I feel like the song “Here There and Everywhere” with all of the travel. We started with the new snow on the mountains, leaving Bormio (with a care package waiting for us near the desk) at around 6:30. We drove to Como to deliver the rental car back to Hertz. Lucky for us the Hertz office which is about the size of a closet, is in the train station so we could just leave our luggage there and go explore.
Since we hadn’t had coffee yet we walked to find a bar. The coffee was good and the owner was friendly and nice. He gave us directions to the “i” place where we could get a city map. We walked and walked –to the lake, of course:


There are lots of sculptures and buildings to see around the lake. My favorite was this:

We walked the pedestrian-zoned medieval streets:

We looked for a restaurant for lunch but places looked either too fancy just didn’t appeal so we decided to go back to the bar and ask our new friend there. Of course, he served food there and we were obligated to stay there for lunch. I just got a platter of mixed salume and an unsentimental green salad which suited me fine. Ken had a mediocre pasta dish–Portofino style, with pesto and tomato sauce. We each had a glass of wine. I love that Lugana wine–eave at 3.50 euros a glass it’s delicious! And we talked some more with the friendly owner and walked some more. We had a quick, stand up, coffee before returning to the train station to wait for our train.
On the train I talked with a lovely, young nun from West Africa who spoke no English. She was on her way to a small convent in Switzerland for a vacation. I had my last real Italian conversation and we ate some of the scrumptious sandwiches from the Gianzianella folks.
We arrived in Lucerne and realized how totally different thing would be here. Everything seems to be in German. We walked to the hotel, only about 3 blocks and were greeted with “Hello”. This is a Rennaissance (Marriott) hotel. We have a nice room right on the Pilatusstrasse (?) which is a bit noisy but we have a nice king size bed and big windows that bring in the cool mountain air. And, of course, a big TV. But no bidet and no “buon giorno”.
We got out in time for a phenomenal sunset. The sun set behind Lake Lucerne but the light and the swans were so romantic. We were exhilarated about our new adventure:

I snapped a couple more shots–I think this is the “old bridge” but we don’t even know yet:


We stopped in at a bar in the old town section (not in Italy anymore; now a bar means alcohol) and Ken had a beer and I had a gin and tonic. They had a TV going for the Germany soccer match and they were filling up a bit so we left to go back to the hotel.
We wolfed down the rest of the sandwiches and that was that.