From Merano in Italy to Locaro in Switzerland 22 October 2013

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From Merano in Italy to Locarno in Switzerland 22 October 2013

Of the 400kms we drove on the 22/10, it rained most of the way – a good day for travelling – with the car heater on!. It was about 14-16 degrees.

From Merano, we drove south, back to Bolzano, through Trento, down the eastern side of Lake Garda, then headed west towards Milano. This was the 3^rd time we had driven along this last stretch of road.

Before heading west, we had been driving through vineyards, apple & citrus orchards and later, dairy farms and broad acre farming (although paddocks were small in comparison to those in Aust).

We travelled on motorways most of the day.

Lunago is in the Ticino region and is the most southerly part of the country. It felt more like Italy than Switzerland and we heard mostly Italian spoken with some German. It lies south of the Swiss Alps and north of the Italian Lakes District. It is a palm-lined, lakeside location and an attractive historical centre of elegant piazzas. It was pouring with rain when we got there.

The camp site, Camping Moretto, was about 5 kms from the CBD. The night cost $47 AUD. I think we are in Switzerland! The Vignette which every vehicle has to purchase, cost 35 Euro. It’s for 12 months, even though we will only be in the country 5 days, we still had to pay for 12 months. We are in Switzerland!

During the evening, it rained heavily so we stayed in our motor home – which is unusual for us but we had plenty to do. There was good WiFi connection except that we could not send emails, but could receive them and the internet was fast. Oh this WiFi stuff is so unpredictable. Sometime during the night it stopped raining and in the morning, it was beautiful.

We were on the road by 9.30am, heading north along the highway. We drove into Locarno which is on the northern tip of Lake Maggiore. This was the lake that we stayed on the southern tip with Kerrie & Gemma.

While we were walking around the town, down came the rain. So we hopped in the car and headed for Bellinzona which is the capital of the Canton (State) of Ticino. This town has 3 major castles, one of which we visited after lunch.

We then headed for Luzern.

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