switzerland (3)

Lausanne is a hilly city on the north shores of Lake Geneva, in the French speaking southwest of the country. It’s home to the International Olympic Committee headquarters, as well as the Olympic Museum and lakeshore Olympic Park. A grand cathedral in a busy old town district, and a street musical festival we bumped into whose charismatic singer and rappy but melodial singing still play back in my mind.  

Bern, the capital of Swiss Confederation, is a modest, everything-within-walking-distance town. It has an "Einstein Museum" (Einstein lived in Bern for seven years, 1902-1909, while working for the Swiss patent office) that not only details the life and stories of Einstein and his times, but teaches you easy-to-understand Special Relativity Theory in ten minutes.

Geneva is another shore city, sitting at the southwestern end of its namesake lake, bordering France, from where John Calvin, a giant of the Reformation Movement, escaped to preach in the city for 28 years before he died. A "Reformation Wall" built on the old fortification walls of the city, depicting key Calvinist and other Protestant figures, represents the significant roles these people and the city played for the success of the Reformation Movement nearly half a millennium years ago.

We took a side tour out of Switzerland to Strasbourg, France for two days before the end of our three-week trip. Strasbourg is a border city in northeastern France across the Rhine River from Germany. It's been historically a contested territory between the two countries for hundreds of years but is now the peaceful seat of the European Union Parliament.

It's also a charming tourist town with a 600-year-old cathedral and a river/canal surrounded old town.

And six Michelin one-star restaurants, one of them we visited.