Prepare yourselves, Blogonauts! We are off again! Once more the five motley wanderers are re-convening in Europe. This time we will explore some of the marvels of Italy ... from its ruinous archaeological Roman left-overs to the delicious gastronomical Italian goodies ... all of which are scattered profusely throughout the shin country of Italy's boot. Get it? Shin country? Look at a map of Italy. It is shaped like Nancy Sinatra's or Tina Turner's boot. Now, i...

I have not forgotten my commitment to completing this blog. However, a couple of days after I returned from Switzerland, my desktop computer, in a sputtering, noisy escapade mimicking Mimi's death scene, bid adieu to this world. Recovery from that frustrating (and expensive) experience distracted me temporarily. But now that the photos and files are safely loaded onto the new computer, I can return to telling the tales of the trip. And so... On occasion, Switzer...

(Although this blog entry is decidedly late, I urge you to submit yourselves to the convenient fiction that it is written while having just arrived at Appenzell, after we spent 2 days of driving though the Alps.) The long-established unity of Switzerland is an amazing accomplishment, particularly in the face of its geography. Using today's technology, getting from place to place over the massive mountains is relatively eas. But pre-industrial journeys, whether on...

Part of our American mythology is that we are all, at heart, frontiersmen. We idolize the independent, isolated pioneers who entered the wilderness alone. They faced the untamed landscape with nothing more than their courage and ingenuity. And our national narrative, told through text, art, and film (and perhaps the Republican national platform), describes how they emerged victorious, or perished trying. Whenever we take a walk in the mountains, Americans rejo...

Switzerland is known for many things. For example, there are Swiss chocolate, Swiss cheese, and Swiss clocks. But Switzerland offers at least one commodity that cannot be managed by the export market: The Swiss Alps. On Sunday afternoon, via increasingly narrow-gauged railways, we made our way from Bern into the Berner Oberland. It is a region of alpine splendor dotted with small towns and minuscule villages that cater to skiers, trekkers, and glacier-gawkers ali...