Vernazza

The people that we are renting the room from left us note to go to ilBaretto for breakfast. It was a good start to our day.  They just didn't understand why Bryan didn't want coffee at breakfast. Hiking is a big thing here, you can hike between all five Cinque Terra towns. We are in the middle and the hikes on either side of us are longer. We decided to go to Corniglia, which is about an hour and a half away. It is closed because of a rock slide, but the people here say to go ahead, that just makes it free. We left early to beat the heat, it was gorgeous. 

This town was very pretty, we had a snack and walked their streets and then turned around and hiked back. There were lots of hikers by that time, so much nicer early, we felt like we were of the only ones on the mountainside. 

Tonight we made reservations at a restaurant at 7, we are heading to do a little laundry. This room does not come with wifi, so we have to go the bar to do our blogging. 

This is on the hike, they put these nets below the olive trees for harvest, they are everywhere within this area.  They harvest in October, you could see some olives on the trees. 

Verenna to Vernazza

Today we left Varenna early to catch a train to Milan.  Then we transferred to a train to Genoa, we did not have very long between trains and it was rush hour.  The good thing was that we could get a 1st class seat on th Genoa train, it was much nicer than our other seats. The Italian trains are not as pristine as Germany and Switzerland's SBB line. In Genoa we changed again and went along the Mediterranean to Vernazza. This place is comparable to Mexico, it has much of the same atmosphere. Many steps up to our room, which is nice and clean. Not many rooms here with the view most would like.  It had a huge mud slide come though here is 2011 and it is still putting itself back together.  It poured down rain right after we arrived and so we had a hard time finding a place to eat. They freak a little here when they can't use their outdoor dining areas. So we took a nap and went back out to eat. We had a really good olive pizza and pasta. 

This is from our window in our room. This town has not allowed any commercialization. 

Verenna

This morning we had a full breakfast at our hotel, along with a cat that wanted to sit with us. There are quite a few animals all around, it seems that a lot of Europeans travel with their pets. 

Just on the edge of town there is a trail that heads up the mountain to a castle called the Castello Di Vezio. It is a very small path with stone steps occasionally and very steep.  I had to look straight ahead several places because the drop was making me dizzy. It took us about a half an hour to get to the top. We had to wait for the castle to open, so we took some pictures. 

Not your ordinary panhandle view. :)

It is late afternoon, we had a nap and went for a gelato.  Now we are back in the room and it is pouring down rain with the sun shinning. This is how things stay so pretty here. 

This evening we cancelled our five course dinner at the hotel and are going to eat at our favorite little place we found called Nilus Bar. I know it is probably not good to eat at the same place 3 times, but the food is so good and for this part of the world inexpensive. We plan to stay late and watch the next World Cup game. 

Tomorrow the Cinque Terra region and the town of Vernazza. 

This is another path leading to some houses and eventually this next town. I didn't get any photos of the small path with this camera. 

This is from the church near the castle entrance.

The dock where we came into the town.

The ferry we took yesterday to get here from Menaggio. 

This is what the alleys look like, you have to be able to maneuver many steps, there is no other way around. 

The red house is our hotel, the top balcony on the left. You can see it above and here below, Casa Rossa.

Left Luzern, Train to Lugano, Bus to Menaggio, Ferry to Verenna

This was our train, bus and ferry day!  We thought it might be difficult, no, it was a breeze. Everything was a close walk to the next, and on time. We left at 8:40 and arrived in Verenna by 1:45, very hungry.

Our hotel is gorgeous, the photos below are from the balcony. It was pouring rain when we got here, but cleared within the hour. The weather gods have been with us the whole way!

So far we are comparing this town to Santa Fe, lots of small quaint streets and tiny art studios, we'll take more pictures tomorrow.

I had the best meal of the trip here at a crepe and pizza restaurant. It was ham, mushroom and cheese, baked to a crispy brown.  Bryan's was good to, he had an asperagus pizza.

We booked all of the rest of our train tickets today, it is easier to just book through Italy when you get to Italy.

Tonight instead of falling asleep to the sounds of the city, will listen to the waters of Lake Como.

The Tour de Suisse

Tomorrow I may not be able to get out of bed. This morning we rented bikes and found a map of the countryside to tour.  My mother would have had a heart attack seeing us bike over the busiest bridge in town. I had to bike around a city bus with a cement truck following me. Ugh!! I couldn't wait at that point to get to the small trails. The route was supposed to be on busy roads to start and then trails. We did fine through the first part, a little too busy for me, but this was an adventure. We got lost in the town of Kussnacht where we we're supposed to turn around and head back down the trail. So we asked a couple of folks and they spoke very limited English and we spoke very, very limited German. So the second time around we thought we had it right, well we kept ascending, walking a good chunk of the way. We soon saw that somehow we had missed the turn off. We got to see a village with a sawmill, I have uploaded a video of that and we saw several other cute little towns, and many cows with bells.  The scary thing was a road sign with the town of Lugano in it, that is where we are taking a train to tomorrow. Not far up the road from that sign we saw one pointing the way back to Luzern. Hallelujah! After coming up the mountain so far we felt like bullets going down, I definitely have a new appreciation for the real Tour de France riders. About 5 km outside of Luzern we found a cute bed and breakfast that served us lunch, we had been on the road since 11:45 and it was 3:00 with nothing to drink or eat. We biked the rest of the way in until we got down to the lake and then walked in from there. Good thing they sell Advil here, it is the super potent kind!  All in all we went 20 miles.  I am adding pictures from the ride and some more from our hotel and the church across the street. Tomorrow Italy!

We are so bad at selfies.

Luzern

This morning we had a lovely breakfast in our hotel and our shower was big and just like home with a giant shower head in the ceiling. About 9:30 we left for the train station to head to Luzern. We both really like the trains, we got to see several lakes and pretty towns along the way and had time to read a little, first time this trip. 

Once in Luzern it was just 10 minutes walk from the station to our hotel. It is totally different than last night. Parts of this building have been here since 1545, the foundation was here in 1269. Thank goodness they added bathrooms, above is the view from our window, there is a thunderstorm coming in this evening and it is really starting to cool down.

This afternoon we jumped on a bus and went to Mt. Pilatus. The lady at the tourist center told us to go up on the gondolas and then down on the cog train, that we would miss the lines going in reverse. It was perfect, no lines either way.  We did a lot of walking and climbing and we had lunch at the restaurant.  Not near as much fun going down on the train. Tomorrow there may be rain and the 

temperature isn't suppose to be nearly as warm.