What do Protestants and the printing press have in common? Martin Luther! This semester, I learned about the Reformation and how the Gutenberg press affected the Protestant Reformation. Because the press allowed the written word to be mass-produced, ideas could spread faster. Luther’s sermons and theology spread like wildfire because they could be printed. Later, he translated the Bible from Latin into German, empowering the ordinary person to read scripture. As part of our class, we had the opportunity to travel to Germany and Switzerland over spring break and see the places we learned about in person. 

 

Day 1 –  Travel day! 

I packed my backpack and carry-on and jumped in the car to pick up my friend Kaitlyn Dorr from Townhomes. We were at the Greenville airport by 1 p.m. and in the air by 3:30 p.m. 

I had never been on a nine-hour flight before and wouldn’t say it was my favorite. When we landed in Germany, it felt like 2 a.m., but the time there was really 9 a.m. I tried my best to sleep on the plane, but it was more difficult than I thought. 

 

Day 2 – Frankfurt, Mainz, and Worms, Germany  

Our overnight plane landed at the airport at 9 a.m. local time. A bus picked us up and drove us through the city to our hotel. Kaitlyn and I grabbed a coffee before catching a train for Worms with the group. 

In Worms, we saw the Catholic Church where Martin Luther gave his Diet of Worms speech and began the split into Protestant and Catholic churches. 

In our class, we learned so much about how important this was to Luther’s mission and church history, but when we were there, there wasn’t much more than a plaque recognizing that this was where his speech happened. 

We caught another train back to Mainz and ate our first group dinner.  

Today, I walked a total of 6 miles through Germany! (14,000 steps) 

 

Day 3 – Mainz, Germany  

Kaitlyn and I ate breakfast in the hotel, which is slightly different from the US. There were various cold meats, cheeses, breads, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Of course, they had the assumed bacon, eggs, and yogurt, but I enjoyed the variety! 

After breakfast, we walked to the Gutenberg Museum. On our walk, I realized it was International Women’s Day because we saw so many guys walking around with flowers! 

In the Gutenberg Museum, we saw a replica of what a printing press might have looked like (because any printing presses would have been made of wood and were not preserved.) I was especially fascinated by the Gutenberg Bibles and the illuminations on them. If you were to buy a printed Bible from Gutenberg, it was only loose papers; you then had to take it to an illuminator and spend lots of money for their intricate designs, then take your illuminated papers to a bookbinder before you would have what we think of as a Bible.  

My friends Christian and Will are big soccer fans, so in our free time after the museum, we went to the Mainz stadium and walked around. We learned there was actually a soccer game happening elsewhere in town, so we took an Uber to go see It. At the game, I bought a pretzel from the concession stand, and it was the best pretzel I have ever had. I don’t understand much about soccer, but I loved the atmosphere of the game. 

We had our second group dinner tonight in a restaurant near the waterfront, and we had so much fun talking about our days and what we did in our free time. 

Today, I walked 7.2 miles through Mainz (16,600 steps), for a total of 13.2 miles through Germany.  

 

Day 4 – Eisenach and Erfurt, Germany  

We got up early this morning, packed up all our things, and headed to the train station to ride to Eisenach. When we arrived, we stored our luggage in lockers at the train station and walked into town. Mainz was a very modern town, and honestly, it was not what I was expecting when we landed in Germany. Eisenach, however, had all the traditional German architecture I had imagined. 

After a short walk, we arrived at the Luther house and explored the museum dedicated to Martin Luther and his work. Luther believed that everyone should have access to scripture, not just the church, so he worked hard to translate the Bible into an accessible language. Dr. Duncan said he could tell that the museum was curated by someone who loved Luther because it was a beautiful museum and represented him positively. 

I found a small, local restaurant for lunch that had an extensive and affordable menu. I ordered the schnitzel, a traditional German dish, which was delicious!  

After lunch, everyone met up for our hike to Wartburg Castle. We had been warned it was a steep and strenuous hike, and it absolutely was. Thankfully, the views made the exhaustion up the mountain worth it. The castle itself was also beautiful. I especially loved seeing where Luther spent so long translating the New Testament.  

Going down the mountain was much easier and faster than going up. We returned to the train station and grabbed our luggage from the lockers. At the train station, way up on a hill in the distance, we could actually see the castle where we just were! 

In Erfurt, Kaitlyn and I had the most stunning view out our window. We arrived at sunset and discovered that our giant window opened like a door. So Kaitlyn and I sat in our window sill and watched the sunset before heading to dinner. 

Today, I walked 7.6 miles (18,800 steps), for a total of 20.8 miles through Germany.  

 

Day 5 – Erfurt, Germany  

Dr. Duncan guided us on a walking tour of Erfurt, pointing out some churches, fun facts, and significant places along the way. Some people in our class didn’t make it to this, so instead, they met us at the church, and we walked inside together. 

The church was absolutely stunning. Tall windows and towers were intricately decorated and gleaming in gold detailing. While we were sitting in the church, one of my classmates dropped their phone on the floor, causing an echoing “kerthunk.” (This became a running joke for the rest of the trip.) 

I had more schnitzel for lunch today in a restaurant just outside the church. The owner of the restaurant heard we were American and came to chat with us. He did not know much English, so he communicated a lot through gestures and signs combined with the few words he knew. On the wall behind our table were dozens of framed articles and photographs of a young woman (maybe an actress or an author) who he explained was his daughter, and he was very proud of her. Despite the language barrier, we figured out how to communicate well. 

After lunch, we met a tour guide who walked us through the monastery where Martin Luther was a monk. His time as a catholic monk transformed his beliefs and, later, the church. I still can’t believe I walked the same halls and sat in the same rooms that Luther did so long ago. We don’t have many buildings as old as that monastery in America, so it was difficult to wrap my head around how old it really is. 

Our tour guide was only booked to walk us through the monastery, but because we were leaving in the same direction, he gave us a bonus leg of the tour, pointing out where Luther lived, went to school, and preached. After our tour, we had another group dinner and headed to bed before our early morning.  

Today, I walked 6.6 miles (15,200 steps), for a total of 27.4 miles through Germany.  

 

Day 6 – Berlin, Germany 

I was up early this morning, packing up my things to catch the 8 a.m. train to Berlin. This train station was much bigger than the ones we had been to before and very beautiful.  

We reached the Brandenburg Gate, one of Berlin’s famous monuments. It symbolizes Germany’s peace and unity.  

We also saw the monument to the murdered Jews and the Berlin Wall. Several times throughout the day, and especially while we visited these places remembering the holocaust, Dr. Duncan led a discussion about the importance of remembering history and finding ways to respectfully honor our past without whitewashing it.  

Kaitlyn and I were also going to checkpoint Charlie, but we stopped together to get souvenirs. Until now, we have followed Dr. Duncan on all public transportation, getting on and off where he tells us to go. As we left, he told us to take the trams to the station and meet him at the hotel, which we thought was no problem; we knew the way back. I had a map, so we were never lost, but figuring out public transportation this way was like jumping into the deep end of a pool. It took us a little while (what should have been a 20-minute ride became 2 hours), but we figured it out and safely made it back to the hotel. We missed going to checkpoint Charlie, but our friends sent us pictures! 

Dr. Privet went with us to meet everyone at dinner from the hotel, where we got a mini public transit lesson. 

Today, I walked 8.9 miles (20,200 steps, for a total of 36.3 miles through Germany.)  

 

Day 7-  Wittenberg and Berlin, Germany  

Another train this morning with an early load-out! The hotel stored our luggage while we explored the town of Wittenberg. We traveled to see the church where Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church. 

Then we trained back to Berlin to tour the Reichstag dome. This is where parliament gathers to discuss laws and meets to elect their president. The dome is glass to represent the transparency they desire in German politics and the oversight of the government by the people. I have been to DC many times and visited our capital buildings, so it was fascinating to see how German government buildings differ from ours. 

Afterward, we had several hours of free time in Berlin. Kaitlyn and I walked around looking in stores and shopping. We walked around the Berlin Plaza and saw another landmark, the Berlin TV tower. 

We ate dinner together before collecting our luggage from the hotel and boarding our overnight train. This train will take you from Berlin to Zurich. Many of us stayed up playing cards in one of the empty train cars and chatting with Samim, the man servicing our train car. 

Today, I walked 8.7 miles (20,000 steps), making a total of 45 miles through Germany. (That’s almost 800 football fields!) 

 

Day 8 – Trains in Switzerland   

I woke up this morning to a knock on our room door, it was Samim with our breakfast! I sat in bed, eating my bread and yogurt while looking out the window at the rolling hills of Switzerland. Little did I know most of my day would be spent sitting on a train looking out the window. We had two additional trains before we traveled to Geneva through the Swiss Alps. We had time for lunch at one of our stops, and Kaitlyn and I got delicious chicken nuggets from a local restaurant. On the way back to the station I saw the cutest cat! I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains so I’m used to beautiful mountain views, but the Alps were so much taller and grander it was hard to look away. We were on our own for dinner, so a small group went to a restaurant nearby. There is not much to say about today, but I saw so much! 

 

Day 9 – Haute-Savoie, France 🇫🇷 and Geneva, Switzerland 

Our bus this morning took us to the border between Switzerland and France. Since they have open border with each other, we walked across to take a cable car up Mont Salève in France, overlooking Geneva. This is likely where Calvin spent time overlooking the city.  

Then we walked to the Reformation Wall where John Calvin, William Farel, Théodore de Bèze and John Knox are represented on the monument. As we walked through the city Dr. Duncan showed us several places of significance such as the church where Calvin worshiped and served.  

After those tours, we had free time for the rest of the day. A small group of us walked around the heart of Geneva’s shopping district. We saw so many designer brands and fancy watches which joke of us could afford but all enjoyed looking at.  

Later that evening we went to a steakhouse where they fired the steak in front of you, it was very impressive. 

Today I walked 10.3 miles (22,700 steps), making a total of 13.5 miles walked through Switzerland.  

 

Day 10 – Geneva, Switzerland 

We slept in a bit today to begin resetting our internal clocks for our trip home tomorrow. Once we left the hotel we went to the post office to mail off the postcards we had written for our family and friends. Despite being a foreign country, we figured out the post office pretty easily.  

The watch museum was fascinating, and we spent a while inside exploring. I don’t know much about watches, but I could tell that these watches were complicated and intricate to make. There were so many unusual shapes and designs. Some watches were inside a broach or necklace pendant while others were giant pocket watches, I loved seeing all the different styles and shapes. 

Once we finished with the watch museum we visited several chocolate shops, checking off my two main boxes for visiting Switzerland (watches and chocolate!) 

Most of us ate dinner together at a restaurant near the hotel because that evening we gave our travel experience presentations. In front of the group, we had to talk about what was different or surprising to us about our trip and what we deepened our understanding of our course material and other cultures. 

 

Day 11 – Travel Day 

We spent all day in the airport flying home! I am so thankful for the opportunity to study abroad. If you have an opportunity to take a study abroad class, I would absolutely recommend it!