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Published: February 1st 2010
lugano park bench
I just love the depth of the snow on everythingAnother day another bus trip. The weather in Lucerne was actually warming up, and we didn't wake to any fresh snow in the morning. It was such a contrast driving through the Switzerland countryside. Seeing green hills and valleys. It was so beautiful. What just was really amazing was all the sun. However, then we came to the 17km tunnel! (oh another side note, the bus drivers lover cranking up the heat, which makes you feel sick, you have to yell down to the front to turn it off!).
The huge tunnel was an adventure in itself. Driving through it, watch the outside temperature rise, as the further in you get the warmer it is! On the one side we had sun and green, as soon as we came out the other side of the tunnel we were back in the winter wonderland again. It was quite stunning the way the mountains contain the weather like that! Especially as we were now on the downward path as such into Italy and there was snow everywhere!
Our first stop of the day was Lake Lugano. Although a Swiss town, it has a heavy Italian influence. I kept falling in love
with all these new destinations. Our best snow was at this stop. Seriously, this is how snow is suppose to be. It was so thick and luscious. Just touching it made you want to roll around in it! Ok, well I did contain myself, but give me a week like this, and I would be! I dont remember how long we had here, but it was probably the usual 45 min stop. They did have a McDonalds in the town, which was a common thing (except in Italy there weren't many). We got an icecream (I mean it seemed like the thing to do in freezing weather). Had a wander around looking at the lake and the town, then a mini snow ball war occurred in the towns little square, much to the amusement of the locals, some of whom joined in. I have to think, that for the locals seeing tourists, especially us bunch of aussies (considering all bar 5 of us were), playing in the snow would have to make them laugh. To us its a beautiful novelty and I hope they received some joy at watching us make fools of ourselves over their white snow.
After
this town we headed down to Verona to see Juliettes Balcony. Can I say I feel in love with this town? Seriously the buildings were so delicious! The colours and washed out look was just breathtaking. Again we didn't get much time here, at most an hour, though i seem to think it was again only 45 minutes. We had previously stopped at a little bus stop on the side of the road for lunch. The town was just stunning, and with all the stalls and everything, too much to look at in such little time! This will be another stop I would love to go back to and have the chance to wander further. I never got the chance to make it back to see the city walls. After this stop we were on the bus to the Venice Area. It started raining.
Our hotel what a bit out of the way from everything. So for the people that chose not to go to the Venice Dinner that night, it was really hard to get a meal. If you chose not to go the the Dinner try to pick up food at one of the two stops beforehand!
We didn't go to the dinner and was told we could easily walk along the back streets to a set of shops visible from the hotel. We did this in the pouring rain, to find there were no real food shops as such, mostly clothes, and one supermarket that didn't sell ready to eat food. Was a meal of cakes again that night! For people that went on the dinner, there were probably a few more unhappy people about this one than any of the other options. They really push this dinner and the chance to see Venice by night, however, it was raining all night. The leisurely stroll, you end up doing the next day anyway, but when you can actually see things. It may be a totally different scene in other months, but winter maybe miss it. Apparently the food wasn't that crash hot either. Especially for 55 euro.
One point about internet connections, there were only a few hotels that actually provided free internet. All the ones to date didn't, and it isn't really crash hot fast either, if you chose to pay for it. I bought internet at every hotel, except for the free couple.
Some nights it was more of a head ache then the benefit!
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