 1 AM, quickly showing us to our room before running off to bed. 

The next day we allowed ourselves to sleep in a little bit, but we were in Rome and I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I sleep all day and didn’t get out there and experience it; first stop was the Colosseum. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen the Colosseum in pictures, movies, or postcards, seeing it in person is an unreal experience. The Domus Aurea was built by Nero in 64 AD along with two artificial lakes and the Colossus of Nero statue was built on the spot that the Colosseum would stand sixteen years later.  The construction of the humongous stadium, capable of seating 50,000 occupants, began under Emperor Vespasian in 72 AD and was completed under his son, Emperor Titus eight years later. Outside the stadium was where the Colossus of Nero statue used to stand, which is where the name for the Colosseum actually originated. The statue was derived from the Colossus of Rhodes and stood for centuries, although its appearance changed several times during its lifetime. It was transformed into a depiction of the god Apollo at one point and many Roman Emperors replaced the statue’s head with their own. There used to be an interesting quote about the statue, “as long as the Colossus stands, so shall Rome; when the Colossus falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, so falls the world.” Eventually the statue did fall, as did Rome, and the only thing remaining of where the statue once stood was its seemingly ordinary stone base. 

Once inside, I was finally able to fully appreciate the glory of a stadium that had once bore witness to so much brutality, gore, and death. An extensive rough rocky mound sloping towards the center of the stadium was all that remained of the stands, the hypogeum of tunnels, passageways, and lifts that were once used by Roman Gladiators below the stadiums wooden floor were now crumbling and sprouting wildflowers, and the stairways were so worn down from thousands of years of use that each step actually sloped downwards. A re-creation of what the wooden stage would have looked like extended halfway across the stadium, although it was lacking the sand, whose purpose it was to soak up the massive amounts of human and animal blood being spilled onto its surface. It was said that over 9,000 animals were killed during the inaugural games of the Colosseum in 80 AD but it wasn’t until Titus’ brother Domitian took over as ruler that the hypogeum was built, the massive system of underground tunnels that were used to house animals and slaves. I also found it interesting to learn that the performances and gladiator fights within the Colosseum were free to the public; and with Rome being the most populated city in the world during the time of gladiatorial fights, containing over double the occupants that its rival cities London, Constantinople and Paris had, it must have been overflowing with fans of the games. The gladiatorial fights continued until 435 at the Colosseum and animal hunts were halted in 523.

Continuing on from the Colosseum we came upon the nearby Arch of Constantine, which is the oldest of the triumphal arches in the city and was erected to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge on October 28^th, 312. After gazing up at the beautiful reliefs and designs that decorated the gate we walked up to Palatine Hill, the ancient hill looking down on the Roman Forum. According to myth, it was within a cave on this very hill that Romulus and Remus were raised by a she-wolf. A shepherd by the name of Faustulus eventually found the infants and with his wife Acca Larentia he raised the children. When they were older the boys killed their great-uncle, who had seized the throne from their grandfather, and both agreed to build a new city of their own on the banks of the River Tiber. During a violent argument between the brothers sometime later, Romulus killed his twin brother Remus, thus naming the city Rome after himself. 

Wandering through the pathways of the hill we saw the Palace of Severus and the adjacent Hippodrome of Domitian. I learned from a passing tour group that palatine is actually the origin of the word ‘palace,’ and although the palace was suffering from centuries of deterioration the Hippodrome still took its original shape. The marble in this small stadium, which was too small for any chariot races and was probably solely used for private performances, was made of a much more colorful marble than the characteristic white marble that you identify with Rome. Eventually we made our way to the other side of the hill and down into the midst of the Roman Forum. Walking through the ruins of the ancient buildings that once used to be the center of Roman politics and power, it was a bit overwhelming. I also saw the much more literal heart of Rome in the form of the Umbilicus Urbis Romae, “the naval of the city of Rome,” which was considered the center of the city, from which all distances in Ancient Rome were measured from. 

After we made our way through the Roman Forum we walked up Capitoline Hill and found ourselves face to face with the Italian (Roman) Parliament, which was probably my favorite piece of working architecture in the entire city. The pearl white marble gleamed off of every nook and cranny that the imposing building had to offer, the array of statues peered down at me and forced my attention upon them, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier dominated the foreground of the amazingly grand building. The parliament building was everything that I had expected of Rome and more, it was beautiful. 

Moving on from Parliament we found our way to the Pantheon, which was originally commissioned by Marcus Agrippa to be built as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome, the present structure however was rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in 126 AD. The building lived up to Agrippas’ original intention though, as it continued to act as a center for one stop shopping in regards to praying to the gods, containing statues of all the main gods. From outside, the Pantheon though beautiful looks just as old as it really is. However, as you approach the entrance and finally emerge inside the gigantic structure it progressively appears better and better preserved. The first thing I noticed when entering the Pantheon was that the center of the ceiling dome is open, allowing air, rain, and whatever else mother nature may throw at it, into the church. Drains in the center of the building lead the incoming water out of the building, however in ancient times this was not necessary. It was historically rumored that the Pantheon was so sacred and holy that it wouldn’t rain inside the building, even though it had an open ceiling. The truth behind this myth is that they used to use an outrageous amount of candles to light the huge building, whose heat congregated right at the top of the dome where the opening was. So whenever rain entered the building it would hit this heat bubble and immediately evaporate, appearing as though the rain would disappear the second that it entered the building. The building has been used as a church since the 7^th century and contains the tombs of the artist Raphael, as well as those of the first two kings of Italy, whose deaths are surprisingly recent when compared to those of other first and second kings from across the European continent. 

                After shuffling around the Pantheon gawping up at the gods, the tombs, shrines, and the altar we took a brief walk through the Piazza Navona, which was a beautiful open air square, headlined by the Fountain of the Four Rivers right in the center of the Plaza. The fountain, which was constructed in 1651, was a beautiful combination of marble figures racing through the aqua blue water which I found to be spectacular. 

After sitting down for some delicious Italian pizza we made our way through the streets and finally arrived at the Trevi Fountain. The fountain, which wasn’t constructed until 1762, is the end of an aqueduct that supplies fresh water into the city. It was said that with the help of a virgin some Roman technicians found a source of pure water thirteen kilometers from the city in 19 B.C. and thus constructed an aqueduct to supply the city with this fresh water source. The Acqua Vergine aqueduct worked splendidly until 537 when the Goth besiegers broke the aqueduct and thus forced the Romans to fetch their water from polluted wells and the Tiber River, which was also being used as a sewer. In 1453 Pope Nicholas V finished mending the aqueduct and a simple basin was designed to herald the arrival of the water. In 1629 Pope Urban VIII, finding this earlier fountain insufficiently dramatic, began plans to construct a new fountain, but died before anything was put into action. It wasn’t until 1730 that Pope Clement XII organized a contest whose winner would construct the fountain. Alessandro Galilei initially won the contest but due to public outcry that a Florentine had won, Nicola Salvi was awarded the commission to construct the fountain. Regardless of who built it or how the aqueduct came to exist, the fountain was fucking gorgeous. It was worth an hour of our time just to sit on the steps and admire the water rush through the beautiful marble statues depicting Roman gods and the creation of the aqueduct. The fountain looks so tranquil and romantic that I somehow found it peaceful sitting there admiring it, even though I was surrounded by a thousand other people. In accordance to tradition I threw a couple euros over my shoulder into the fountain before leaving, which is supposed to ensure another visit to Rome, and also supplies the Italian government with over three thousand euros a day.

               

           On Thursday the 22^nd I spent my first Thanksgiving in Italy, first visiting the Vatican and then taking a train to Florence. Although I planned to spend the day without a turkey and some football, I thought that this wasn’t a bad way to spend the American holiday. After taking the metro to Vatican City we grabbed some pizza for breakfast and then went to the Vatican Museums. The Vatican became a City State in 1929 under the Lateran Treaty, which was signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. The Popes have generally resided in the area that became Vatican City since the return from Avignon in 1377, but they were now a completely separate entity from Italy. However, as was pointed out to me later that night over Thanksgiving dinner, this doesn’t stop the Italian government from dumping millions of euros into the Vatican every year. With only eight hundred residents, the Vatican is the smallest independent state in the world. 

                Although the Vatican Museums, which are actually inside the Apostolic Palace where the Pope resides, were full of interesting artifacts and history, it was too much for Margot and I to see during our generous amount of allotted time and is definitely too much to pack into this blog; so I’m going to skip to the thing that you really want to hear about, the Sistine Chapel. It was amazing! As with many European sights and monuments, I ignorantly thought that the Sistine Chapel would be bigger than it actually was. So when I first walked in, the first thought that went through my puny ungrateful mind was, ‘this little room is the Sistine Chapel?’ But just as fast as the thought had entered my head it was pushed out by the joy and appreciation I was feeling about being in the presence of such an amazing collection of wall and ceiling frescoes. The door that I entered from was at the base of the wall depicting Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, which was the most impressive piece of work that I found in the chapel and which Michelangelo painted over the course of five years from 1536 to 1541. The painting, of course depicts the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse, where the souls of earth either descend or ascend depending on Christ’s judgment. Christ is aided in this endeavor by several saints and Minos is seen as judge of the underworld. There’s so much going on in the sprawling piece of work that you really need to just sit down and let your eyes sweep over the huge fresco before you start picking out pieces of interest. One point that I found particularly interesting was the image of St. Bartholomew, who is lounging on a cloud holding out the human skin of an unknown figure. What this is supposed to mean I couldn’t fathom, but it was one of many examples of the incredible amount of color and detail that Michelangelo put into this fresco.

The Chapel got its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who restored the old Capella Magna in the late 15^th century, hiring a team of painters that included Perugino, Botticelli, and Ghirlandaio to create a series of twelve frescoes panels depicting the story of mankind. These twelve panels are painted on the walls running down the side of the chapel, sandwiched between the drapery painted below them and the Papal portraits above. On the ceiling of the chapel is Michelangelo’s initial work, which he started at the age of thirty-three and completed four years later in 1512. Ironically he had always considered himself as a sculptor and not a painter, but his work on the Sistine Chapel was unbelievable regardless.

The Chapel has served as a place of both religious and functionary papal activity during its five hundred year history and is today still used as the site of the Papal conclave, which is the process by which a new Pope is selected. Whenever a Pope passes away they meet here to vote on a new pope. If one is elected then they burn some wood in the fireplace and create white smoke, however if one is not elected then they light a fire again, this time adding some straw and grass in order to create black smoke. This announces to the city whether a pope has been selected or not.

After leaving the Sistine Chapel and running through the remaining rooms we jogged over to St. Peter’s Basilica and zoomed through the non-existent line right into the Church. The Basilica was indeed huge and grand but was definitely not my favorite Church of the trip. We did happen to get a glimpse at the odd guard outfits that they wear in the Vatican though, which really just make the guards look like a peasant with some makeshift weapon that he grabbed out of his barn. 

From the Vatican we took the metro out to the Spanish Steps, enjoying some pricey but delicious gelato while resting on its thousand year old steps. I can’t quite tell you why it was so enjoyable to sit on a staircase with eight hundred other people but for some reason it was. After relaxing on the Spanish Steps people watching for a while we finally rode the metro back to our hostel, grabbed our stuff, and took off for the train station. As if we hadn’t learned our lesson coming into Rome (or in Hof, or Aachen, or Brussels) we forced ourselves into a train station panic for the umpteenth time during this trip. We raced through the crowd of people crammed into the Rome train station and finally made our way to the ticket counter… along with a hundred other people. After grabbing a ticket we stood there sharing glances between the time on my watch and the board where we were waiting for our number to pop up. Finally, five minutes before our train’s departure, our number flashed on the screen. But when we ran up to the ticket desk we collided with the back of some Italian dude that had just jumped the entire fucking line. He was waving around a piece of paper that looked like a ticket but it sure as hell didn’t have the right number on it, because WE had the right number. But the guy at the ticket desk commanded us to wait until he was done with this guy. Luckily the lady in the window next to him took pity on us and waved us over to her window, where we rushed through the ticket process that ended with her throwing the tickets at us while shoving her hand in the direction of our platform. Carrying my backpack and four plastic bags full of train cakes, whiskey, computers, ipods, and other unnecessary crap I looked exactly like what I would imagine Frankenstein would look if he ever attempted to run. We jumped on the train literally twenty seconds before its wheels started rolling, which was an amazing strike of luck and determination. Sweating so much that the next train car down was wondering what the hell that smell was, we high fived on another successful train departure. 

We got into Florence at about six that evening and Rasmus, Margot’s cousin that I had met in Denmark, was there to pick us up and take us back to his place. After storing our bags at his apartment he brought us over to his friend Bennie’s house for an actual Thanksgiving dinner. I had completely given up any hope of eating turkey on Thanksgiving, but thank god Rasmus and Bennie had not. Without Margot or I even mentioning that it was Thanksgiving, Rasmus had figured it out and gone shopping for us. When we arrived at Bennie’s, who was this extremely nice German guy that’s studying economics with Rasmus at the university, there were turkey legs, potatoes, squash, and even a Christmas tree waiting for us. While Rasmus and Margot got assigned to the vegetables, Bennie and I took care of cooking the Turkey. While we were cooking, Bennie’s two roommates filtered through the apartment with their boyfriends and Rasmus’ roommate Phillip showed up with his girlfriend as well. The food turned out to be delicious and the company was superb, I couldn’t have had a better Thanksgiving anywhere else in Europe. I couldn’t believe how thoughtful and generous Rasmus and Bennie had been either, it was pretty remarkable.  

                The day after Thanksgiving, Margot and I woke up and walked across town to the European Institutes Economics Department, where Ras, Bennie and Phillip go to school. They had enjoyed an 8 AM lecture that morning and we interrupted them doing some of their homework problem sets, dragging Bennie and Ras up the hill to the main campus building, which was at the head of this beautiful valley that lead into Florence, to grab some lunch. After enjoying our food as well as the view down the valley, we said goodbye to Bennie, and then Ras, Margot and I walked into town to see the Duomo, which is just another way of saying Cathedral.

Walking up to the striking building Margot jested that it looked like a big birthday cake, covered in polychrome marble panels in various shades of green and pink bordered by white, the Basilica definitely has a completely different look to it than any other European Cathedral, however I found its appearance to be absolutely incredible. In my personal opinion, the Duomo might be one the most aesthetically pleasing Cathedrals, from a simply exterior perspective, that I’ve seen in Europe. Once inside the church, whose construction began in 1296 but wasn’t completed until 1436, you pass through the Gothic interior until finally reaching the dome, which displays an amazing depiction of the Last Judgment. It took eleven years to paint the ceiling fresco in the 16^th century but it was worth every minute and dollar spent on the project, it’s beautiful. The figures pop out so effectively that I actually thought there was a group of men sitting at the top of the dome for a second before realizing that it was simply the paint. Maybe I just have a hankering for depictions of the Last Judgment but I found the frescoes of the momentous event painted in the Vatican and in the Duomo to be stunning.

After the Duomo, we went to the Uffizi courtyard to check out some really cool sculptures that they had on display there. After taking some time to relax and enjoy the courtyard we went to the Uffizi Museum, spending the next several hours poring over the paintings and sculptures until the museum was closing and they started ushering us out. While wandering through the museum two paintings in particular stuck out to me. There was this striking painting of the Virgin Mary, flanked by St. Sebastian on one side and John the Baptist on the other, that was created by Leonardo da Vinci. St. Sebastian is of course sporting a couple arrows, one of which is penetrating through his neck, but the immense attention to detail was amazing. I didn’t realize how much higher quality da Vinci’s work was until I was able to actually see it in person compared side by side with other famous works. The colors that da Vinci used made the bodies so vivid and alive that it looked like they were about to jump off the canvas and start walking around. The skin tones, wrinkles, hair, eyes, everything was just magnificent and blended so easily and well together. The picture looked so simple but you knew it had been so complicated, I loved it. The other painting that I really enjoyed was more for the story behind it then the actual work of art. The painting displayed a sensual looking Leda caressing a swan, while two eggs lay cracked on the ground with four human babies amongst the broken eggs shells. The swan is Zeus, of course, who had changed into the form of a swan in order to seduce the already married Leda. The painting was done by Leonardo’s fifteen year old apprentice, who had obviously already learned a thing or two from his master. 

After finishing up at the Ufizzi museum we went home to relax for a while and then went out for some Fiorentina steak, which can only be described as glorious. We ordered a 1.2 kilo hunk of premium Italian steak for the three of us, which was served raw, bloody and delicious. They only cook the steak for three to five minutes on each side which warms the steak throughout but leaves the inside a juicy succulent blood red. We ordered a bottle of red wine to go along with our beautiful steak and joked about getting the steak sweats, because if any piece of steak was going to cause such an abnormal occurrence it was this.

On the 24^th we woke up a little later than anticipated and thus were forced to skip Michelangelo’s David at the Academia, which at first I was a little disgruntled about but soon came to realize simply meant that I had to return to Florence in order to see it sometime in the future.  Margot, Ras, and I instead spent the morning marching out to the Boboli Gardens just across the Arno River, stopping for breakfast at a place called Zoe’s and accidentally ending up at the Rose Gardens. After realizing our mistake we changed direction and went over to the Boboli Gardens, which were on the grounds of the historic Tipoli Palace. We enjoyed a relaxing afternoon stroll through the gardens and then just sat down near one of the gardens many fountains soaking in our surroundings for an hour or so. This European adventure has been so fast passed that I’ve come to really cherish these moments where we just take an afternoon and spend it sitting under the Italian sun admiring the post autumn trees and the ancient fountains in front of us. Eventually our moment of relaxation had to come to an end and we resumed our hectic but exciting travel lives, heading back to Ras’ place to grab our bags before walking over to the Florence train station. For being a college student it was amazing how well Ras treated us while we were in Florence and I definitely look forward to the next time that he comes out to Colorado so that I can repay him with a good time.

From Florence we needed to get to Cinque Terre on the west coast of the country, but I made sure that we had a four hour pit stop in Pisa first. After arriving in Pisa and storing our bags at the left luggage office, we walked up the city’s main walking street, which was insanely crowded with a beautiful Christmas market, and popped out on the other side. Finally, after peeking around a building we stopped in our tracks stunned. The beauty of the tower has been described to me in a hundred different ways, in a textbook, with pictures, through cinema, from a friend, and nothing prepared me for what I was currently seeing. Regardless of whether the tower was leaning or not, it still would have been worth the trip out there, it was amazing. After snapping some classic Pisa pictures of Margot punching the tower over and me holding it up with my finger we walked a couple hundred feet away and sat down to have dinner. While enjoying one of the numerous pizzas that I ate while in Italy I gazed up at the leaning tower of Pisa and content swept over my entire body. After dinner we did another circle around the tower, now lit up in the darkness, before returning to the train station and catching a train out to Le Spezia. 

From Le Spezia we took a local train into Riomaggiore, the first town of the Cinque Terre (The Five Lands). When I told my well-traveled hair stylist, Meghan that I was going on a Eurotrip half a year ago, this was the first place that she recommended seeing. Although we were seeing it during the off season and the area had experienced a deadly land slide just over a year ago, I thought that it would still be cool to check it out. By the time we got in that first night it was too dark to see anything except the beautiful sea shell decorated train tunnel before we collided with our beds and conked out for the night. 

                After walking down to the information desk the next morning I discovered that the beautiful trails connecting the five cities were unfortunately all closed. So instead of hiking we were forced to take the local train between the small port towns, which in the end was a time saver allowing us to see all five of the unique sea port towns. After checking out the train schedule and discovering that we had an hour to kill before the next train down the coast, we used our time to explore Riomaggiore. After walking up the steep main street of the town we had reached the top of the town in less than ten minutes and looked down on the colorful city below us. Then we strolled back down through the deserted streets and into the bay that looked out onto the Ligurian Sea. After walking among the rocks and gazing down the coast gleaming in the sunlight we hopped on our train and quickly wound up in Monterosso, the last of the five Cinque Terre towns. 

The town of Monterosso is spread out horizontally, which is different than the other towns of the Cinque Terre but still gorgeous in its own right. The first thing we did was enjoy a lunch/breakfast of pizza and wine while it down-poured outside the restaurant windows. I concluded at that point that although the Cinque Terre was still beautiful, it was not one of those places where coming in the off season and suffering through the cold weather is worth it in order to skip the crowds and steep prices, in the Cinque Terre you need the hot weather. By the time we were finished the rain was fortunately gone though and the sky was clear and blue once again. Meandering down the shoreline we discovered this huge rock jutting out of the beach and climbed to its peak in order to attain a beautiful view of the city and to claim that we were now king and queen of the world! Continuing on through a tunnel in the hillside we found ourselves in the central part of town, where we failed to find the town’s original entrance gate and successfully skipped rocks along the oceans waves until it was time to catch the train on to the next town, Vernazza. 

                Vernazza and Monterosso where the two towns that got hit the hardest by the landslides in October of 2011 and although we saw pieces of the damage in Monterosso the destruction was much more apparent in Vernazza. Construction was congesting the tiny town, the fishermen were forced to take their boats out of the water with a Caterpillar tractor, and the harbor was a muddy mess. We watched the tractor work on the bay for a while, along with half the town, before grabbing some gelato made with fresh honey from the region and climbing the stairs to the top of the city’s castle.  At the highest point of the town we achieved a dazzling view out over the water and a magnificent vantage point of the town below. Looking out over the town it seemed that everything about the town screamed that it was unique and different. While admiring the vivid colors of the town, Margot joked that it was as if they enacted a law after half of the city had been built declaring that no man could paint his house the same color as his neighbors. 

      The town only had three skinny streets running through its tiny heart but they were each crammed with buildings of varying height, shading the towns one thousand inhabitants below. Behind the town was a wave of terraced hills covered with vineyards and to each side was a beautiful cliff nestled up against the waves of the Ligurian Sea. Up until the late 1960’s these towns could only be reached by boat and somehow in 2012 they still gave off an incredible feeling of being isolated in a place of pure beauty. Here we watched the sun begin to set before venturing back down through the castle and into the town below.

        We went into one of two churches in Vernazza and walked around checking out the wooden carvings depicting Jesus’ last day and resurrection before they roped up the entrance and began preparations for mass. After visiting the church, we wandered through the town doing a little window shopping before taking a train back to Riomaggiore and enjoying some rest in our hotel room. Eventually we stumbled back downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant and chomped down on some dinner, washing down the food with some local drinks made of the famous Cinque Terre wine, Sciachetrà. After dinner we went upstairs, drank some of our whiskey while working on our blogs and then fell into a deep slumber. 

                The following morning we woke up and grabbed breakfast at our hotel before walking around Riomaggiore checking out a couple of the town’s churches. The first one we visited, the Parish Church of San Lorenzo, was very tiny yet I found beauty in the chandeliers and Jesus sculpture of the fifty person capacity church. Then we took the train to Corniglia, where we had to climb the side of a mountain just to get to the town. The view from the top was awesome and totally worth it though. We wanted to see the town’s church but it was closed so we began walking through the towns alleyways, which were so tiny that I couldn’t even stick my arms all the way out without colliding with the stone walls. 

        However, as we neared the dramatic end of the alleyway we found ourselves on a terrace patio atop the town’s five hundred foot cliff that offered an amazing view of the other four towns. As we sat their staring out over the endless blue mass, this cat that had followed us out to the cliffs edge couldn’t stop from rubbing his diseased eye all over my jacket, which was disgusting and cute at the same time, but mostly disgusting. 

After Corniglia we went to Manarola, completing our tour of the Cinque Terre, and probably visiting my favorite of the five Cinque Terre towns. 

The bay was stunning and the set-up of the town was amazing. It was also the most wine oriented town, but the shops and streets were dark and empty since we were there on the off season so we couldn’t buy a bottle of Cinque Terre wine. The bay was this beautiful secluded piece of water surrounded by a short cliff wall; and behind this was a direct path into the heart of the colorful and interesting city. 

After Manarola we took the train back to Riomaggiore, grabbed our stuff, and then took a string of different trains that landed us in Venice at about 8 PM. On our way to the hotel we checked off one of the things the internet told us we needed to do in Venice and got horribly lost. The whole town is a fucking maze, where streets randomly end and buildings pop up on the shore of the canal blocking your path, I’ve never encountered something so beautiful and irritating at the same time. Eventually we found the hotel, checked in, and grabbed dinner down the street. It was here, while enjoying some pasta that I concluded that I’d gathered enough data and experience to declare that house wine in Italy is head and heels better than all the fancy wine we’ve splurged on everywhere else in Europe. A three Euro glass of wine was downright delicious, always, which is something you could never count in any other country I’d visited.

We woke up and took a boat-bus over to the island of Murano the following day, which was packed full of glass blowing factories. After hopping off the boat-bus we were immediately lead to a factory where we got to watch a man blow several glass vases, which was awesome. We then entered the factories store to buy ourselves some goodies before wandering down to the next factory and repeating this process, which we continued to do until it was finally time to leave. It was interesting to see the full extent of the gentle yet vicious relationship that man has with glass. When the glass is fresh out of the oven, orange and piping hot, you have to be gentle with the almost liquefied substance; then the glass begins to cool down and the workers smack it against the metal counter tops to force it into the perfect shape; and of course when it’s all done you once again have to be extremely gentle with the glass, or else it will break. It was cool to see glass in a stage that’s not the finished product and really intriguing to witness how hand-blown glass is actually created. After filling up our shopping bags and emptying our pockets we eventually took the boat-bus back over to Venice. 

After dumping our newly purchased glass off at the hotel we initiated an adventure over to see St. Mark’s square in the pouring rain. The boat-bus took us about forty meters away from the square but we accidentally surpassed it and got lost for an hour before eventually figuring out our mistake and discovering the beautiful square. The first church to be placed on this location was built in 836, seven years after relics of St. Mark were brought to Venice and he was adopted as the new patron of Venice. The addition of the church and a patron saint, whose relics where on site, greatly improved the importance of the city, which the Venetians hoped would help free them from Byzantine rule. There was a grassy area where the square would eventually exist and the Doge palace, which was in the same location as it’s 9^th century successor, was surrounded by water. During a rebellion in 976 the church was set on fire and destroyed, the present day structure of the church was built from 1084 to 1096.

 In 1204 Constantinople was captured by the Venetians and a lot of the cities beautiful marble, mosaics and other war trophies were shipped back to Venice to be used on the square and the new west façade of St. Marks Basilica. Four interesting statues to be sent back to Venice at this time and installed as decoration on the basilica were four bronze horses from the Hippodrome in Constantinople. They adorned St. Marks until 1797 when Napoleon conquered Venice and had the horses removed and shipped to Paris to be installed on the Arc de Triomphe. After the abdication of Napoleon, the Austrians took control of Venice and the Austrian Emperor ordered the return of the four horses to the basilica in Venice, where they have remained ever since. I found it really cool to see and learn about something that had an extensive history spanning thousands of years, had literally travelled from one side of Europe to the other, and know that I had visited the place where it had originated, was standing in front of its current location and was about to go visit the city where it had briefly adorned one of the most famous arches in history. I found the square to be gorgeous as well and although the pouring rain may have hindered our sight a little bit, I thought it added an aspect to the beauty of the square and the basilica that the bulk of other tourists don’t get to see. Plus there were no pigeons, which by itself makes the square like ten times more beautiful. 

After visiting St. Marks we caught the boat-bus back over to our side of town. It was really cool to see how the boat-bus system operated on the island city. In a city where boats are cars, canals are streets, the sea is the pavement, and the buses are run with a propeller and steered with a fin I couldn’t believe how efficient and convenient they were. They have truly mastered the art of running a functional city that has no roads or cars. We also got to see the flood planks all set up, preparing for the one downside of living in Venice, the not so infrequent flooding. We grabbed some pizza at a restaurant near our hotel and then went to bed.  

On Wednesday November 28^th we woke up and began our journey from Venice to Bern, Switzerland to visit a friend of my family named Max. Our first train brought us from Venice to Milan, arriving at the station forty minutes late. Running to check which platform our connecting train to Zurich was on, we discovered that even though it left in five minutes it had no platform assignment, but had no posted delay either. Confused, we stood there looking blankly at the departure board with a hundred other people until finally, ten minutes after its allotted departure time, a big sixty minutes popped up next to the delay category. We used this time to eat some lunch and found some free internet so that I could email my friend Max and tell him that we would be arriving a bit later than we had originally planned. 

Finally our train arrived and we set off for Zurich but for some reason changed trains at the Swiss border. Rolling into the Zurich train station, a nice comforting womanly voice came over the speaker, “We are now arriving at the Zurich main station…two hours late. We hope you enjoyed your ride on Trenitalia and will join us again soon.” Thanks but no thanks lady. From here we took a Swiss train from Zurich to Bern and everything went smoothly. Not really sure whether Max was still going to be here waiting for us or not we walked down the entrance ramp and discovered Max and his daughter Michèle waving a Colorado flag around to welcome us into Switzerland. I had never met Michèle before and the last time that Max saw me I was only six years old when he was visiting Colorado on a work trip, so we all introduced each other and I thanked Max for waiting so long for us at the train station and taking us into his home for the weekend. Shaking off the gratitude he and Michèle started talking and joking around with us like we’d been best friends for years; I could already tell before we even reached the parking garage that Margot and I were going to have a great time in Switzerland. 

From the train station we drove the car to Max’s sister Evelyn’s house where the family was having a birthday dinner for Evelyn’s husband Beat. Thanks to the train delay in Milan we arrived extremely late to the dinner at 10:30 PM, though thankfully they still had food enough for the four of us. We had leeks with potatoes and some sausage, which are both traditional dishes from the French part of Switzerland and got introduced to the family. We met Michèle’s boyfriend Remo, Beat and Evelyn’s son Rafael (the other son, Lucas, was already upstairs in bed), and Lucas’s girlfriend Adrian, who spoke near perfect English. After finishing our meals we were served homemade cake, homemade vacherin mont d’or, which is a creamy cheese special to Switzerland that is only made during the fall, drank wine and beer, had coffee, and became acquainted with the whole family. We started reminiscing about the old days when Max used to come out to Colorado on work and my dad would show him around, until the conversation moved on to the trip that Margot and I were in the middle of, the comparability of US and Swiss education systems (they’re actually quite different), and the massive amounts of different dialects and languages that are spoken in Switzerland. It was a fun and unexpectedly educational dinner party; everyone was very warm and welcoming, incredibly generous, and had a great sense of humor. The whole family was awesome!

After dinner Max drove us to his home in Galmiz, which is just twenty minutes outside of Bern, and when we reached the door to his flat there was this cute welcome sign on the door for Margot and I, as well as chocolate waiting for us on the water bed that Max was letting us use. I felt like I was at a five star hotel and couldn’t believe how generous and thoughtful Max was being. 

The next morning we woke up and the three of us drove into the town of Murten, which is just the next town over from Galmiz, where there was a beautiful clock tower built by the same architect who constructed the one in Bern. Running through the town were the old city walls, which as I learned were scene to a battle between the Swiss Confederates and the Burgundians in 1476. In Murten we had a great view over the Murten Sea (they like to use the word sea instead of lake in Switzerland) which is part of three huge lakes in the area, all of which are connected to each other by a river system and all of which are common fishing grounds for Max and his fishing buddies. 

While walking through the town, Max bought Margot and I each a nidelkuchen, which is this sweet treat that’s cut like a piece of pie, the cake portion is similar to angel food cake and the top is covered with this sweet creamy yellow sauce that isn’t really comparable to anything else I know. Supposedly this bakery is THE place to go for Nidelkuchen and I could see why, it was fucking delicious. By the time we were done with it I debated asking Max to drive me back into town just so I could have another one.

From Murten we drove to the other side of the lake to the top of the huge Jurten hill. From here we could see all three of the lakes and the impressive Swiss landscape. Usually you could see the colossal Swiss Alps from here as well but the poor weather hindered our ability. On our way back to the car I suddenly noticed little pieces of white flashing before my eyes and couldn’t believe it, snow. Our first real snow of the trip, which coincidentally was the year’s first snow in Murten as well, couldn’t have been more beautiful. From Jurten Hill we drove to the Gronde Fiy, which is this huge bridge from the 14^th century that stretches over the Saane River. 

After walking along its towering pathway we drove up into the Swiss Alps and the snow was now everywhere, creating a beautiful winter wonderland that had me daydreaming about Christmas in the Rocky Mountains. We went to the Cailler Chocolate Factory, which was the first chocolate company in all of Switzerland. They decided to merge with Nestle during the great depression in order to keep their head above water and today are again a thriving source of chocolate all throughout Switzerland. We of course had to get a tour of the factory, which was pretty awesome. The whole thing was automated, so when we walked into the dark first room and the lights dimmed suddenly this deep voice came over the speakers. “Did you know that Switzerland consumes more chocolate each year than any other country in the world?” I learned later that the average Swiss person consumes twelve kilograms of chocolate per year. “Did you know that chocolate was a gift from the gods? Did you know that chocolate creates happiness?” Well thank you for informing me on these definitive, unbiased facts, I had no idea. 

Moving on from the room of chocolate facts, whose main goal I determined was to make people feel okay about eating shitloads of chocolate, we entered a room where we were introduced to the Aztec’s, the discoverer’s of the cocoa bean and the inventors of hot cocoa. The drink was said to be so strong and invigorating that the Aztec women and children were banned from drinking it. Our history lesson then introduced Hernán Cortés, depicted as a man-less suit of armor, who “destroyed the Aztecs,” stealing their precious cocoa (as well as their gold, silver, and freedom). When the king of Spain ordered Cortés’ return, instead of returning with yellow gold he returned with brown, the cocoa bean. The cocoa bean became so precious in the Spanish Empire that ten of them could be traded for a rabbit and a hundred of them for a slave. The royal family initially distrusted the bean, accusing the bean of causing humans to act indecent and lewd, while the church stood by the bean claiming that it was a drink fit for good men. Finally one of the Spanish Kings decreed that having a little bit of cocoa in your hot drink every once in a while was fine, thus making it legal and allowing the popularity of the bean to soar. The drink eventually spread up and into France, where the aristocracy fell in love with it. They believed the drink to be sensual and used to have a cup before and after sex, and during the French Revolution Maria Antoinette reportedly drank a cup of hot cocoa with her last meal before she was executed. The hot drink was then brought to Switzerland by Napoleon and the invading French army, where it would flourish.

The art of making chocolate was first mastered by François-Louis Cailler when he opened Switzerland’s very first chocolate factory in 1819, but many more would follow and all of them were delicious. When Cailler died in 1852 his son-in-law Daniel Peter took over the company and moved the factory to Broc, Switzerland, where it remains to this day. The company invented chocolate in the form of a bar, in 1875 Peter Daniel had the bright idea to mix his chocolate with his neighbors’ condensed milk and invented milk chocolate, and in 1904 Cailler invented sticks of chocolate, which we witnessed them make on their automated assembly line.

After learning about the chocolate making process we got to witness it in person, well technically we were behind some glass but I still found the automated assembly line to be really fascinating. At the end we got to taste the very chocolate that we had just watched being made, which totally lived up to Swiss chocolate standards, it was delicious. And from there we were led into a room full of even more chocolate where we were allowed to taste an unlimited amount of chocolate, which sounds incredible but after shoving your face full of chocolate for like ten minutes it just becomes too overwhelming and you have to stop. Those ten minutes were like being in heaven though, the chocolate was mind-blowing. Eventually we were released into the chocolate shop where we ran around like little kids loading our shopping carts full of Swiss chocolate. 

From the Cailler Chocolate Factory we drove deeper into the Alps to the town of Gstaadt, where the world’s wealthiest skiers go on holiday. The town was right next to a mountain scattered full of ski lifts and being in a ski town made me start to feel at home. We walked the streets looking in the store fronts at all of the expensive goods that we couldn’t even fathom purchasing and talked about how Max once saw Roger Moore here when he was about our age. We also saw several signs indicating that a particular store or park had been included in the filming of a James Bond movie, plus one restaurant which had the James Bond breakfast that we jokingly supposed was, “scrambled eggs, shaken not stirred.”

After walking through the beautiful town, which was highlighted by the picturesque Grand Hotel resting just above the town center, we drove over to Interlaken, a town full of different nationalities, Christmas lights, a park that acts as a hang glider landing pad, and really cold weather. After walking through the Interlaken we began to freeze our butts off and decided to head back to Max’s place for some dinner and relaxation. He made us a delectable meal of risotto with hand-picked mushrooms and we stayed up watching This is It before heading off to bed. 

On the 30^th we woke up and drove towards Bern, stopping just outside the city to take the Gurten Bahn Funicular up to the top of Gurten Hill. From there we continued to climb upwards to the top of a tower which allowed an extraordinary view of the city. The top of the hill was blanketed in a fresh layer of snow, concealing the green grass and flowers left over from the summer weather that they were experiencing just a few days earlier. It seemed so weird to be huddled under my jacket and surrounded by snow, while looking onto the town just five hundred feet below that didn’t display even a speck of white. About halfway down the hill the snow quickly faded into bright green grass, in an almost magical way it seemed as though summer and winter were colliding at that exact spot.

 After gazing out over Bern we walked through the winter paradise on top of Gurten Hill, where the tree limbs bared crystalized snowflakes, the snow swirled around your feet at each step you took, and the sun gleamed off of the snow swathed forest floor. It was a breathtaking walk through the Swiss park, but for a backpacker who left the states with only a rain jacket for warmth it proved to be blistering cold. Thankfully I had purchased a leather jacket at the Grand Bazaar in Turkey a month earlier and Max had generously offered Margot and me a wide selection of snow boots and winter jackets. 

After riding the funicular back down to the bottom of Gurten Hill Max drove us into the heart of Bern, where we took a bus out to the Rosengarten, the very point where the Aare River wraps around and constrains the city of Bern with its watery boundary. The garden is full of roses during the summer but at present the green bushes where the only thing in the big park to survive this long into the wintery season. Even without the flowers it was still a beautiful park and it offered a splendid view of Bern from the edge of town. 

Walking down from the Rosengarten we came upon the bear pit, where Finn, his wife, and their two cubs inhabit the side of this hill just on the shore of the Aare River. In 1191 Duke Berchtold arrived to this spot on the Aare River and is said to have killed the first animal that he met, which was a bear. Thus when he founded the city here he decided to name it Bern, which means bear, after the animal that he had killed. The town takes huge pride in this and you can find bears everywhere, even real ones in the Bärengraben, like Finn and his family. Margot joked that it was lucky the Duke had killed a bear because how pathetic would it be if your town were named after a butterfly or a squirrel. 

Right next to the bear pit is this restaurant called the Tram Depot which literally used to be a depot for the cities old trams. The building had remained stagnant for the past dozen years or so before someone decided to renovate the building and put a really nice restaurant inside. Before sitting down for lunch though we watched an informational video on the history of Bern. I learned about the town’s invention in 1119 and the fire in 1405 that destroyed two-thirds of the entire town. They rebuilt the town’s houses with stone from a quarry that was actually right where the bear pit now exists and the city even paid for every other shingle that the townsfolk installed on their homes in order to encourage the town’s population to remain in Bern. This reconstruction of the town also led to the building of the iconic Munster Cathedral right in the middle of the town. Continuing with the city’s architectural history, I learned that the cities streets used to be a lot wider than they currently are, but as the city progressed and expanded they built shops in front of the buildings and then buildings on top of the shops that connected to the buildings that the shops were in front of. This resulted in a bunch of covered walkways in front of all the buildings that are all over the town now. And finally I learned about Napoleon invading and conquering Bern and then stealing all of the cities Bears.

After the video we went into the restaurant and I had Rösti, which is a Swiss dish consisting of hash browns with cheese and a fried egg on top, while Margot had Spatzel. The three of us also enjoyed the seasonal spiced beer which I dare say was quite tasty. After lunch we walked across the bridge over the Aare River and through the town to the Munster Cathedral.

 We took the 254 steps up the top and huffing and puffing gazed out over the city’s landscape. The view from up top was amazing and after seeing the city from three different vantage points I was starting to actually understand its layout a little more clearly.

 After skipping all the way back down the spiral staircases we met up with Michèle  and walked down the street to see the clock tower strike 4 PM, which meant that wooden figures of bears and other animals danced, a man struck the bell with a golden hammer and a wooden King waved his wand around. It was very similar to the clock tower in Prague actually, with the confusing astronomical information and the figures interacting with the time on the clock every hour. We enjoyed some roasted walnuts while we watched the clock’s show, which we had seen everywhere in Europe but had yet to try. Honestly I didn’t really like them very much but I could understand why other people might favor them. 

After strolling through town we came upon the town hall and I enquired about a weird game painted on the ground next to the man-sized chess board. Max gave me some brief directions and then we teamed up against Michèle  and Margot for a game, of which Max and I absolutely destroyed the girls. After the girls had redeemed their composure from the dramatic loss, we got some coffee at a local coffee shop and waited for Remo to meet up with us. 

After our coffee we were off to see the Bern vs. Kloten hockey game. We got their a couple hours early and had the most amazing fondue of my life in the restaurant inside the stadium. In Switzerland I learned firsthand how blatantly accurate the American perception of Swiss cheese being incredibly delicious actually is. In all honesty, at one point during my stay in Bern I stated the truthful fact that, “I’m not a huge fan of cheese … unless I’m in Switzerland.” 

While we were twisting our cheese covered pieces of bread into our welcoming mouths we ordered up some lutz, which was a hot drink that consisted of coffee and schnapps. After having several glasses of lutz Remo had ordered another round of cheese fondue and was showing me how to scrap the burnt cheese off the bottom of the empty fondue pots, which Remo claimed was the best tasting part of the meal and which everyone jokingly referred to as shwiejermuttir, meaning mother-in-law.

After a short while our table was so overcrowded with friends of Max that many of them were forced to occupy a nearby table. Of the many people that I met at the restaurant several of them had travelled out to Colorado on work trips, just as Max had, and thus knew my father as well. Eventually we ventured out of the restaurant and into the stands to prepare for the opening face-off. In accordance with the amazing generosity that Max was showing Margot and I, we found that the seats which Max had gotten for all of us were in the second row just to the side of our teams’ bench. While enjoying our splendid seats and yelling at the players I attempted to learn the subtle differences between American and European hockey. For instance, I learned that the season’s top scorer on each team wear’s a special jersey stating this fact. This way he not only gains recognition for his achievement but is also singled out by the opposing team, which I thought gave the game another aspect to pay attention to and could even make the game more exciting. In addition, similarly to the way that I learned football divisions were set-up when I saw the football match in Mainz with Werner, if you are the worst team in your division at the end of the season then you have to play the best team in the division below you in order to retain your spot in the division. This way the bad teams move down into the lower divisions while the good teams get the chance to move up into better divisions. Of course, this didn’t matter to the Bern hockey team which was in the best division, had lost in last year’s championship game making them the second best team in the league and were about to clobber the Kloten Flyers six to one. And as I check the league standings today, it appears that SC Bern is currently in second place, behind only Fribourg.

As we watched the ensuing blood bath and cheered on our team’s top scorer, who ended up scoring two of the nights six goals, we continued to meet more and more people. I found it amazing that even in a medium sized city like Bern that Max could know so many people. And it wasn’t just at the hockey game that I got this feeling, everywhere we went it seemed that he knew someone here and had worked on something for someone there. I left Bern with the impression that in contrast to its size it really feels like a small city town where everyone knows each other. In addition to this and probably in support of it, everybody seemed overly friendly and nice. I don’t think I met a single person that I could say was mean or rude, and that’s not just of max’s friends, that was just everyone in the city of Bern. It was simply a friendly place full of friendly people. 

During our entire trip Margot and I played a variety of games to figure out which places we liked the best, what we liked best about them, which of them we could see ourselves living in, etc. Well out of the twenty-two countries that I visited during my entire trip and the seventy-plus cities, Bern is number one on the list of European cities that I could live in. There are three main reasons why I came to this conclusion. First off, its landscape and weather are very similar to Boulder, Colorado, which I love dearly. Second, it felt like the people there would instantly welcome me in and I could feel at home in no time. And thirdly, the history and traditions were so interesting and exciting that I would love to learn more about them. 

                Anyways, in between periods at the hockey game we would all return to the restaurant and our pre-ordered lutz from the period before would be waiting there for us. We spent this time bull shitting about fishing and Colorado and eventually I told Remo, Max and Michèle  that they needed to visit Colorado again and enjoy some Rocky Mountain Oysters. They didn’t understand what I was talking about and their English lessons had neglected to teach them the word ‘testicles,’ so I had to charade it out before Max suddenly understood and blurted out, “Glocken Eer Heimat,” which got a mixed reaction of laughter and wide eyes. They didn’t believe me at first but after I assured them that it was a real thing and that it actually tasted pretty good they promised to try some glocken eer heimat some day. 

                After the game was over we returned to the restaurant for the last lutz of the night and this guy that everyone knew but appeared to be mentally handicapped was sitting at our table. He was blatantly drunk and although I didn’t understand anything he was saying I could tell that everyone was starting to get a little embarrassed for him. At one point Margot jokingly punched me in the gut so I fake slapped her in the face and the guy suddenly jumped up and started yelling at me, probably teaching me about how to properly treat a lady. While I was caught in the line of fire Margot was off to the side laughing her ass off and the rest of the night the guy kept eyeing me and signaling that slapping was bad. As we were leaving the restaurant he wanted to ask me just one last thing and said an incomprehensible word in Swiss German, which I responded with a blank stare. Finally Max told me to repeat the word and so I said, “Chuchichaschtli.” The guy’s eyes opened and he grasped my hand, suddenly we were best friends and I ended up struggling to get away from the guy to leave the restaurant. I learned from Max later that the word I had said simply meant ‘kitchen cupboard’ but that it was a Swiss word that was notorious for giving foreigners a hard time to pronounce. And since I’m useless when it comes to foreign words it’s even more of a wonder that I somehow pronounced it correctly. 

After we left the restaurant we drove back home to Max’s place in Galmiz and Remo taught me about the local Football team. As it turns out, Remo is more of a football fan than a hockey fan and his favorite team is called the Young Boys. And to make matters worse, the stadium in which they play is called Wankerdorf. He laughed while saying that, “well the Brits really have a good time when they come to play the Young Boys at Wankerdorf.” After having a good laugh Remo and Michèle  left and we all went to bed.

The following morning we got up and went into Bern. After walking through the Saturday market we went to the Münster Cathedral again, this time getting an audio tour. During this tour I learned that construction on the huge Cathedral started in 1421 and that it was considered part of the renovation that the city was experiencing after the 1405 fire. During this time only two-thirds of the modern building was actually constructed.  The last third, which was mostly the spire, was built later in the 18^th century. I saw the amazing stained glass that occupied the windows all along the nave. One even told this weird story about the everyday dance with death. In a corner of the church was a marvelous sculpture of Jesus with the mother Mary which was surrounded by six huge plaques with the names of all the people from Bern that had died during the French invasion. Outside I was introduced to the amazing main portal which was covered with reliefs and sculpture work depicting the Last Judgment. The entire archway was designed so that the left was good and the right was bad. Even down to the last detail was this so, the grapevines grew on the left side and shriveled up on the right. On the right the people were all naked and being sent into damnation while on the left they were clothed and being sent to heaven. It was also highly controversial when the Munster was completed that the portal depicted kings not only being good and on the left but also as being bad on the right. As I continued on around the outside of the church I discovered the amazing gargoyles that lined the roof of the Cathedral and eventually came upon the fountain in front of the Cathedral which sported a statue of Moses in the middle who was pointing to the second commandment in his bible. Moses is doing this because during the Protestant Reformation during the 16^th century they destroyed a lot of statues and art work that had once decorated the Cathedral. They reasoned that these works were destroyed because the second commandment stated that it was forbidden to create anything depicting heaven or Jesus. Years after the Reformation they found many of these beautiful old statues buried in the courtyard.

After our tour we went to the Munster courtyard where a market was set up and ran into Max while waiting in line for some bratwurst. After we had consumed our deer meat suasage and a glass of gluhwein, which is mulled wine, we ventured across town to the Christmas market.

 After strolling through the outdoor Christmas market we enjoyed another mug of gluhwein and then set off on a Christmas present hunt that ended somewhat successfully. After doing a little more souvenir shopping and seeing even more of the city, Max finally drove our frigid bodies back to his house.

After relaxing inside for a while we went outside to have a little block party with everyone who was renting a space in the house that Max was living in. They lit up two Finnish candles, which is just a stump sliced into six pieces, and we enjoyed some Christmas cookies and wine while introducing ourselves and warming our bodies against the heat of the fires.

 After this we went upstairs for our dinner of beef, salad and horse meat. The horse meat was delicious and I found it ironic when Max informed me that we were actually eating American horses slaughtered in Mexico. Since we can’t have any horse slaughterhouses in America the animals are sent down below to get cut up, and since we have no demand for horse meat in America they sent it overseas to countries where there is demand, like in Switzerland. Although I still prefer a good steak I thought it was really good meat. 

After dinner Michèle and Remo came over and we went out to the BB Bar in Murten, one town over. Here we met two friends of Remo and Michèle’s, Adrian and his girlfriend Yasmine. After a couple drinks we went back to Max’s place where Margot and I said good-bye to Remo and Michèle. After promising to re-visit and them promising to visit Colorado we waved good bye and went upstairs to bed. 

We woke up the next day and Max drove us to the Bern train station where we had our last cup of coffee in Switzerland before saying good-bye and thank you to Max. Then Max plopped us onto a train and we began a fifteen hour travel day all the way to Barcelona, Spain.