Greetings from Switzerland! We have now been here for over twenty-four hours, had a good night's sleep, and are ready to get organized. We're going to be using this blog for students to make comments on our readings and excursions, write their impressions, and post their photos. This will be a mixture of personal postings for family and friends and more academic postings for the course: short essays on Wordsworth and Byron, the sublime, the idea of Freedom in the Alps, etc. Together we will create a documentary of our three weeks in the Alps.

Our journey began yesterday with an early morning drive from Bowling Green to Nashville, a flight to Newark, and then the overnight flight to Geneva. With our Swiss rail passes we boarded the train in Geneva, which departs from under the airport, and traveled directly to Bex. From there we took a smaller train up the mountain to Gryon, and then walked to Chalet Martin, the hostel that will be our home for the next three weeks.

This picture shows me and my wife Libby at the Continental counter in Newark, waiting to board the flight to Geneva.