Advertisement
Published: April 4th 2012
Edit Blog Post
For my long weekend during ISP I went to the Italian region of Switzerland and then a little into Italy itself with Kavya, Katie, and Carolyn. Switzerland has 4 language regions: Swiss-German, French, Italian, and Romansch. The Italian region is Ticino, which is where we headed to on Thursday. We wandered around the lake in Locarno, explored all the castles in Bellinzona, and biked around the lake in Lugano. It was like we were in a completely different country once we crossed the Alps – there were palmtrees, the temperature increased about ten degrees, and everyone even spoke another language! There isn’t that much to do besides explore the little towns and walk or bike around the lakes and the palm trees in the sun and eat lots of gelato, but that was perfectly fine with us! We stayed with one of Katie’s family friends in Bellinzona who showed us around the castles and cooked us lots of yummy Italian food.
Our next stop was Milan. I have to admit I didn’t have that high of expectations myself. When you think of Italy normally you think of Rome, Venice, Florence, and all the other amazing towns. Well, seeing as how
we were on a tight schedule and limited budget we did not make it past the north western part of Italy. Now before you lament the fact that we didn’t chose the best part of Italy to see (believe me, we’ve already heard it) let’s just be clear that we had an absolutely amazing time and enjoyed everything that we got to see. Now back to Milan. Like I said, I didn’t really know what to expect from the city of fashion. I was in for a pleasant surprise. We did not have time to see much besides the castle and the Duomo, but the Duomo made the entire trip worth it. Everyone hears about the Notre Dame in Paris, but I had never heard about the Duomo in Milan (maybe that’s just me being ignorant). It is 100 million times more amazing! I would probably maybe even rank it up there with some of the other amazing architectural feats like the Taj Mahal. All the spires are so amazingly intricately carved and the church itself is massive. And we were there in the perfect time of day for lighting (late afternoon with the sun opposite it) and then watched
the lighting change as the sun set (all my travel buddies will have no trouble regaling you about my obsession with the lighting on this architectural masterpiece J For dinner we had aperatives (essentially you order a drink and they bring you out a bunch of free appetizers) and good ol’ Italian pizza with a lovely view of the Duomo. The next morning for Palm Sunday we went to Mass in the Duomo and then up onto the roof to see the spires up close and personal.
In the afternoon it was off to Genoa! The train ride down (and Genoa itself to an extent) almost made me feel like I was back in South America somewhere – slightly less of your developed Western Europe feel, more colors used in the houses and buildings… We spent the evening wandering around by the water front, watching the sunset, and getting lost in the Old Town.
Monday we went to Portofino for the day. Portofino is a small town a little ways down the coast from Genoa. Touristy, as all these type of small towns are these days, but absolutely lovely! We walked up the hill to a chateau overlooking
the town and relaxed on the terrace admiring the view. We all agreed we could be happy just sitting there for hours. It was that nice. But our stomachs told us it was past lunch time and there was still more exploring to do so we settled for a cute café on the edge of the harbor and watched as the sun came completely out from behind the clouds to turn the ocean a clear, brilliant blue. We had some gelato (okay let’s be real, it was more like another whole meal) in Santa Margherita before catching the train back to Genoa in time for me to register for my classes.
Tuesday morning we had our only rain of the trip. We went up to the Castello on the hill a little ways above the harbor to admire the view and on the way back down got caught in a drizzle. But that didn’t stop us and soon the sun won out we were back to wandering around Old Town in the sun. In the afternoon we got the train and after many hours of fields, towns, mountains, and lakes we were back home in Switzerland!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 15; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0816s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Rosene Beachy
non-member comment
Wonderful!
Oh my gosh, I remember loving Lugano. And nice you got to bike around part of the lake. Never been to Portofino or the Duomo. They look amazing. Glad you had a wonderful trip. Love, Mom