Switzerland, Part 1 (October 9-19)

Switzerland, why did we wait so long to visit? One good thing about our travel day is that we didn't have to set an alarm, our United flight was scheduled to depart at 1800 hours from Dulles, Virginia. Once we taxied out we were notified that our takeoff would be delayed by 30 minutes. No biggie, we had upgraded slightly to Economy Plus which gave us additional leg room to comfortably stretch out and watch the sun set over the Virginia hillsides. I don't know about you, but my knees often touch the seat in front of me, on a long flight like this the extra 6 inches of leg room and the extra recline of the seat was priceless. The 8 hour flight was uneventful , watched a couple movies, drank some wine, ate ICE CREAM! but unfortunately we only managed to nap an hour or so, I think we were just too excited to be visiting our daughter who is studying abroad this semester. Funny thing, near the very end of our flight an attendant said we looked familiar, come to find out we live in the same town and have many of the same friends, she actually knows our daughter through her kids, small world!




As we started our decent towards Zurich we enjoyed watching the sunrise just 8 hours after watching it set! Seeing the peaks of the Swiss Alps poking through the thick blanket of clouds was simply awesome, what a cool sight! We landed in Zurich at 0800 their time and quickly headed for baggage claim. We packed extremely light for this trip, one back pack for each of us and we brought a small rolling suitcase full of stuff for our daughter. Our daughter and 40 some other Virginia Tech students have been studying at the Franklin University in Lugano, Switzerland, they will complete their studies there then move on to Africa to put into practice what they learned, truly exciting times for these bright young minds!




Interesting thing, we found the whole process of checking through customs and immigrations here to be so painless. There was basically no line and after a quick look at our passports and a stamp the officer simply said welcome and we were moving on! Our backpacks were waiting for us on the other end and now the learning curve would set in for our train travel. We stopped at an information area and told them we had pre-purchased 1st Class SwissRail passes and wanted to find the train to Lugano. The nice lady told us we had just enough time to catch the next EC-EuroCity train to Milano if we hustled, Milano? yes Milano....OK! A short 5 minute walk and we somehow figured out which city train to take to the main Zurich Station to catch the next train to Lugano, uh I mean Milano. We should have done a liiiiiittle more research on the train schedules before arriving! We found the train, but couldn't figure out which car was 1st Class? with just a couple minutes to spare we just jumped on and the doors soon closed and the train sped off. We grabbed the first open seats we could find on the crowded train. One minute later we were told the seats were reserved and had to move, uggh! Leaving my wife standing in the isle with the bags I scrambled through 5 or 6 crowded cars and with a Virginia accent I repeated "pardon me, excuse me, mi scusi, scusami! but no luck finding 1st Class. Oh well, we found 2 seats that were marked reserved but hey, they were empty! The 2 older women sharing the 4 seat configuration couldn't speak English, but we somehow figured out that the seats were not being used. German and Italian would be the most common languages, we also heard a little French, but my broken English got me through this trip ok! The conductor soon came by checking tickets and noticed ours were 1st class, he said that car was at the end of the train 10+ cars back, ugh! He said we would be fine to stay put if we chose to, we chose to!




About 2 hours into our trip we see a beautiful old church perched on a hillside in the tiny town of Wassen, Switzerland, one of the older ladies says we will see it 3 times as the train snakes its way through the mountain....hmm can't speak English aye! We needed to nap but the countryside was just too beautiful to ignore and the snow capped mountains in the distance were amazing. The train trip to Lugano was a little over 3 hours and the time really flew by. Milan is actually just over an hour from Lugano, but we couldn't use our airline miles for a flight there. We arrived in Lugano around noon, just missing our daughter by an hour, she was on a train to Milan to catch a flight to Paris. The students are taking full advantage of their long weekends by traveling to various places, Prague, Cinque Terre, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, Budapest and my favorite Munich for the opening of Oktoberfest! Exiting the train the area felt somewhat familiar from our conversations and the photo's our daughter has shared. The Continental Park Hotel could be seen from the train station and we walked the 200 yards to check into our room.







We had searched Airbnb for accommodations in Lugano and found many interesting places, but ultimately we decided on The Continental Park Hotel because it is right next door to where our daughter is staying. It's a beautiful property with old world charm, ornate decorations, surrounded by mature trees and beautiful gardens and the views of the mountains and Lake Lugano are outstanding. It's surprising to see so many palm trees in this part of the world! The owner also has a small vineyard on site and produces a very nice Merlot!










We would only check in for one night since our daughter was away for the weekend. We decided to head into Italy in the morning to dip our toes in the Mediterranean...but I'm getting ahead of myself. After throwing our backpacks in the room we walked 1 minute up the hill to our daughters home away from home to drop off her suitcase, that will lighten our load a bit! The students have great accommodations at the Montarina hotel/hostel and they eat dinner every night as a group in a private dining room located in our hotel, it's good to be a student here! After looking around a bit imagining what our daughters daily life must be like here in these beautiful surroundings we trekked downhill towards Lake Lugano. The roads are very steep here and it only took a few minutes to get to town, however the walk back up preoccupied my mind! On our way down my focus was primarily on where I planted my foot next, but we would take momentary pauses to look up, around and out into the distance, oh what an amazing city! Many of the narrow streets are paved in cobble stone and in Lugano there is a nice blend of new and old architecture, I mean really old, heck there's evidence that the lake was settled on in the stone age! Every turn offered incredibly interesting sights and we were excited to know we would return on Monday to spend 4 more nights here.

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Knowing we would return we did not linger too long around the charming town square that offered everything from street venders roasting and selling delicious chestnuts, fine shopping, museums, numerous restaurants and outdoor cafe's to people watch. We made our way to the beautiful water front and decided to walk to the far end of town. This city is kept noticeably clean, I didn't see any trash even in the water around the small marinas. This cleanliness would be obvious to me in every town we visited on this trip, store keepers could be seen casually sweeping sidewalks and streets in front of their stores all day long, nice. The weather was perfect with temps in the low 70's as we continued our leisurely stroll along picturesque lake surrounded by lush mountains, pausing often to admire the beautiful gardens and ironwork along this peaceful tree lined park.

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At the far end of the park we decided to find our first pizza and beer in Lugano. We chose what seemed to be a quaint locals hangout, we were surrounded by groups of older men sitting outside drinking wine, beer and coffee discussing the days events in Italian. One older gentleman sat alone in the shadows slowly enjoying his Caprese and red wine while other men acknowledge him with great respect, GODFATHER? Our pizza and beer was very good and the service was exceptional, as would be the case for the entire trip. It was probably around 1600hr when we began our walk back into town. We should've been running out of steam by this point, but we kept motoring on.

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We eventually found ourselves back near the center of town. We walked many side streets enjoying a slow pace at window shopping. On the way back up to the hotel we stopped at some point to grab a latte for my wife and a Feldschlosschen for me, a fine pilsner! I liked the way the cafe's always provided you with a small bowl of chips, breadsticks or small toasted bread cubes with your beer, nice! Well, the steep hill still awaits us, so soon we were back on our feet climbing in elevation. It really wasn't that bad, probably a 10-15 minute walk up, just a bit of sweat on my brow.

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Once back in our room we realized it was only 6pm and if we lay down now we would wake up at 2am!! so we decided to freshen up and check out the hotels Happy Hour. This is when we discovered that the owner was a winemaker. The bar was very nice with its fancy decor and Tiffany glass, large french doors lead to a beautiful patio, quite romantic with the fountain and palm trees. I asked for a glass of the home grown Merlot and the bartender said he could offer us a 50% off Happy Hour special on a bottle for 8 francs....uuh....OK! The wine was very nice so we ordered a second bottle to take with us!! The bar also offered some nice appetizers that would satisfy our mild hunger. 16 franc dinner our first night with a to go bottle, nice! As we enjoyed our wine in the beautiful garden our daughter Facetimed us, she was safely in Paris and having a great time, we were missing her and she was missing us, but we would reunite soon enough. After Happy Hour we wandered down to a nearby restaurant and took in the nighttime view of the city, it's beautiful here day and night.

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To be continued in Cinque Terra......Ciao!

What a beautiful place!!! So looking forward to the next installment!

Gorgeous! Thanks for taking us along.
cheers
irina

Brings back a lot of good memories as we stayed in Lugano back in 1999. Beautiful city! thank you! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clapping.gif" alt="" />

Great first installment! Cannot wait for more!
The Cinque is one my favorite places to take pictures, and I cannot wait to see yours.

Thanks for reading everybody! Why am I awake so early on a Saturday, phone rang and it was our daughter sitting on her plane in Milan waiting to take off for Rwanda, fair winds sweetie! Now I guess I can work on some photo's from our next stop Cinque Terra!

Awesome trip report

So enjoyed your reports and photos.