Day 15 & 16 Above the Tree Line

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Day 15 & 16



Above the Tree Line

What’s that noise? I hear people talking, laughing I walk to the front window. I’m standing there in my tighty whites; Beautiful vision is it? Hundreds of folks old and young are walking, speed walking and running through the village. It’s a foot race, and they’re all coming past the front door. Holly told us about this but I was thinking they would be running up the mountain road. Well they might have run up the road but now were running through the village. Yea, I like to see some Florida joggers run up this mountain.

Kirsten joins me and says I’m glad they’re running…. I can now sleep another hour. After a few more zzzz, we fix a great breakfast and start the ritual of packing.

Yep, we’ve had a GREAT vacation! But we’re ready to start the journey home. I miss my kido’s and Kirsten misses hers. After eating the last of the eggs, meats, cheeses and bread. We clean up and drag our luggage to the car and shove it in to any and all crevasses we can find.

Kirsten looks at me and says I’d like to best the last run down the mountain by 5 minutes. WHAT! MY ASS STARTS TO PUCKER……..

Well she did it! She beat her best and I’m still writing. Now that’s not to say I didn’t need to change underwear.

We’re heading north over the mountains, what mountains? The ones before you get to Milan. I had no idea there were so many S curves in middle/northern Italy. Two hours later and one cappuccino break at the top of the pass we were heading toward Milan.

Kirsten get’s on the autobahn and we cruise north around Lake Como and are heading toward the Bernhard Pass. That’s a nice way of saying Kirsten is hauling ass on the freeway. Me…. I’m white knuckling and my ass is you know what. At one point she turns and just starts talking to me, I finally say will you please watch the road. Oh, they’ll pull over….. Were blowing past cars and trucks like they are standing still.

After an hour of this we start to slow down, NOT because Kirsten wanted to; we have STAU that’s German for traffic jam. The reader boards are rerouting everyone from the Bernard Pass to the Gotthard Pass. Hmmmm, Kirsten instructs me to bring up Maps on my phone and check the traffic.

It’s uglier than it looks, we come to our first complete stop on the autobahn, and we’re sitting there for maybe 15 – 20 minutes. Kirsten says were getting off the highway find us another route.

What! I don’t even know where we are. We’re in Northern Italy silly boy, you ‘ll figure it out. As always after using my maps and the phone yes we are in Northern Italy and heading into Switzerland. But now we are further west than we were earlier. So after 30 minutes of cruising up the autobahn we come to another standstill.

Hmmm, I’m looking at Kirsten and yes she whips it off the highway again. This time it was a rest area, thank GOD. I needed a potty break. We pry our way back into the traffic and after 30 minutes of stop and go I tell Kirsten to take the next exit.

We’re going to Andermatt. A few of our friends know of this village. It’s on the top of the Gotthard Pas; Kirsten, Bea, Drew and I have all stayed here whenever we flown into Zürich and headed south.

After another hour or so of switchbacks, Kirsten whips it into the parking lot and jumps out of the cars and stretches out. What a great day it is! Yea, as I rollout and crawl into the hotel.

Room for two with a bottle of Port Wine please!

After checking in, Kirsten wants to walk around the village before dinner. So off we go, we stroll up the main drag checking out all the menus. We settle upon the hotel we stayed at and had a good meal.

We’re both ready for bed after dinner. So we head upstairs and flop into our pillow soft bed.

I hear an AHHHHH from Kirsten as she falls asleep.



Tomorrow we’re heading to Wangen to visit with Maria & James.



Good night, Auf Weidersein Tschouse

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