Being that we only had a small window, 2 days, in which to go, we decided to make the most of our Swiss travel passes and stop in Luzern on the way. This wonderful Swiss German town is only about an hour from Zürich so it made the perfect stop for us. Brian had never been so we joined every Japanese tourist in the country to view the splendid alps that seemingly rise straight out of the lake and the old bridges and churches. My favorite bit of Luzern is the Löwendenkmal, Lion Monument, which was carved from rock in dedication to the Swiss soldiers who died in 1792 defending King Louis XVI and family during the French Revolution. My guidebook says that Mark Twain once called it the 'saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world' and I can't help but agree and feel great peace when I'm sitting in front of it. After our few hours spent in Luzern, we stocked up on food for the train (bread, cheese and salami of course...) and made our way down to Ticino.
Lugano was our city of choice in the region and we'd made reservations at a hotel there for the evening. Lugano is situated on the Lake of Lugano and is a town I am mildly familiar with due to a trip I took there with my au pair girlfriends -Megzi, Sara, and Manda Mango- several years ago and being there again made me miss them, well and the time we spent mostly at the hotel pool and in the park, so much more than usual; I wasn't sure that was actually possible! It took us a while to locate our hotel which had claimed to be lake front and was actually quite a few blocks inland.
Afterward, we wandered around the city a bit and were suprised to find for the most part it was empty of people, both tourists and locals. We decided upon a pasta restaurant that was overpriced but excellent all the same and best of all had a wonderful view of the lake. We settled there at the perfect moment to see the sun go down and the lights go up on the city and surrounding mountains. Over a bit of wine, heaps of pasta, and a shared tiramisu, we decided that Italy was too much to miss, especially for Brian who lived there for a while back in college. Lucky for us, we ran across a wonderful find in my guidebook informing of a tiny section of Italy that's actually located on the Lake of Lugano and completely surrounded by Switzerland. Being that I was curious to see this place I'd never even heard of before and the fact that both of us loved the idea of saying we actually had seen Italy on this trip, we decided to head over to Campione D'Italia the next morning.
The morning started off, for me, absolutely as I'd hoped it would....with a brilliant caffe latte and a gipfel (crossaint)! The bus ride over to Campione D'Italia was quite short, only about 15-20 minutes and in all actuality, the atmosphere was no different than it is in Italian Switzerland but straight away you knew you were in Italy, I guess it was probably the Berlusconi posters everywhere that gave it away! The main attraction in town is the casino which my guidebook says isn't restricted like the ones in Switzerland. The place was mostly quiet and it took us about 10 minutes of walking around from the bus stop to even see anyone about or to find a place to have lunch. In the end, we only spent about 2 hours there and most of that time was eating lunch at a brilliant place right on the lake with a view back to Lugano. Brian had the gnocchi, which tasted like little bits of heaven, and I had the lasagne. We took a few minutes to check out a wonderful old church, the church of Saint Peter.
The day was headed well toward midafternoon by the time we arrived back in Lugano and we made our way directly to the train station for the trip home. As we were going to need to change trains anyway, we decided for one other small side trip and got off after only 30 minutes in the Ticino town of Bellinzona, famous for it's three castles. We wandered around there for about 2-3 hours and visited the castle grounds located in the most central part of the city. It seems to be a place very popular with locals as there were families on picnic, couples reading and enjoying time together and children playing in the grassy areas surrounding the castle high above the city.
After much walking in these two days a living out of a small bag between us, we were ready to head home. We'd stocked up on food and drink back in Lugano and enjoyed/slept the train ride home. We arrived quite late but that evening we were able to catch up with my host father who'd been away on business since before we arrived in Switzerland. All in all it was a great time and we enjoyed ourselves a lot.
But onward to tomorrow...my birthday and I look forward to a wonderful day spent in Zürich!!
Ciao, ciao...
LuLu
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