Our original plan was to get to Lugano by midnight on Friday. In order to get to Lugano, we would have to take a train from Bassano del Grappa to Padova, then Padova to Milan and Milan to Lugano. Since we missed our train from Bassano del Grappa to Padova, we took to a bus to Padova, which was late getting into the train station. Side note: Don't ever trust Italian transportation to be on time. Expect them to be at least 20 minutes late. We ended up we missing the last train to Milan that night. Sarah and I's two options were to catch a cab and drive all the back to school in Paderno or stay at the Hotel Grand Italia for the night and catch the first train in the morning to Milan. We opted to stay at the hotel so, we didn't have to redo the entire process tomorrow. For anyone staying in Padova, Hotel Grand Italia is a pretty nice hotel with free wifi and free breakfast in the morning. On Saturday morning we got up and caught the first train to Milan. The train was full of people since it was fashion week in Milan at the time. We saw some interesting characters to say the least!
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| Milan Central Train Station. |
We arrived in Lugano by lunch time. The first thing I noticed was how "Italian" Lugano was. I was actually surprised to see how many Italian signs there were and how many people spoke Italian. Dash told me that there are three areas in Switzerland. There are German, French and Italian areas and we were in the Italian area since it was so close to Italian borders. He also was saying that if you go on a boat and go beyond the mountains that surround the lake in Lugano, you would be in Italy. I guess I wasn't too far from my home country, but at least I can say I was in Switzerland! After we dropped our bags off at Dash and Manning's dorm (my cousins), we headed to what the Franklin students call "Pink Castle Park" for a picnic. The park sat on top of this big hill that over looked Lake Lugano and the surrounding mountains. For the rest of the afternoon we took advantage of the weather by enjoying a picnic with goat cheese and bell pepper sandwhiches and playing wiffle ball/ultimate frisbee in the park. By the end of the afternoon all of us had mud all over our feet from running around on the field. Needless to say we needed to get back to the dorms to clean up and get ready for the evening.
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| View from the park. |
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| Manning, Dash and Me walking up to the park. |
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| Playing wiffle ball and ultimate frisbee. |
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| Sarah, Me, Ann, Manning and Dash at the park. |
That night, Sarah and I tagged along with Dash, Manning and some of their friends for a birthday dinner at one of their favorite restaurants. I can't remember what the name of the restaurant, but it was owned my an Italian women who only used organic produce. It was pretty good! I had gnocchi with pine nuts! We also celebrated Manning's birthday since it was on that following Tuesday! After dinner we headed to one of their favorite bars called Blu Bar. It reminded me of the Sports Bar back in Paderno, but the only different was that there was no wine on tap. The bar tenders encouraged everyone to give their input to the music, so Manning and I took advantage of the opportunity and played some of our favorites! I don't have any pictures from that night since I forgot to bring my camera out, but Sarah has a few that I will upload later.
The next day, we woke up and walked around the downtown area and along the lake. The weather turned out beautiful with the exception of a little wind. The four of us (Sarah, Dash, Manning and Me) wondered around downtown looking for a place to eat lunch. As we were walking to a pizzeria, we were able to watch the bikers pass by who were competing in the Gran Premio di Lugano. Unfortunately, I did not see Lance Armstrong competing in this race. I did see a racer who looked like Santa Claus though. That was a little weird!
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| View along the river walk. |
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| Cool walk way in the way to downtown. |
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| Downtown Lugano. |
My weekend in Lugano was so much fun! I have to give a shout out and thank Dash, Manning and all the other Franklin students for their hospitality! This weekend is our first extended weekend, which means no class on Friday! A bunch of us are flying down to Rome for the weekend and taking a train back Sunday evening. Until then...Ciao!
