2008 started with a visit to Basel for the Fasnacht celebrations. Often known in Basel as "the three wonderful days" Basler Fasnacht is the most important date in the Basel festival calendar and one of the most popular celebrations in Switzerland. Indulging ourselves in Switzerlands tradition of Fasnacht celebrations, we also went to Liestal for Chienbäse in which a procession of fire is held in the Old Town of the city.

Over the years (since well before this site ever went online) I've travelled to most of the major tourist destinations of Switzerland. It was, therefore, a most pleasant experience to head out to the Kartause Ittingen - a former Carthusian Charterhouse in near Frauenfeld in Canton Thurgau. I don't think that the Charterhouse is especially well known outside Switzerland and we only found out about it recently.

Our first trip outside Switzerland was to Ladbergen and Münster in North-Rhine Westfalia in Germany. We'd never been to either place before so it was quite nice to start off with somewhere new. We had some personal business to attend to in Ladbergen, which is a smallish affair but played a role during The Thirty Years War when many troops were stationed there. We were informed that many of the houses with wooden beams on the exteriors were present during this period and were used to house troops and horses. We spent overnight in Múnster which also played a critical role and one of the two treaties which together are known as the Peace of Westphalia which ended The Thirty Years War was signed here - the two treaties are known as The Treaty of Münster and The Treaty of Osnabruck, Osnabruck being close by.

We made our first trip of the year to Brussels in March. We flew into Brussels airport on the Saturday morning and spent half a day in Brussels itself before heading down to Luxembourg. I'd not been to Luxembourg for the thick end of 20 years, so was kinda looking forward to spending a bit of time there. I had remembered Luxembourg as being a small city and, in that at least, my memories were confirmed. Sadly, the weather didn't play ball and we spent the Sunday darting in and out of the rain which, literally, put a bit of a dampner on proceedings. We had planned to head to Brussels again this year but events got in the way so this was our only visit to either Belgium or Luxembourg this year.

Over the Easter weekend, we visited Milan, Turin and La Venaria Reale. We found out about an exhbition about the House of Savoy the Palazzo in the print edition of the Financial Times which provided the impetus for the whole trip. We'd never been to Turin or La Venaria Reale before so a long weekend with an exhibition on was a good oppurtunity to visit. We later also found out that some of the works of Canova would be exhibited at the Palazzo Reale in Milan as part of a cultural exchange with the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg which is one reason why we decided to stop overnight in Milan - apart from it being handily half-wayish and en-route!

In April, we made a day trip to Aproz in Canton Valais for the Cow Fights or Combat des Reines as they're known locally. This was probably one of the more unusual trips we made this year - well it was unusual for us anyway. We've never been to a cow fight before and this is nothing like the Bullfight I'd seen in Seville several years ago. It was much, much more sedate. The cows naturally fight each other for supremacy in the herd and to establish the social order. The don't need encouraging - some prick each other, others lock horns while yet more simply eyeball each other and one simply submits. Either way, it's a rivetting day out for city boys wondering if testosterone is a financial-services only thing. (BTW, it isn't.)

Over the summer, we went to Italy for a week. Our trip included a day in Milan for the second time this year. We spent a couple of days in Florence which included a most enjoyable meal at the Osteria Caffe Italiano. No trip to Florence is complete without a visit to the Duomo and Bapistry - both of which are splendid pieces of Renaissance architecture. We also made our first trip to Pisa to see the world famous UNESCO listed Leaning Tower of Pisa. Several days in Rome is always a welcome experience and this trip was no exception. We revisited the Vatican Museums which are hugely impressive and an absolute must see - especially if this is your first visit to Rome as they include the ornate Raphael Rooms and the world famous Sistine Chapel. A trip through Italy is always enjoyable and this was certainly a highlight of the year. An excellent line of historical monuments, most UNESCO listed, good food, better wine, even better joie-de-vivre all join into this smelting pot to give us the great thing we now know as "Italy." Irreplacable.

The weekend trip to the Dachau concentration camp and to the Bavarian town of Füssen was a fairly schizophrenic affair. Dachau, I found, was a throughly emotional affair for all the wrong reasons of history which I don't want to dwell on here on these pages. Füssen, on the other hand, the following day, no less, was a much more joyful affair with a splendid old town, an enjoyable lunch, a beautiful castle with splendid views over the old town and an unexpected medieval festival to boot. To be honest, I'm not sure I would have designed a trip like this from scratch - but after the traumas of Dachau, a visit to a beautiful old town we'd visited some years ago, and to stumble across a medieval festival was just the fillip an otherwise depressed person needed.

Our day trip to Ulm was a fairly last minute affair and one which came about as the Ulmer Münster shares the same master mason as the Bernese Münster - a building of which I am enormous fan. The Cathedral lacks the austerity of many other Gothic constructions and is a splendid example of the German-Gothic style of architecture and boasts the worlds tallest spire at a whopping 161 meters in height! The Münster does, however, boast the pointed arching and ribbing typical of the Gothic style and wonderful fresco before the choir.

If one trip to Italy per year isn't enough, we felt compelling to make another visit to Rome for a weekend. This time to see the "Casa Augusto" - the House of Augustus - on the Palatine Hill of Rome. Which was an absolute joy. That it was possible at all to restore the frescoes of this 2,000 year old monument is remarkable, let alone ensure that it is safe enough for the public to enter.

For our penumlimate trip of the year, we had a driving weekend to Salzburg. We stopped in Bregenz en route in atrocious weather and were pleased to find the comfortable Hotel Weisses Kreuz, right off the street, which also had a very enjoyable restaurant with a selection of splendid Austrian wines. Salzburg is one of the most beautiful and, consequently, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. And justifiably so. The Old Town and the views from the mountain-top castle are the stuff picture-postcards are made of. Sadly, this also means it's straight-forward to encounter a "Leicester Sqaure Experience" - but at least it'll be in somewhere beautiful.

For the final trip of the year we headed up to the Alsatian town of Strasbourg for the Christmas market which, I'm totally honest, was something of a disappointment. The town itself was beautiful, the Cathedral in particular, and a joy to walk around. But for all the huff-and-puff of the Frenchies about fresh, local produce being available at the multitude of markets they offer - we found pitifully small amounts of it here. We were informed that we likely missed the main chunk of the market - but we couldn't find it even with the numerous signs. Given the tat-to-local ratio of the market we did see, one wonders how much tat they needed to fill the rest that bit.

Related posts

• 2010 - travel plans for the year
• 2009 - travel picks of the year
• 2009 - in retrospect
• 2009 - a preview
• 2008 - a preview
• 2007 - in retrospect
• 2006 - in retrospect