We started out our 9-day trip in Switzerland. We stayed in Basel for 3 nights, but we hit a few different places during our stay. This part of our trip was very architecture heavy – of course, we’re always looking at architecture during any of our trips but usually the architecture has some sort of history to go along with it, and we are seeing sites that are somewhat touristy. On this trip, the architecture we saw in Switzerland and the surrounding areas was more contemporary architecture.
When we got to Basel, a colleague of our professor gave us a tour of some of the recent architecture around Basel. The next day, we took a charter bus to Ronchamp, France, where we saw the Notre Dame-du-Haut by Le Corbusier, which was really interesting to see in person. We also visited a social housing project in Mulhouse, France that afternoon. The next day, we toured the Goetheanum and Renzo Piano’s Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland. We spent the afternoon at Vitra Campus, which is in Germany but really close to the Swiss border. Vitra Campus is a furniture manufacturing and showcasing facility, but its owner is really interested in architecture and design, and so all of the buildings have been designed by really famous architects like Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Buckminster Fuller, Frank Gehry, and Herzog & de Meuron. It was really interesting to see the work of so many famous architects all in one place. When we left Basel to head to Verona, we stopped over in Lucerne, Switzerland for an hour to see the train station and the KKL building. Lucerne was so gorgeous. It is a city with a lot of water that has views of the Alps. I wish we could have stayed there a little longer.
The first part of the trip was pretty exhausting. We ended up traveling to 4 different countries in 3 days – Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy. I thought that the train rides to and from Switzerland were really beautiful. It really is a beautiful country, but I didn’t enjoy being there as much as some other countries simply because it was so expensive! We went out to eat on the first night, and ended up settling for Chinese food, which still cost about $15 a plate. At McDonalds, a happy meal was the equivalent of almost $7. I also thought it was really interesting how freely you can move between countries. When we traveled from Switzerland to Germany, we crossed over to Germany on a public bus. It’s crazy that their public transportation crosses country borders. (By the way, even though I’ve visited 8 different countries, I’ve yet to get a single stamp in my passport because you never have to go through customs over here.)
When we got to Basel, a colleague of our professor gave us a tour of some of the recent architecture around Basel. The next day, we took a charter bus to Ronchamp, France, where we saw the Notre Dame-du-Haut by Le Corbusier, which was really interesting to see in person. We also visited a social housing project in Mulhouse, France that afternoon. The next day, we toured the Goetheanum and Renzo Piano’s Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland. We spent the afternoon at Vitra Campus, which is in Germany but really close to the Swiss border. Vitra Campus is a furniture manufacturing and showcasing facility, but its owner is really interested in architecture and design, and so all of the buildings have been designed by really famous architects like Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Buckminster Fuller, Frank Gehry, and Herzog & de Meuron. It was really interesting to see the work of so many famous architects all in one place. When we left Basel to head to Verona, we stopped over in Lucerne, Switzerland for an hour to see the train station and the KKL building. Lucerne was so gorgeous. It is a city with a lot of water that has views of the Alps. I wish we could have stayed there a little longer.
The first part of the trip was pretty exhausting. We ended up traveling to 4 different countries in 3 days – Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy. I thought that the train rides to and from Switzerland were really beautiful. It really is a beautiful country, but I didn’t enjoy being there as much as some other countries simply because it was so expensive! We went out to eat on the first night, and ended up settling for Chinese food, which still cost about $15 a plate. At McDonalds, a happy meal was the equivalent of almost $7. I also thought it was really interesting how freely you can move between countries. When we traveled from Switzerland to Germany, we crossed over to Germany on a public bus. It’s crazy that their public transportation crosses country borders. (By the way, even though I’ve visited 8 different countries, I’ve yet to get a single stamp in my passport because you never have to go through customs over here.)
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