Alison and I packed ½ our belongings into a Fedex box and the rest in our packs. Oscar, Alison and I then set off for Lake Como, Italy! It was all plains on the way, so a good opportunity to catch up on a little shut eye! As we were rolling close to Como, it was still all flat…and I was thinking, hmm, did we book the right station?? Well, right as we pulled into the station, the mountains rose from the plains and we could tell this place was going to be gorgeous! 
We got off the train and the guy at the small shop in the station told us to take the bus into town. We waited there for AGES and met a couple from Greece that was very nice and waiting for the same bus #4. It finally arrived and drove 5 minutes before our stop, oh well, lesson learned! We grabbed lunch (one of my favorites of the trip) at a street café.
I even found time to get a pic with a Swiss Golden Retriever. :)
We had to be back in time to catch our ferry to Bellagio on Lake Como. The train was running a little behind, so we were a few minutes late getting back. And we ran like crazy as soon as we pulled into the station. Oscar, thankfully is a marathon runner, so he took off! Alison and I a few steps behind. I think she was nice enough to hang back for me…wow, I need to hit the treadmill! We made it up to the boat dock and they were just loading. Oscar was there waiting with our tickets in hand! Just awesome! Everything just fell into place perfectly!
We walked through the very quiet and romantic town and stopped for a drink at a small local bar. We munched on chips and the best cheese puffs. I have to try to find them in The States, they just melt in your mouth and no orange fingers! From there, it was drizzly and we were pretty hungry. We found a pretty restaurant that looked cozy and warm and popped in. The food was delicious and Alison took the opportunity to ‘relax’ a little from a hard week she had planned so masterfully. She was totally hilarious. After a few glasses of wine, she disagreed with Oscar and me about something she had said earlier and we ran with it! In celebration of us being right Oscar and I gave each other spirit fingers (Alison does this with others since she’s not a cuddler…minimal touching ;) ) and then she was outraged! Here's Oscar and I celebrating...the pic of Alison had to be censored!!
We walked back to our place and crashed out! It was a great night’s sleep after running so hard.
We got off the train and the guy at the small shop in the station told us to take the bus into town. We waited there for AGES and met a couple from Greece that was very nice and waiting for the same bus #4. It finally arrived and drove 5 minutes before our stop, oh well, lesson learned! We grabbed lunch (one of my favorites of the trip) at a street café. We looked at the map we had and saw a dashed line with SVIZIRRA written in big letters. Surely, we weren’t so close to ANOTHER COUNTRY we could check off our list?!?! Then the girl behind us chimed in and said YES, Switzerland’s border was only about 10 minutes away by bus! Oh my gosh, Alison and I nearly jumped up and ran across the border. We skipped over to the tourist info center and got the skinny. We could get there by bus to ‘cross the border’ with nothing to see in 10 minutes or take a 45 minute ride on the train to a cute tourist town. About 30 minutes later, we had a change of plans and were on a train to Lugano, Switzerland…and off the map of our laminated itinerary!!
The only sad part of the ride was that we didn’t get the coveted passport stamp, but we did get to mark off another country! This town was a hoot. It was pristinely clean, very pretty and RICH. I think there were far more banks than people that took residence here. They were, no joke, on every street corner, facing each other. It was like Starbucks in the US! We walked down to the water, took many pics and were back on the train in an hour or so. I will definitely be going back to Switzerland though. I really loved it!
I even found time to get a pic with a Swiss Golden Retriever. :)We were entertained on the train back by an accordion player with a lazy eye. According to Alison he was totally drunk! He just kept pointing at the accordion and smiling then he started saying Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Ljubljana…when we finally made out what he was saying, we said, SLOVENIA back to him. Hey, we were just there!! He was pumped we knew what he was talking about…and just kept repeating it. We tried to egg him on to play on the train…but he was a little too sober for that. From what we could gather, he was going to Ljubljana to play at a wedding. How fun!
We had to be back in time to catch our ferry to Bellagio on Lake Como. The train was running a little behind, so we were a few minutes late getting back. And we ran like crazy as soon as we pulled into the station. Oscar, thankfully is a marathon runner, so he took off! Alison and I a few steps behind. I think she was nice enough to hang back for me…wow, I need to hit the treadmill! We made it up to the boat dock and they were just loading. Oscar was there waiting with our tickets in hand! Just awesome! Everything just fell into place perfectly!
We arrived at our hotel in Bellagio, just across from the boat dock and it was adorable.
We walked through the very quiet and romantic town and stopped for a drink at a small local bar. We munched on chips and the best cheese puffs. I have to try to find them in The States, they just melt in your mouth and no orange fingers! From there, it was drizzly and we were pretty hungry. We found a pretty restaurant that looked cozy and warm and popped in. The food was delicious and Alison took the opportunity to ‘relax’ a little from a hard week she had planned so masterfully. She was totally hilarious. After a few glasses of wine, she disagreed with Oscar and me about something she had said earlier and we ran with it! In celebration of us being right Oscar and I gave each other spirit fingers (Alison does this with others since she’s not a cuddler…minimal touching ;) ) and then she was outraged! Here's Oscar and I celebrating...the pic of Alison had to be censored!!
1 comment:
How beautiful!! The only thing that would have made it better would have been a George sighting... =)
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