Ticino, Switzerland

Thursday, July 28 - Sunday, July 30 2011

More visitors from home!  Ang’s uncle Orman and cousin Tami had been planning a trip to the Nordics when we decided to move to Switzerland.  This gave them an excuse to diverge the last part of their trip down to Switzerland to come see us.  After a trip that included Stockholm, Gothenburg (Sweden), and Copenhagen, they hopped on a sleeper train to Bern, which connected them to Geneva Thursday evening.

It’s a lot of fun having our friends and family from the U.S. come and see our city, our apartment, and a glimpse into what our daily lives look like.  On Thursday evening we took them on a walking tour around Old Town and the waterfront for the classic picture in front of the Jet d’Eau.  The Fete de Geneve (part of Switzerland’s “Independence Day” festivals) was in full force so they got to see the busy side of Geneva. 

Unfortunately we had work on Friday, so Orman and Tami had a tourist day to enjoy on their own.  Before Dave went into work, however, he took them on a quick trip up to La Saleve, our mountain next door (technically in France) with a large cable car that takes people up for great views of Lake Geneva and sometimes Mont Blanc (you may remember our hike up to the top of La Saleve from a post last year).  On that particular morning the views of Geneva and the lake were wonderful as expected, but unfortunately Mont Blanc was hiding.

Orman had never been to France before, so in addition to stepping into France by going up to La Saleve, they chose to go to Yvoire, too (the medieval village we passed on our bikes the week before).  The best way to do this is via boat, so after La Saleve Dave took them to the waterfront to catch the next ride.  Their review of the trip?  It was fun but Yvoire itself lacked a lot of historical explanations and historical context.  (We will give our review of Yvoire on the next blog post as we took the same boat ride the weekend after they left). :)

The weekend was when we got out and experienced real Switzerland!  We all decided that a road trip down to Lugano, Switzerland and the Ticino canton (the Italian speaking part of Switzerland) sounded like fun.  As an unexpected benefit, the Mazda 3 that we rented turned out to actually be an Audi A3 convertible (dang!).  While it was a little cold and slightly cramped for Ang and Tami in the back seat (while Dave and Orman sat comfortably in the front), we all agreed that driving through the Alps without a roof (being able to look up at the mountains) was incredible. 

Our route took us past some amazing scenery (and we even passed through a small town having an old classic tractor show).  We may have said this before, but what is so incredible about Switzerland is that virtually any side road in or around the Alps is a site seeing trip on its own, even if it’s primary purpose is to get you from point A to B.  Besides the classic green landscape of the Alps, some highlights of this trip included driving by a couple glaciers.  First, the Stein Glacier and second, the glacier overlooking Susten Pass, both on the drive between Meiringen and Wassen.

Once we reached Wassen, things got interesting.  To get over or through St. Gotthard Pass there are two options.  One is the Gotthard Tunnel, a very long (just under 16.4 kilometres, or 10.5 miles) and most direct (one would assume “fast”) way to get through the mountain.  The only problem is that it’s only a two-lane road, meaning the four lanes of traffic approaching the tunnel on each side create quite the backup.  We waited for our turn into the tunnel, but after 20 minutes without advancing even a few hundred meters we decided to go with option two: up and over the pass.  This turned out to be the most enjoyable drive anyway.  We stopped to stretch our legs in Andermatt near an old 17^th century stone church.

After the slight traffic headache we were up and over Gotthard Pass, and officially in the Ticino canton… time for us to start speaking Italian (sure…)!  Before our final destination of Lugano, we stopped in Bellinzona to visit its three castles: Castelgrande, castle Montebello, castle Sasso Corbaro.  Why so many castles?  Because of its location, Bellinzona was a gateway to several key passes through the Alps and naturally became a large trading center.  Castles have existed here from around the 1^st century BC and have received face-lifts throughout the years.

We started with the “middle” castle, Montebello, which offered some amazing views of the surrounding city and Alps (it also overlooked the “lower” castle, Castelgrande).  The castle featured a museum of artifacts found in the Bellinzona area, but because it was all documented in Italian, we weren’t able to learn as much about the artifacts as we would have liked.  

 

 

A real draw-bridge!

 

Next we drove to the “upper” castle, Sasso Corbaro.  This was the smallest of the three and perched on a hill.  Unfortunately the castle's tower was closed by the time we got there (because of a wedding going on… yeah, people getting married in a castle… awesome) so we just took a quick stroll around the walls.  

Castelgrande was by far the most impressive, primarily because of its murata (a.k.a. city walls) that stretched for hundreds of meters into the city below.  We walked all the way down the murata and even discovered that there was a secret underground walkway, too.  AWESOME.  The view from the murata also created a good photo op to have all three castles in one shot.

 

  

By this time it was already well into the evening so we said goodbye to the castle town and drove the rest of the way to Lugano.  Our hotel in Lugano was excellent, providing us fantastic views of the city and the lake off of our balcony.  On our walk down to the city for dinner that evening, we noticed the infamous palm trees, which grow in this region of Switzerland.  

The next morning we packed as much Lugano in as possible.  First on the list was a boat ride to the lakeside, car-less village of Gandria to start our walk on the Olive Tree Trail, which would lead us back to Lugano.  The walk seemed almost like an outdoor museum as we passed by 10-15 signs outlining the history of olives and their historical use.  Not a bad concept actually – great views of the lake, a history lesson, and a little exercise.  

After the hike, we decided to take the funicular lift up to Monte Brè to get some bird’s eye views of the surrounding city and Alps.  We were not disappointed.  The first view was to the east, capturing the town of Brè and Italy in the background.  The second view was south, back towards Lugano and the final Swiss peaks before the Italian border.  The weather couldn’t have been more perfect and it is now in the running for Ang’s favorite view in Europe so far. 

 

The Monte Brè trip took longer than expected and we still had a bit of a drive back to Geneva.  On our walk through town back to the hotel to pick up our stuff, we passed by the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which houses Switzerland's most famous Renaissance fresco, the “Passion and Crucifixion of Christ" by Italian painter, Bernardino Luini.  This fresco is in amazing condition for being painted in the 16^th century.  Another fresco on the sidewall was Luini’s “Last Supper,” that is very similar to the Da Vinci version.  A fun fact is that Luini painted himself in the photo as Judas and added his favorite pet cat at his feet.  

We finished our stroll along the lake to our hotel, down the tree-lined boardwalk.  Back in the car we said goodbye to Lugano and began the long trip home.  Google maps said a little over 5 hours, but it took us nearly 8 because of a 2-3 hour delay waiting to get through the tunnel (unfortunately we missed the last exit by half a kilometer or we would have gone up and over the mountain pass again… painful).  It was dinnertime when we reached Lucerne on our trip home so we thought it would be a nice chance to show Orman a new Swiss city (Tami had been before) and have a nice Italian meal.  By the time we reached Geneva it was nearly midnight – just enough time for all of us to get a 3-4 hour nap before the trip to the airport the next morning to drop off Orman and Tami.  Regardless of the headaches of traffic, it was such a fun trip – a new Switzerland adventure and a chance to spend some quality travel time with a couple family members we love.