From Tuscany to the Swiss Alps

---

16 August 2009

Our last day in Italia, everything will change again as we head into Switzerland.

The first stop will be Pisa, to see the Leaning Tower, and that’s about it really. The trip from Florence west to Pisa on the coast is 85 km according to my Michelin tour guide but 80 km according to Fabio the most stylish bus driver in the whole world (must be a short cut known only to Italian bus drivers, handed down from father to son).

Today will be long, the Michelin tour guide tells us the trip to Lucerne via Pisa is over 600 km. Even Fabio, the most stylish bus driver in the whole world, has said it will be a long day.

The route takes us back through Tuscanny passing through some historical areas like Pistola where the pistol was invented, Carrara where the fantastic Carrara marble comes from, not just the birth place of the Brisbane bears, Parma the home of parmesan cheese and the Cheesa Way which is the mountain pass over the Apennines. I kid you not.

Pisa was a quick stop, made even quicker by the public transport system that takes you from the coach stop to the Square of Miracles. Another ‘train’ this time we’re sure it was driven by a V8, try hanging on to slippery hard plastic bench seats at 30 km/h around small round abouts with no seat belts. A bit like going to the Ekka during the 70’s.

Miracle Square - it’s a miracle this thing hasn’t fallen down. The Italians don’t seem to have quite the same sense of humour because we thought that would have been an obvious t-shirt. We’ll licence this slogan and run it for next season.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is 56 m tall and at its worst leant 5 m. With a great deal of engineering effort they have supposedly arrested the lean getting worse (we’ll see). Allan’s convinced the tower is actually being held up by helpful tourists such as the one seen in this photo.

The scenery entering Switzerland changes dramatically, steep mountain passes and tall pines. The Swiss have also been very industrious in leveling out roads by building long tunnels and superb motorway bridges across deep valleys.

The longest tunnel was the San Gottardo at 17km. For a time this was the world’s longest car tunnel. Today was the last day of the long summer holiday period so the motorways were much busier than normal so we used quite a few smaller, back roads through the mountains and little villages, which actually was much more interesting than the motorway with the tall walls to block the noise, and the view.

Fabio, the most stylish driver in the whole of the world, learnt of a 5km parking lot on the motorway ahead of the San Gottardo tunnel caused by the traffic control which reduces three lanes down to one so we used the back roads and an overpass to drop us into the queue just 100 metres before the traffic lights. The only problem was that the overpass was in front of the traffic light so the hundreds of people we just jumped in front of watched our Insight Tour Bus complete its sneaky maneuver and we weren’t the most popular. Turns out French and Germans are not good humoured when sitting still on a motorway on a hot summer’s day.

We got our turn, following the road along Lake Lucerne the motorway was closed for maintenance so we joined the procession - should have brought the bike.

Lucerne is a very pretty city, immaculately clean and seems to be very safe. Switzerland is the home of clocks, watches and Swiss Army knives so every corner has a boutique watch maker loaded with sensational products - most of which are way out of our price range but very nice to look at.

First stop was a trip to the Swiss Lion monument to commemorate the 700 troops and 26 officers who lost their lives trying to defend King Louis XVI from the French Revolutionaries. From here we took advantage of some free time to explore the old city around the River Reuss, the famous wooden bridge and the less famous, but equally impressive Bridge Spreuerbrucke built in 1400. Like most ancient cities, and Lucerne had its start in the 14th century, there is an old city wall. Lucerne is very active in restoring an impressive length with a series of tall towers across the top of one of the hills - so like all intrepid explorers we set off in the twilight over the hill and down through the old streets taking in all the beautiful homes and city buildings.

We found a fabulous spot in a small café right on the railings overlooking the water and the old timber bridge. This is definitely our favourite city so far and we are planning how we can come back here again (I don’t think we’ve said that anywhere else, right? Al).

Switzerland is made up of a series of regions called Cantons and each tend to principally speak one of Italian, French, German or Romanish, nearly everyone speaks English as well. Lucerne is a German speaking region. Romanish is interesting though, it is the original language of the Romans and at the end of the empire many Roman soldiers moved into a region which later became part of Switzerland. About 1% of the Swiss population of 7 million speaks Romanish. It would be cool to be one of 70 000 speaking an ancient language.

Al and Tess

---

Photos

Pisa
Still unsure about the builders here, this is during the smoko break

Author at work
On a budget, multi-tasking, bag handler, photographer, general dog's body

Rapid transport system, Pisa
3G corner

Starting to get steeper
Going north through Italy

Cow
Berlin does bears, Lucerne has cows

Swiss ingenuity
Who else would have thought of putting a motorway here?