Germany and Switzerland – trip to my origins – Part 1

One of the things I like to do is “create” themes for my travels.

Any theme can inspire you to take a trip! It could be an adventure trip, or passing through major European capitals or historic cities. Maybe a trip to clubs or shopping, or finally “enlightment” trip, in search of enlightenment and evolution.

Just like that book (which later became a film), Comer, To pray, Amar; where the main character, Elizabeth, sought a theme for each stop in his gap year.

[For those who don't know, in Rome she dedicated herself to Eating - without guilt!!!, in India she focused on meditation and the search for the spiritual, and in Bali he went after a sage in order to acquire knowledge and ended up finding a romance and his great love]

A few years ago I started researching my ancestors, who were the first immigrants to bring the name Berbert to Brazil, which families entered my family tree and where they came from.

Thanks to a wide range of material (due to a lot of research on the internet) on German and Swiss immigration in the region of Nova Friburgo in the Serra Fluminense (RJ), I managed to find Peter and Anna Margareth, the Germans who brought the surname Berbert to Brazil, and map all my ancestors from them. As 7 generations, and all the bonds of marriages with other families such as the Marchons, Klein Brusts and Jaccouds.

From there, I discovered where their families came from in Europe, and traced the map of my origins (of this part of the family of course!), passing through the cities and former villages of Germany and Switzerland. The result is this:

Then you saw! It became a travel theme to want to know all these places!

I set up the travel itinerary from my origins - Germany and Switzerland!

The Berbert hometown is Erzhausen, a small village between Frankfurt and Darmstadt, in the Hesse region. Definitely the starting point should be here!

The trip would have to be by car, because many of the places were rural villages in 1824 (when immigrants came *) and continue to be today.

*historic break - around 1824, D. Pedro I stimulated the immigration of people from the region that today is Germany (border with France) and French Switzerland. This was largely due to the origins and relationships of Empress Leopoldina. These future colonists wanted to escape the famine and Napoleonic wars, and believed in promises of land to plant and a prosperous future in the new world. Part of the families left Freiburg in Germany and part left Friborg in Switzerland and that is why the colony installed in Rio was named Nova Friburgo.

Therefore, we already rented the car (diesel and with GPS) at Frankfurt airport, and we set out on the road!

We did a preliminary planning of which cities to pass, and which ones would be good for overnight stay. But we have not made any prior reservations for hotels, because the decision of where to stay would depend on what we discovered on the road, and what each city could surprise us.

Preferably hotels would be outside cities, ease of arrival and departure and easy parking. We chose the Ibis and Ibis Express chain, because they had the best cost x benefit.

The departure was from Frankfurt, going north to visit Cologne, going down the Rhine and resuming the route to the south passing through the Black Forest towards Switzerland. On the French side of Switzerland, we went down to Geneva on the French border and then up again, now towards Zurich crossing the Alps.

The car was returned in Zurich, we stayed there for a few days and then we went back to Frankfurt by bus.

All this in 20 days and more than 2,000km run!