Europe

I've now traveled 3,075 miles or for my European friends 4098 Km or the cross country distance of the United states from Jupiter, Florida to Ocean Creek, Washington. All by rail so far starting in Paris and now in I'm in Hamburg. Many miles to go as I cover eastern Europe. I think it is important to do Europe by rail at least once even if you can go from Berlin to London for $40 euro on Easy Jet most any time. You see things by rail you don't see by plane. I came through Switzerland to Stuttgart on a Saturday morning and watched people on their morning walks through the small towns or sitting by the river alongside the rail enjoying a beautiful early fall day. You see people living and the perfectly stacked firewood of the Swiss and Germans. You also see the names of towns and I passed a town called Rottweil and looked it up and the Rottweiler dog was named for this town having been "used to herd livestock and pull carts laden with butchered meat and other products to market." (Wikipedia). You just can't see that from a plane. You can tell the economic vitality as you enter a city by rail by how many cranes you see along the way as you entern the city. Zurich and Hamburg have thriving economies based on this measure. The most interesting thing I have seen are these small shanty towns near the smaller rail stations along the way where it appear there are small sheds and gardens. I can't tell if people live there or if they just have small gardens in these areas. The most interesting thing is I see nearly each small plot has a flag flying above the small huts on the walled off properties like but in both Switzerland and Germany I saw flags of many other nations and in particular Israeli flags in quite a few. I'm not sure how to find out more about these communites but I hope to along the way.

Pictures from the train while in Switzerland and southern Germany.Read more