Monday was Lake Como day. After the hotel breakfast (nearly the same as at Hotel Staubbach), we started the drive out to Mennagio. I know Kevin really enjoyed the drive on tiny twisty-turning roads on the side of a mountain, while I was a bit more nervous in the passenger seat with no control. We had intended to take the ferry over to Bellagio from Menaggio, but we somehow missed the ferry station in town. Before we knew it we were already in Griante, which also has ferry service, so we drove on board for the short trip across the lake. Lots of great photo ops from the ferry, as there are so many scenic little towns lining the shores of the lake with the great big green mountains behind them. Sure hope those pictures all look great. We parked the car and explored Bellagio for a few hours. It really is a beautiful place, flowers growing everywhere, cute shops, and that typical Italian look to the buildings. After trudging up at least 150 steps up the mountain lined with shops, we found a gallery selling glass artworks and restrained ourselves from buying the 11,000euro vase. Instead Kevin bought me a beautiful heart-shaped artglass pendant and ring.  Love them, I have them on now. I hope to find a new gold or silver chain in Florence to put the pendant on, it is on a black cord now. When we were tired of snapping pictures and shopping, we bought slices of pizza to-go and went back down the mountain. At the lakeside there are benches facing the lake perfect for picnicking. How idyllic, we are feeling no stress at all. Wish that pictures could do this place justice. When we ran out of euro coins for the parking meter it was time to go.

Back on the road, we started our drive around the lake. Again, little tiny roads passing through villages and winding through the mountainsides. We had a couple of close calls where fast drivers in larger cars took more than their share of the road. And there was the bus which really should not be allowed on those roads. Scary stuff, Kevin couldn’t enjoy the scenery much because it was too hard to drive without paying constant attention. I would just let him know when we should pull over at a turnout to take pictures. Late in the day, almost back to Lugano, Kevin prompted me to take video with my camera showing the roads and crazy drivers. I haven’t watched it back yet, but hope it’s good.

By the way, we were really mourning the “loss” of our convertible rental today. Was a perfect day for it, and would have been perfect for seeing the mountains and scenery above us. Grrrrr.

We were to drop off the car on Tuesday morning before hopping the train to Florence, but since we found the Hertz location on our way, we decided to drop it off immediately and walk the rest of the way back to our hotel. Good decision, it saved a lot of stress in the morning before catching the train. But the guy working at the Hertz location was a jerk. And the uphill walk with our stuff to the hotel sucked.

We decided to eat dinner at the hotel so we would have time to pack up and get to bed early. I washed a few items in the hotel sink using the liquid detergent I bought, and Kevin pulled the pictures of of our camera memory cards to the external hard drive I brought along. Kevin is using the Nikon D40 digital SLR and I’m using the Canon SD870IS digital point-n-shoot.

Sunday morning after breakfast, we checked out of Hotel Staubbach in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. We really liked it there and had a great time talking to Craig, the American owner originally from California. Should he put TVs in the rooms, or not because it could cause noise problems? Plus, how to wire a 120-yr old building for TV without major expense? How could he recoup costs if he offered wireless internet service? He gets asked about it a lot, but doesn’t know how to get it going. How has global warming affected the valley in the ten years he has been there? Not much that he can tell, but people who have been around all their lives notice the change in snow.

We had a nice, low-key drive from Lauterbrunnen to Bellinzona. Because all of the fun-to-drive mountain passes are still closed for snow, we had to stick to the A2 and A8 autostradas (major highways). But this strategy did allow us to drive through the Gotthard tunnel, which at 17km is the longest auto tunnel in the world. It goes under a mountain, basically linking German Switzerland with Italian Switzerland. It really plays havoc with the GPS, since there is no way to maintain a satellite link under a mountain – haha!

Bellinzona is famous for it’s three major castles which together are a UNESCO world heritage site. We stopped to visit Castlegrande, the largest of the three and most central location in the middle of town. It looks like a castle you imagined as a kid, with long turreted and ramparted walls that are a good ten feet wide, tall towers, and seeming to just grow up out of the rock. The castle is kind of a community gathering place, as there is no admission charge and there are big grassy courtyards inside where young people gather to play futbol and hang out. There are also a few different restaurants inside. We ate outside on a courtyard overlooking the mountains, it was mediocre food. I had planned a few hours here to explore, but unfortunately there didn’t see to be much to see beyond the courtyards and walls.

Lugano, only 20km from Bellinzona, was to be our home base for the next two nights. Our hotel was located near the train station, and using our GPS connected to my computer with the map software, I had good directions to get us to the train station. However, the navigation maps couldn’t seem to tell the difference between the road around the back of the train station and the road directly above it on the hill, which is of course where we needed to be. It was a very frustrating experience for both Kevin driving and me navigating to try to get to the hotel, which we could see, but not figure out how to get to. I finally got us there, but it was a rough few minutes.

Based on the journey, we were both in foul moods when we checked into the hotel. We had reserved a private room in the hotel side of the Motarina Hotel & Hostel, based on great reviews on TripAdvisor.com and the low prices compared to other places in this expensive city. But, it was not at all what we were expecting. First, no lift (elevator) to take our luggage upstairs. Second, no private bathroom, although there was no way to know that from the website. Third, just didn’t like the shabby look to the room. Fourth, breakfast was not included. After much ado and negotiating with the front desk, we were offered to move to their sister-hotel property next door, the Continental Parkhotel. Wow, what a difference! This was a very nice property that apparently caters to tour-bus groups. It was only a few dollars more that the Montarina, but at least a three-star upgrade. We were given a corner room, number 536, that had two balconies. One balcony faced Lake Lugano and the mountains, very good view. The second balcony could also see the lake, but also overlooked the elaborate gardens on the property. A very good choice to move to this location.

Sunday evening, our first night in Lugano, we took the funicular down the hillside to the downtown lakeside area. We walked a bit on the lake promenade, through a park with beautiful gardens, and choose not to go lose all our money at the Lugano Casino. Instead, we choose an outdoor table at a place called Olympia on a piazza and ate pizza for dinner.

We slept in a bit this morning, and didn’t get out of bed until 10:00 — it was wonderful! Breakfast is included at Hotel Staubbach, so we hurried down before it ended at 10:30 for ham, cheese, breads, cereal, yogurt, juice, and coffee.  We were full and ready to face a day of exploring.

We put on our hiking clothes and headed out to see the waterfalls. Trummelbachfall is only about a 45 minute walk away, but with us stopping every few minutes to take pictures, greet cows/sheep/goats, pet cats, watch base jumpers and skydivers, it took us about 2 hours — ha! 

Trummelbachfalls is a set of waterfalls that flow inside of the mountain.  It is the only one accessible anywhere in Europe.  There is a lift to take us about halfway up in the mountain, then the rest is done with stairs. It was pretty cool (literally, too), I recommend it.  Except that there were a ton of tourist buses arriving, and it was crowded with these groups.  I hate these groups, they move around like a herd and make it hard to get around or enjoy the beauty.  And funny enough, I recognized a few people from a tour group we saw yesterday at Castle Chillon (dyed-bright-red-but-obvious-grey-hair lady is hard to miss).

Walking back from the falls, we saw some pretty amazing jumpers. A helicopter had dropped off a group on top of a cliff, and these guys just jumped off, free-falling right in front of us for about 10 secondes before pulling the parachute.  You could really hear the “rip” sound when the chute caught the air. Then, moments later, we could hear shots ringing through the valley as locals practiced target shooting right in the valley next to the road. Very loud and a little startling as it echoed against the granite mountains, Kevin and I agreed that open shooting so close to tourists would not likely happen in the US. We joked that it was a good thing they didn’t start shooting one minute earlier, as the cliff jumpers might have also been startled and missed pulling their chutes in time.

We had dinner at Hotel Oberalp tonight.  Again, a very good dinner, probably the best yet.  Kevin had the ribeye, I had the mushroom tortellini. We both had green salads which are so good here, everything is so fresh, with homemade dressing. I finished off with the apple strudel – yum.

We are still unable to find a place to connect my USB drive to upload pictures.  All the public computers, all over town, are locked in boxes so that you cannot reach them, and are coin operated.  It is 5 CHF per 25 mins, so very expensive.  I’ve spent about 13CHF so far just for writing these blog posts, and am getting the 3-minute warning right now. 

Tomorrow we drive across Switzerland again, to Bellinzona to see the castles there, then on to Lugano for the night.

Note: I still don´t have free internet access or any way to connect my own laptop, so I still cannot upload pictures.  We’re getting quite a backlog to upload… about 600 pictures so far.  As soon as I get access I’ll link to the best ones here, I promise.

Since we were too wiped out to visit Chateux de Chillon on our first day, we saved it and went Friday morning.  I have been before but Kevin has not, so it was a nice experience for him.  It was a sunny day outside, and I assume that many Europeans had taken off work on Friday after the May Day holiday because the castle was packed. 

We worked up an appetite walking all over the castle, including up to the top of the keep (pictures coming soon!), and walked accross the street to have lunch. It was surprisingly good for a place next to a tourist destination.  As has become standard, lunch took about two hours, no one ever seems in a hurry.  It was about 2:00 when we finally left Montreux.

Next, we hit the road to drive on Rt 11 through Switzerland to Lauterbrunnen. We passed through Chateau d’eax, Gstaad, Zweissman, Spiez, and Interlaken on our way.  Rt 11 is a spectacular, two-lane road with plenty of switchbacks and altitude changes.  We stopped a LOT to take pictures — there are lots of turnouts on the road, many close to the prime overlooks.

We got to Lauterbrunnen about 7:30p, just in time since the front desk at our hotel, Hotel Staubbach, closes at 8:00p.  It is a wonderful place. Only two stars, but definitely our kind of laid-back place.  Our room has french doors and a balcony overlooking the mountains, waterfalls, and valley. It is amazing,  we just love it here.  We walked down to Hotel Silberhorn for dinner, where I enjoyed the local classic dish of cheese fondue (heavy with wine), and Kevin had a pork steak with several sauces, fruit, and boiled potatoes.  I had a local red wine from Aigle and it was very good. 

Tomorrow we are hiking, so we’re going to bed early.

We arrived in Geneva at 8:11am, just a tad bit later than expected because of delays departing the Newark airport.  No big deal, just extra time spent on the plane.  The flight was good, and again, first class rulz. 

We did have a problem picking up our rental car, supposed to be a Peugot 307cc convertible — they did not have it. “It’s too early,” the agent at Hertz told us, meaning the cars are brand new and not even availble in the fleet yet for rentals.  Mind you, I paid extra to rent this specific car and had a confirmed reservation.  Anyway, we ended up getting a Mercedes 170 automatic for the same price, and the agent tried hard to make us believe we were getting a good deal. 

From the airport, we took a short trip into Geneva. As it is May Day, an official holiday, many people were out and about.  Add to it the beautiful sunny weather, the first sun seen here in days, and the lakeside promenades were busy.  We visited some historic gardens and strolled the promenade along with the locals walking their dogs.  Can’t believe how many dogs we’ve seen.

We were starving, so we headed out of Geneva to Lausanne, where I had planned lunch at a local hotspot.  After much ado finding it downtown, it was closed.  Bummer.  We ended up having a good lunch near Vevey.

Getting to Montreux was easy, but again because of the holiday traffic was horrible, at a total stop. Police had blocked off streets for a holiday festival. We were further troubled because I missed the hotel and we had to sit thru traffic again going the opposite direction to get back to it.  But it was worth it, Montreux is stunningly beautiful.  The snow-capped mountains ring the blue lake, and the old-money hotels and buildings add a boat load of charm.  I kind of expect Bellagio, on Lake Como in Italy, will be similar later in our trip.

I am using the hotel computer to write this, as it is the only way to get free internet access.  The Royal Plaza hotel charges an exhorbitant amount to supply internet service to my own computer.  Therefore, I do not have pictures available yet.  I’ll upload them when I get a chance…