Mom called me last fall and asked if I wanted to go to Europe with her, she was buying. Okay. Mom and I travel a lot differently so we don’t travel together much. She’s 88 and likes the comforts of group travel. I avoid it like the plague, so my first thoughts of traveling with a bunch of over-fed, clueless Americans (excluding my mom, of course) wasn’t my idea of a good time. It was, however, a part of Europe that I hadn’t seen and this could be a good chance to do some recon for future trips. Not to mention that with the dollar in the toilet, european travel is almost cost prohibitive….at least for me it is.

So last week we were off to Milan, Italy, our first of many stops on a whirlwind tour of Switzerland, eastern France, Germany and the Netherlands. All in 10 days.

 Milan Airport

Let’s face it, there are no ugly Italians. It must be against the law or something. I hadn’t been in Milan more than 10 minutes and I’d already fallen in love three times. Two baggage handlers and a cleaning woman. After the group of 60 had been rounded up from various flights we were off to Zermatt by bus.

Switzerland

I was completely loopy from the flight but I didn’t want to miss the ride through northern Italy into Switzerland. What I had heard and imagined couldn’t hold a candle to the reality of the Swiss/Italian Alps. Adjectives haven’t been invented yet to describe the dramatic relief of the Swiss Alps. Zermatt lies in a small valley at 5,000 feet. The Matterhorn in all her glory rises up to over 13,000 straight up from town. Awe inspiring is an understatement. We took a cog railway up to 11,000 to the top of the Gornergrat, a peak that looks out over the Italian/Swiss border and some of the highest peaks around. I had an option to hike back to town. 6,000 feet down in 10 miles. It took me about 3 and half hours. Where’s my bike when I need it? The next day we took a train through the central Alps to Andermatt, another small mountain town that could be a european mirror of Crested Butte. Another bus ride dropped us into Luzern. Luzern is a very livable city of 60,000 people on the shore of one of the biggest lakes in Switzerland. As with a lot of european towns, Luzern’s history goes back thousands of years; and it shows. What we weren’t prepared for was over 200,000 yodelers who were in town for the Yodelerfest. Every five years every yodeler from Italy to Norway crawls out of their Alpenhorns and parties like rock stars. We pulled into the middle of it. My only thoughts of yodeling were from saturday morning cartoons and Ricolah commercials. It’s not even close. Operatic is a closer description. Incredibly beautiful is more the reality. The sounds coming across the lake to our hotel sounded like every angel in heaven had descended on us. What a treat.

Another day, another bus. We toured out of the mountains past the Jungfrau and the Eiger into the port town of Basel where we loaded onto the river boat for our tour down the Rhine river.

France

Strasbourg was our first port of call. A French town that has also been German in its past, Strasbourg lies an easy swimming distance across the Rhine from Germany. The history of the town closely resembles what Beruit or the Gaza strip are today. But today, Strasbourg is the new center of the European Union and probably my favorite European town that I’ve visited to date. Bike paths everywhere, history that dates back 4,000 years to the Romans, laid back and hip. I’ll be back.

Der Rhineland

The Rhine leaves the border of France just past Strasbourg and heads into Germany and the Black Forest. I have never felt compelled to visit Germany. It always seemed to be too industrial and unimaginative. For the most part, I was right, but the views from the Rhine were beautifully forested and the towns quaint. We stopped in Rudesheim, Heidelburg and Cologne. All old and all pretty touristy.

Amsterdam

As the Rhine leaves Germany and enters The Netherlands, it becomes the Waahl River and turns pretty industrialized. We motored all night from Cologne and arrived in Amsterdam at 5 am. By 11 am we were on the plane to Philadelphia………..Pennsylvania. It was a whirlwind but I found some special places to return to and explore……..thanks mom.