SWITZERLAND

The first that comes to my mind with Switzerland is nature, green, mountains, cleanness… even the cities don’t look like cities.

This is the first country that we had to exchange money, or get local money from the bank machine; to avoid commissions it is better to get the entire amount to spend in the country. In this case it was 100 Swiss Francs (60 €) but in our second they, as we said, with the money of the train to Zermatt and the food for the trek, we had just 19 Swiss Francs (11 €) and fortunately we were able to cross this expensive country in 10 days with this money in our pocket.

After travel in Valais province, we went straight to the capital Bern, hitchhike it’s perfect, in two hours we covered the distance of 160km. We didn’t realize when we arrived to the center of the city, we expected the classic city full of buildings, but no; here it seems like we are out of the city in a residential area. The historical centre is almost surrounded by the big curve that the river Aare makes.
The cathedral or the Clock Tower, are nice places to visit; and the streets, most of them with underground entries to shops and restaurants.

We felt a lot of cultural and architectonic changes. Is said that the people here is cold, perhaps, but the people that we meet through HC and CS, are open people and with interest about to know about us and our travel.
We saw that the people care a lot of the body, they use to have biologic food, nothing is messy in the houses; there is no comparison between the students flat where we stay before, with the Swiss student flats…

We went to the center of the country to a nice city at the shore of a lake, surrounded of mountains; Luzern.
We were very comfortable at Tobias house with his flat mates; we stay there for three days. In the small historical centre there is not much to distinguish; there is a big wall with towers and in one of them there is an old clock, which is working with gears and pulleys; and the “Hurt Lion” which is carved on the rock wall of a small hill.
Really the most beautiful is the settlement of the city.

When we were trustful of the weather, and enjoying the “summer”, the cold catch us again, the temperature fell down to 9ºC, with rain and snow on the nearby picks. With this weather we arrived to Zürich, the largest city of Switzerland, where we were “living” in a community in the suburbs, in an industrial area. It was like a big old building where each of the 13 people living there, have made their own living space; a part from a common kitchen and recreation room. It was an interesting experience to meet this community.

Zürich is the business city in Switzerland, the city center is similar to what we saw before in other Swiss cities, and like Luzern is located near a lake.

We continue traveling by hitchhiking far to the last big city on the east, St. Gallen to leave definitely the country; it was very nice the Cathedral which is protected by UNESCO; but the best was the company of Corinne and Christina of CS; they brought us in the night to a hill with beautiful views of the city, and also with the company of some local beer…

THE ALPS

The arrival to Switzerland was very expensive, and soon we realize that we have to travel as much cheaper as possible in this expensive country. On the other side, finally we travel again by hitchhike, meeting new and interesting people. All the way to Sion it was a constant visual spectacle, we run all the time near the Rhone River, which we already saw it near of its estuary in France. The valley is huge and all the mountains that surrounded us are between the 2.500 meters and almost 4.000 meters; we feel so small here.
In Sion is waiting us Miriam, a Swiss-German girl who speaks perfect Mexican Spanish; we just arrive to her house, and she brought us for a walk by a trail between vineyards from where we could see the whole town with its church and castle settle on its two hills.


Improvising like always we do, we changed our plan to stay here some days more, and to do a trek at the Swiss Alps. Thanks to Miriam we could made possible leaving part of our staff at her house in Sion, and go the mountains with light backpacks. But before that, Miriam brought us for a relaxing day, to a nearby lake where we went by hitchhike the three together. The lake was a real paradise, but…Where there is not a paradise here?


Our main objective is trek around the base of the highest picks, and one specially, the Cervino Mount, known here as the Matterhorn (4.478 meters) To do it, we had to go to Zermatt, a much protected town with, where is restricted the access to motor vehicles. Practically everybody use battery vehicles. Zermatt is highly prepared for tourism, especially Japanese; in the town all the signals are written in German and Japanese.
We were very lucky with the weather, we just arrive and we went to take a look of the great mountain scenery with the glaciers.


The first day we walked to Findeln where we had a nice view of the mountains; here we also found a hut that we used to spend the night.
The weather is still good and the next day was perfect to walk to the Cervino base. The ascent is quite hard, but our legs didn’t feel it because of the beauty nature all around.
Despite of the massive tourism, now is low season and the people don’t walk up, all the way we were completely alone; but the snow stops us around the 3.000 meters, and we couldn’t arrive to the base because we had not appropriate equipment. There are no words to say how beautiful is this place; so here are some pictures, or better, I animate you to come this place.


Despite of the sheep, there is a shy animal that accompany us during all the time, and always hidden on our way; the marmot.

We left the place with pain, although we go back Sion, where beautiful places are waiting us.

THE LAST DAYS BY THE BOOT

Sadly we left Rome with a train to Assisi, to hitchhike in Italy sometimes is difficult; we were thinking how lucky we were at the beginning in Italy; the last days, we spent many hours on the road, and nothing…

Assisi was known thanks to the monk San Francisco de Assisi; here is his monastery and the Basilica which keeps his grave.
Assisi is a small medieval village on the top of a hill; it also has, like many cities in Italy, a lot of churches and a big castle guarding the village on the highest point.

Near Assisi it is Perugia, we were lucky and we arrived by hitchhike with a monk of San Francisco. Perugia is similar Assisi, but bigger and more modern, there are some nice places like the San Pietro church o the Comun square. Part of the city is still walled with big gates to access it. Thanks to Katiusa of HC we could know well all the city.

In Toscana we just visited two cities, the first one, Firenze, disappoint us a little, but it’s probably because always hearing about Firenze and we will expect more. Anyway there are such a beautiful places, like the Duomo, the Pitti Palace and the David. A part of that we brought with us the memories of Patrizia and her family with their special life style, like a “hippie family”

The other city of Toscana is Pisa, a world know city for its inclined tower, such a big business that the people make with the tower… The most important is on the main square, where the Duomo and its tower are. The tower was build well, the problem was the floor, it wasn’t good, and then started to slope the tower, at the moment is hold by counterweight, if not it will fall down. It was impressive the slope, we never thought that it is too much.

On the way to Geneva we across beautiful mountainous places near La Specia; we didn’t stop in the villages of Cinque Terra, although the people told us is nice place, anyway the seashore here is similar to ours in Cantabria.

Geneva is so long city which is extend by the seashore, its centre is all heaped because between the mountains and the sea there is a little space. Something curious in this city is that the monuments have not been respected, many of them were overthrow to build new houses; and which are still there, are not good preserved.

We left Italy by the north side passing through the high picks of Alps; the last night in this country we spent it near a river in Domodossola, between a really beautiful paradise of mountains and green valleys.

Following there is an Italy map with our way, which totally defer of the original one.

ROME

The capital city left us a good feeling; three days are few for Rome, but we have used them very intensive.
The same day that we arrived, at the beginning we were going to Aldo house, our friend of Couchsurfing, but we couldn’t resist the temptation of walk through Rome, and crossing the park of Oppio we had in front of us the view of the Coliseum, the mythic place where the gladiators fought; but now there is no sand in the centre, in its place it is seen the underground galleries from where they conduct the wild beast and brought them up with a pulley system.


What we saw during the 3 days was the most popular places, there were no more time…The sacred way connects the Coliseum with the roman Foro, where there are plenty ruins of roman architecture.


Following is the Campidoglio and Venecia square; there are ruins in the entire city we can spend weeks here. Other places that we saw were the Popolo square, the Spanish square, the Trevi Fountain and the amazing Pantheon.


Crossing the river beside the justice palace, there is the castle S. Angelo converted in an art museum.


Returning to the most interesting places, near by the Coliseum, there is the Massimo Circus; in which there is nothing now, just the memory of the racing of the carriage pulling by horses.
Of course in Rome there are dozens and dozens of churches, even the small ones are beautiful inside.
We went for a walk to the Vatican City, with the impressive Basilica of San Pedro, and where the security is maximum.


But the best of the Vatican City are the museums…that’s incredible what they have there. Halls full of sculpture, the Egyptian museum, Etruscan… We pass through halls and halls full of paints showing passage of the history or inventions of the author. A famous painter who made a lot of works here, was Rafaello. And finally we arrive to the expected Sistine Chapel with the great work of Michelangelo. In the picture it is seen a detail of the ceiling; we had to “steal” the picture, for that the bad quality…

FROM THE ADRIATIC TO THE TIRRENO

We continuo by the coast, and around Pescara we entered again inland to the Apeninos mountains, arriving to L’Aquila a mountain city on the foothill of the Gran Sasso, the highest picks of the Apeninos, being its highest mountain the Cuerno Grande (2.912 m) which we could see between the clouds.

Thanks to Roberto we visited the small villages on the mountains, starting by Santo Stefano de Sessenia; all its houses are made with stone, the streets are narrow and with stone pavement.

We pass through Castel del Monte, and we went up to an abandoned village on the top of the mountain, Calassio; although the houses are destroyed, the castle is intact. This point was very important for its strategic place, where the people could control kilometers of distance in 360 degrees.

In L’Aquila there are many beautiful places to see like the Duomo; there is also the Basilica of Santa Maria de Callemaggio; the fountain of the 99 tubes, all the tubes with a different carving in stone; and the Spanish fort belonged to the Hapsburg.

One more time the rain came with us all the way to the other coast of the country; and before to arrive to the expected Napoli, known for its beauty and thieves… we stopped in Caserta. Here a part of the Reggia Vanvitelliana, the best was the night that we spent with Luigi and his friends. Besides the changes from the north Italy and south are abysmal, now we feel that the people are warmer.

To arrive to Napoli we did by train, practically from Napoli to Caserta are cities and hitchhike is impossible.
Our first impression of Napoli is the total chaos, we saw a big strike for the 1st of May where a truck went with music and boards and at the same time different guys where painting the shop windows of banks and shops with sprays.

We never could imagine a city like this in Italy, we had even memories from India! although so, so it isn’t… The night that we arrived, Giovanni and Romina of HC brought us to see the city, and we were so impressive; the traffic lights are not used, usually 3 people are going by motorbike, and of course nobody use the helmet, because in Napoli if you use the helmet you are suspicious and the police stops you, as the killers of the mafia they use helmet when they do their “works”. Even the children with 10 years old drive motorbikes very fast.
Somebody told us that in Napoli somebody made white T-shirts with a black line painted imitating the sit belt of the car… Here everything is possible!
Also it has bad thing like there are a lot of stealing, many people armed, and the same night that we went with our friends, 3 girls by motorbike tried to steal the bag of Romina.

Giovanni and Romina are a lovely couple, very friendly and caring; they only speak Italian, for that we are learning a lot of the language.

Napoli has a lot of history and so many places to visit, for example the “underground Napoli” an old city underground, where there are water canals, built since the IV century B.C. and this canals also were very important during the war as a refuge.
The chambers and canals which are 40 meter under the city, were discovered after the settlement of Napoli city.
The botanic garden is also nice place; the people here say is one of the best in Europe, although in all the cities people say the same… Sincerely it’s very beautiful and it has species from the whole world.

The downtown is formed by long and narrow streets, full of cheap food shops; and here we found a church with a crypt in its exterior with two skulls on both sides. Once in this place were made the blood vow of the mafia, although at the present flowers that carry the people, can be seen…

Near the port there is the New Castle; during the metro line construction, people found more ruins; and the Royal Palace beside the Plesbicito square.

I cannot speak about Napoli, and don’t say anything about the Pizza, the most traditional food of the city, here they make it homemade, and in some places they use the real mozzarella of buffalo milk.
Something very important for the Italians, but specially Neapolitans is the coffee. It’s a ritual, before have it, they wash the mouth with a glass of water to obtain all the test of the coffee.

Already in Napoli, we couldn’t miss the mythic Pompeii; for start, a little bit of history:

The oldest ruins of the civilization date from the end of 7th century BC to the first half of 6th century BC. It reached to the maximum splendor on the year 80 BC when it was join as a roman colony. An earthquake on the AD 62, devastated all Pompeii; although they started immediately to rebuild the city, 17 years later, on the AD 79 when even the city was still rebuilding, the Volcano Vesuvius had an unpredictable eruption which buried Pompeii under a river of lava and ash. Since this moment the city was forgotten and was rediscovered on 16th century. In 1.748 started the excavations, which continuo to 19th century and to the present times.

In Pompeii is possible to find between the ruins shops and places like in our actual life, for example markets, bars, roads with stone pavement… But the best for describe it are the photos that we put following:

The Basilica, place where it was administrated the justice and made economic negotiations.


The Foro, a big square where there were colonnade around, markets, latrines… On the background it’s seen the Volcano Vesuvius which buried the city.

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In Pompey, it could recuperate many bodies thanks to an old technique. The corpses under the ash left a space when it was putrefy, and where only remains the skeleton. Putting plaster in this space they could get the mold.

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Here is María cooking bread in the bakery.

Besides of ruins it have remained plenty of paints, most of them surprisingly intact; in the picture it’s seen two of the official brothel of the city, and another of the Mysterious Village.



There were a street with a couple of bars and restaurants, this is one of them.

There are also places for the free time like the big theater, and the amphitheater.

And on the end of the entry, a picture of “dondeandanestos” in one of the exit of Pompeii in the Herculano gate.