I traveled through Zurich International Airport (ZRH) multiple times in the years following my June 1966 departure from Switzerland without any thought of laying over to reconnect with Switzerland. I had also passed up attending the 2000 reunion of the "Villa boys" in Fribourg.
In December of 2005 en route to spend a week in St. Anton am Alberg Austria to ski with brother Brian and family, I overnighted in Zurich. It served as an impetus to reconnect. Homeward bound after St. Anton, I decide to layover in Zurich. After a day of exploring Zurich again, I decided on a circumnavigation day trip via train to Lucerne, Interlachen, Berne and back to Zurich. That emboldend my decision the following day for a return to Fribourg.
Stepping on to the platform at "le Gare de Fribourg" after 49 years, I had a 'deja vue' moment. Not much seemed to changed. That was reinforced when I exited the train station. Except for the additon of a multiple bus lanes in front of the station, I was viewing the same postcard picture of 1966. As I walked Boulevard des Perolles toward the Villa campus, I was awe struck that many of the establishments were as they had been during my Villa years. Turning on to Rue de Botzet, my sense of time warp intensified. Excepted for the absence of the black wrought iron gates marking the entrance to the Villa as the terminus of the street, nothing had changed on this street I had walked countless times during my 4 years at the Villa. The Villa property has been sold in the early 1980's and most the original buildings demolished for the new College St. Croix campus. To my delight, the our classroom building - Gallia - and the playing fields and covered basketball pavillion remained as sentinels to original Villa campus.
I transited through Switzerland in 2009 and 2011 as support crew for my brother Brian's epic endurance in the TransAlpine Run (8 days, 150+ miles, and 50,000 ft of vertical). Day # 5 of the TAR ends in Scuol (Romash speaking in the Canton of Graududen). In 2011, our post TAR recovery included a rendezvous in Fribourg with the "Villa boys" and Father David Paul (my senior year English teacher and champion to all classes for a more liberated social life at the Villa).
Villa boys from the classes of 1964-1969 attended. We had become 'les Anciens Americains', grateful and proud of our Villa heritage.
The genesis of my decision to return to Switzerland for an extended period occured last October. Our 2 week trip ended with the final 3 days in Geneva. As we wandered the new and old quarters of the city, I recalled sweet memories of many escapades in Geneva during my Villa years. Those rekindled memories are the ignition for my adventures in the next 5 1/2 months.
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