Switzerland.

As in every spring break before I went to Switzerland in spring 2011. It was a bit more technical trip, but because engineering is on list of my interests this wasn’t so bad for me. So our main goals was to taste some Swiss chocolate, try their cheese, and visit one of the biggest science laboratories in the world.

(Day 1 28^th of April 2011)Our trip started with bus, trough Slovenia to Italy and then trough Eurotunnel to France. This was my first time traveling through tunnel from Italy to France, all the way under the massive Alps. When we came out in France on the other side, we started our way to the city where the all-known collider is – Geneva. Firstly we had a short movie that showed us history of collider, and how it operates. Then we took a short walk to Atlas, which is a detector, which measures all the parts that are formed in high speed collision. There we saw the control room, that’s stuffed with computers and different devices, which are shoving different data to scientists there.  After Atlas we went to the facility where they are testing pipes in which the parts are traveling at speed of light. Again that was a lot of interesting information. 

Our next stop was Luzern. That’s the city where spent the night. We ended first day with nice walk by the lake in Luzern. (Day 2 – 29^th of April 2011) In the morning we went to a famous ski resort – Wengen. There is only one way to go up there, and it’s by train. We took the famous European “tooth” rail that took us strait up the hill. There are some amazing views on the way up. But when you come up there you cannot believe that there is a whole town standing. The rail road goes even higher, all the way to Juhgfraujoch (3454m / 11333ft). This makes it the highest railroad in Europe.  Later that day we also visited Bern, the capital of Switzerland. We took a look of their famous bears, some city infrastructure, and a house of Albert Einstein. I touched his working desk; some say that touching it makes you understand physics and math more, so let’s hope it works. After Bern, we took a bus back to Luzern, to spend another night in a hostel. On our way there we also stopped in an old cheese factory and tried some of original Swiss cheese.

Day 3 (30^th of April 2011). It was all the same in the morning, after a nice Swiss breakfast, we took a bus, only this time our destination was Zürich. The biggest and I think also most important city for Switzerland. In Zürich we had a lot of site seeing, we took a short walk by the river and then we went up the hill to a small park, where there was a beautiful panorama of the city. After that we went to the city train station, where we got an hour of free time. Everybody spent it differently, to be honest I used that time to grab a beer with friends, since it was legal there to order a beer if you are 16. So after that we again retuned to the Luzern and had a city tour. So I finally got to know the city I was living in it for 3 days. The biggest impression on me certainly did the old wooden bridge.

(Day 4 – 1^st of May 2011) And there it was, the day of returning home, on our way through the Alps we stopped in a chocolate factory and in Lugano, another city near to Italian border. After that it was just straight to my bed.

Mostar, Sarajevo

Famous bridge in Mostar

So my traveling in 2011 continued in March. It was a school trip to Bosnia. More accurately to Mostar and Sarajevo. The path took us through Croatia to Bosnia, where we firs stopped in Međugorje. That’s a small town in Bosnia where they believe Virgin Mary revealed itself. So many Christian believers make pilgrimages there. After that we visited a city Mostar. It’s famous by its large bridge over the river Neretva, and by the divers that are jumping from that bridge to the water. This place survived allot of wars between nations that lived there in past, so it has many consequences of the war. Crashed buildings are very easy to find there. After Mostar we went to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. We arrived there in late afternoon so we only did a quick bus tour around the city before checking in in the hotel.

Visit to the Bosnian house.

In the morning we went to see the tunnels that were built during the war in nineties. Trough that tunnel they smuggled food and weapons to the city, because it was totally surrounded by Serbian soldiers. After that we went in to the center of the city, where we visited typical Bosnian house, a mosque, and a store with traditional Balkan food called Čevapčiči. We have that food in Slovenia to, but it’s just not as good as it’s there.

That was pretty much everything, because the trip was only two days long with bus drives included, but even if it was short, I again enjoyed traveling on Balkan.