Day 18 - Cinque Terre to Switzerland

PICTURES TO COME LATER - UPLOADING IS SLOW HERE IN SWITZERLAND

Up early this morning for 7:00 breakfast in the hotel. I do love the little town of Monterosso, but I have to say I was not sorry to be leaving that hotel, because it had the worst beds of any of the hotels so far. All the beds have been fine except for this one, which was really hard. We were spoiled by the beds in Germany and Austria, which are good quality with fluffy down duvets and pillows. I’m hoping they are the same in Switzerland!


Unfortunately, we found out that two of our friends, Dick and Lynn, will be dropping out of the tour today because Dick ‘s brother passed away last night. I don’t know the details but it seems to have been completely unexpected. So, Dick and Lynn will be taking a train to Milan today and flying home tomorrow.

We boarded the train at Monerosso at 8:36 and got off four minutes later at Levanto, where the bus was parked and then headed for Switzerland. Got in a huge traffic jam for probably about 45 minutes to an hour. Some road construction was going on in a tunnel. Crossed over the border into Switzerland at around 12:30 and didn’t have to show any documentation even though Switzerland is not a member of the European Union. Evidently, sometimes you have to show it and sometimes you don’t. Stopped at one of the fancy rest areas for lunch again (I’m not being sarcastic - they do have great food there, although it is not cheap) and had salad, pasta, and bread. It’s very confusing because Switzerland doesn’t use euros, they use Swiss franks, although this particular place would accept euros, so our check had both amounts on there and we paid in euros and somehow got shortchanged 10 euros. It took a while to figure this out by looking at the check, but when it was brought to the cashier’s attention, she gave us the 10 euros. Not sure if this was an “on-purpose” thing that happened or a real accident. It would be a pretty easy racket since this whole situation is rather confusing with the euros and Swiss franks and language barrier. Who knows. Anyway, the lunch was good.
We headed onward and stopped at Interlaken for a very short walk around town and rest stop. It was a neat little town, but we didn’t really have time to do much exploring. I think the main point reason for stopping there was for us to use the ATM’s to get some Swiss franks.
The drive through Switzerland was just amazing. Ever since I read Heidi when I was little, I wanted to see the Swiss Alps and so far I have not been disappointed. It looks just like you would think it looks from that book and from movies. Swiss chalets everywhere interspersed through green meadows that look freshly mowed, although that would seem to be impossible since many of these meadows are straight up and down. The cows have obviously just come down from summer in the mountains because they are wearing their fancy headdresses and cowbells. They have some celebration when it is time for the cows to come home for the winter and they make the cows wear these ridiculous flowered headdresses and huge bells. I think the cows wear bells when they are up in the mountains for the summer so they won’t get lost, but they put really huge bells on some of them for this celebration. The poor cows look like sort of humiliated to be wearing these headdresses and the bells surely drive them nuts! But it is quite a sight to see and take pictures of!



When we got to the hotel, we had about 40 minutes before time to eat dinner, so that is when we all went out to take pictures of the cows, the scenery, etc… I took tons of pictures in that little amount of time because you just can’t stop taking pictures here! Every place you look is so picturesque! It was cool when we got here, so everyone had to break out the fleece and jackets. The hotel is pretty neat. It’s not modern at all, but it is definitely Switzerland. Chalet-style with window boxes in an Alpine valley with a rushing stream running past. Cows and chickens outside. It would almost make you forget about the lack of private bathrooms (we lucked out and got one, but most people didn’t), TV, internet, and hair dryer! J By the way, the people that own the hotel have to walk their kids to the gondola every day because that is how they get to school. After taking tons of pictures of the scenery around the hotel, we ate dinner in the hotel restaurant and had roast pork, mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans. After most people were finished, they came out with platters and bowls of all the items we had just eaten trying to get people to take seconds! I don’t remember anything like that ever happening before.

After dinner, we made plans with Jennifer and a bunch of the others to take the gondola to the top of the Schilthorn Mountain tomorrow morning (a James Bond scene was once filmed there) and then we’ll take it back down part of the way and then do some hiking. It is a free day for everyone, but Jennifer wanted to do the gondola and the hiking and agreed to arrange it if we were interested, so most people are planning to do it. Should be pretty cool!