A Little Bit of Italy in Switzerland...

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We decided to give ourselves a break and stop for the night in Lugano on the way back to Zurich. We enjoyed our visit to Alba so much that we ran out of daylight to make it back (and in truth, weren't quite ready for our magical journey to end). It took a bit of work, but we found a room right on the lake for a decent price (breakfast included) and headed out for dinner. J's well proven technique for late night hotel negotiation is a shrug and "Is that the best you can do?", once the first price is given. Nearly without fail or regards to language this will yield a price drop.

As you may recall, we visited Lugano last year (It's not delivery, it's Dijourno!) and part of the main square was under construction so we couldn't get the full effect of the architecture. To our surprise, we were disappointed to find the scaffolding is still in place, and a second building is under construction. There are many restaurants on the square, but only 2 seemed to have any customers (and they were packed!). We weren't terribly hungry after our luncheon feast, but had a bowl of soup and a small thin crust pizza for dinner. Lugano is in the Italian sector of Switzerland to Italian is the principal language spoken and the primary type of food found, which suits us fine. The pizzas are so delicious - the perfect blend of cheese, sauce, and toppings; not overpowering, not doughy, not oily. I only wish we could find this at home.

We awakened to a thick fog over the lake, it was hard to make out the mountains on the other side. After a tasty breakfast, we got back in the car for the 3 hour drive back to Zurich. The views from the highway were a treat unto themselves: huge mountain peaks, waterfalls, small chalets perched on cliffs, and cows out to pasture. The stretch of highway also has two of the longest tunnels in the Alps on it - the first being 16.9 km and the second 9.1 km. The Swiss don't mess around when it comes to building tunnels and routes through the mountains; which is why the Swiss built all of the roads and railways through the Canadian Rockies as well!

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