Today was a relax and recharge day.
The friends who joined us in Istanbul (3 weeks ago) departed today for Jacksonville. As we were sitting around last night, I asked, “Without thinking, what is the one thing that stands out the most during those 3 weeks?” Without pausing, we all said the rustic hammam on the Asian side of Istanbul. If you missed it, check out Day 7.
We headed out to the train station to head to Lugano, Switzerland only changing trains in Milan. The ride to Milan was smooth, fast and efficient. The train was a little late arriving in Milan and boy was ir packed with people. We forged our way over to our platform and the anxiety started increasing because the train number matched our ticket. but the destination didn’t. To make it worse, instead of having a first class car like the first train, this one had sporadic first class sections. Mae, Lynn and Dave waited at the door of the first section while I ran down the platform looking for one that wasn’t full. I found it at the very end of the train. I ran back to them and we all hoofed it to the front, got on, and hoped it was the right decision. It was.
While we were happy to be on a train we could not quite figure out the transfer to the third train. As it turns out, there was not a third train despite the tickets we had been given by the travel agent (saying seats would be assigned). More on that later. With great luck, the train we were on was headed straight for Lugano! It was a "regional train" and didn't have any services. It's a good thing that we snagged all the snacks from the apartment in Venice (thanks Liz!) because that became lunch.
Our instructions from the travel agent were that the hotel was a short walk from the train station. As we exited the station using Google Maps, we immediately got turned around. A nice woman had compassion for us and waved her hand in a different direction. We had to cross the tracks and didn’t see any clean way so we headed back to the station and found an underground passage to the other side. Our hopes were raised. We got to the other side and found that we were high up on the side of a mountain the city was about a thousand miles below (maybe more). There were steps all the way down (no way with luggage) or a switchback ramp reminiscent of Santorini. We chose the ramp and did everything we could to not lose our luggage because of the steepness. We finally made it to the hotel and noted the exit of a people mover from the train station right outside the front door! Those tickets I spoke about above were not train tickets, they were tickets for the people mover. The travel agent totally messed up that part. She’ll get some feedback.
We all unpacked and relaxed before exploring the city. Lugano is a city in southern Switzerland’s Italian-speaking Ticino region. Its Swiss-Mediterranean mix of cultures is closely related to that of Italy’s northern Lombardy region. The city stands on the northern shore of glacial Lake Lugano, surrounded by mountains. The view was spectacular. We wandered for a little while and came across a nice restaurant with seating on a courtyard. We all went for comfort food: cheeseburgers, chicken Caesar salad, and a tuna poke bowl. A new kind of Italian ice cream was calling our names from across the street and we gave in. It wasn’t gelato; much creamier and denser. I am going to have to go back tomorrow and figure it out!
