Switzerland has a fascinating and carefully cultivated history. Almost every trip leads to one or more interesting cultural and historical encounters. Small towns or villages often have a great past, be it a centuries-old sovereign republic, the smallest episcopal or abbey town or an important but small medieval fortress city. The town of Laupen (canton … Read more » “Laupen and its (Swiss) History”
Everyone in modern society is familiar with the terms second, minute, hour, day, week, month, (leap) year, decade, century, millennium, day, night and seasons. However, who knows that a year does not have exactly 365 or 366 days (a leap year) but ‘only’ 365.2425 days ( the exact duration of one orbit of the Earth … Read more » “Time keeps on ticking in the Musée international d’horlogerie de La Chaux-de-Fonds”
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) spent ten years in Basel in four periods (1514-1516, 1521-1529, 1535-1536). Like many of his contemporaries, the humanist and scholar travelled throughout Europe. The elite of artists, scholars, students, traders, monks and spiritual and secular (aristocratic) rulers was much more European in the Middle Ages than nowadays. Holbein took care of the … Read more » “Erasmus and Basel”
