Almost in Italy

Last Wednesday, my first day staying with my cousin Brigitta and her husband Peter, we took a train ride.  Brigitta had bought a day ticket to ride anywhere on the Swiss railway system.  The night before we talked about places that we could go.  One of the places we discussed was Lugano, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, on the border with Italy.

Wednesday morning was a gray, chilly day.  That clinched it.  We were going to the sunny south of Switzerland.

We walked from their house, down the hill, to the bus stop to go to the Uster train station.

From the Uster train station, it was a short trip to Zurich's main train station where we hopped on a train to Lugano.  Brigitta had splurged on the day pass and bought first class tickets.

We headed out of Zurich, following the shore of Lake Zurich for a while.

We continued southward.  The mountains were generally obscured by clouds, although eventually we began to see some peeks of blue sky which promised better weather.

Then there was total darkness.  We came to the Gotthard Base Tunnel which was opened in 2016.  With a length of over 35 miles, it is the longest and deepest train tunnel in the world.  It cuts beneath the Saint-Gotthard Massif which separates northern and southern Switzerland, and makes direct high-speed rail service possible to Italy.  For about 20 minutes we were in the darkness of the tunnel.

When we emerged we were in the canton of Ticino, and the sun was shining.

When we arrived at the train station of Lugano, we had to take a funicular train down to the lakefront of the city.

We walked a couple of blocks through the old town of Lugano to the waterfront.  I felt as if I were in Italy... well, I almost was.  The people were speaking Italian, all the signs were in Italian, and the architecture had a Mediterranean look.

We boarded one of the boats which travel around Lake Lugano.  It was included in our day pass.

 

The boat stops at various towns along the lakeshore.  One of them, Campione d'Italia, is actually an enclave of Italian territory surrounded by Switzerland.  I guess, technically, I can now say that I was in Italy, because, although we did not get off the boat, we were in Italian waters.

The town is dominated by a large, modern building which is a casino.  Wealthy Swiss come here to gamble, and the casino is the mainstay of the town's economy.

We got off the boat at the Swiss town of Melide.  

Yes, those are palm trees growing in Switzerland.  The climate here by the Italian border is temperate enough for certain types of palms.

In Melide we went to a place that Brigitta had not visited since her childhood... "Swissminiatur".  Here there are famous and typical buildings from all over Switzerland in miniature.

Can you see the two little lizards crawling around by the figures playing the alphorns?

Watch out, guys!  Godzilla's babies are coming for you!

From Melide we got on the train again, and then got off after a couple of stops.  We were going to take the cable car to the top of Monte Tamaro, a mountain with spectacular views of the region.  Unfortunately, the cable car was closed for renovation.  So we took the train back to Zurich.  After passing through the Gotthard Tunnel, we were surprised that the sun had followed us north.  It was sunny all the way back to Zurich.