Day 10: September 3, 1999
Wengen, Switzerland to Lerici, Italy

Today was a travel day to Italy. We had our usual breakfast and then checked out. The Schweizerheim was a lovely hotel and we had a wonderful experience in Wengen; Walendo still talks about wanting to go back there some day. We schlepped up the hill with the rest of our crap (good thing we'd dumped my suitcase earlier) and then Walendo sat with the stuff while I picked up some more delicious bread, and some cheese and fruit at the store. (This time I knew to weigh the fruit first.)

Church & waterfall in Lauterbrunnen

I also got a few postcards of Wengen, and I mailed my postcard to M&D. We took the train down for the last time and then went to the car and packed it with our stuff. I hadn't been able to find the parking ticket we got when we came in, so we had to figure out how to pay. It turned out there was a person in the booth when we came back down, and we told him we'd been there 3 days, so he charged us for that much and gave us a ticket. It's nice that they trusted us.

Lauterbrunnen Window

Before heading out, we walked around Lauterbrunnen and Then I found another Swiss Army Watch for Mike. They even had green ones, which he'll like. Both of us wandered off to take some shots of Lauterbrunnen, which is a lovely Swiss town with a waterfall and a classic church steeple. We met back up again and then hit the road a little before 11.

We drove along the lake and then up out of the mountains, which were beautiful. We did a lot of twisting and winding up roads with huge boulders around us. We stopped for a picnic lunch along one mountain, and there was a little restaurant at the rest stop.

En route from Interlaken to Italy

We continued along, at one point along a way that looked a little like Beartooth Pass, though not as pretty. Down the other side, we went on a series of hairpin turns down the mountain, out into a huge valley with lots of little towns along the way.

Town in South Central Switzerland

At one point I stopped just after a town and got a great shot looking back to the mountain with a town and some flowers in the foreground. I have high hopes for those. (Again, I was snagged by my focus problems, but this digital version gives a good idea of what I was trying to get.)

We continued on and finally reached the Italian border, coming down out of another climb.

Just before Swiss border to Italy

The guards took our passports, idly skimmed through them as they seemed to be chatting about their date with Roselda the night before or some such. Welcome to Italy. Shortly afterward, we got to the freeway, and things were faster going from then on, though much less pretty. We had a lot more ground to cover, though, so it was good to go fast. We screwed up a bit getting gas cuz we tried to choose a kind that didn't fit our gas tank, and then we didn't know how to reset the pump. The guy came out to help. You just don't know all kinds of things when you're in another country. Speaking of which, as we were driving, we frequently were confused about how to get onto the next road we needed to take, but we managed to do really well. Walendo was very good at picking up the signs and even when we thought we'd gone the wrong way, we'd see a sign pointing to the right destination. I don't like the way they do the signs here, though. Instead of naming the roads, they give destinations along the route. But you don't know which destination they're going to choose, so as you're driving along you have to quickly look at the map to find the town on the sign and figure out if it's in the right direction. Sometimes you can anticipate which town they'll indicate, but they don't always pick what seems the obvious choice on the map. Or there may not be an obvious choice. Despite all this, we did quite well.

We tried to take a shortcut across from one freeway to another, but that turned out to be the wrong thing to do. It was a 2-lane round and it was crowded and slow. This was our first exposure to how Italian's pass. They don't bother to wait until the way is cleared, they just go and figure the person on the other side will get over, which they do. It's amazing. At one point, three cards in front of us were all astride in the same lane trying to pass the first car in the row. It freaked Walendo out a bit (w: it didn't freak me out - I thought it was hilarious!). At the far end of the road we got stuck in a little town's rush hour and missed the entrance to the freeway. We recovered at the next opportunity (thanks to Walendo noticing a sign that showed two lefts that weren't marked when you got to the second left), and then continued on. Finally, we hit the coastal road (again managing to find the right turnoff when we thought we'd missed it) and Walendo blitzed along with the Italians like he was one of them (w: I'll have you know we passed most of them. Better than native, that's my motto). Instead of building a road that winds along the coast, they just blast tunnels and build bridges so you can go straight across pretty quickly.

View out our Doria Park Hotel balcony in Lerici

We got off at the exit and followed the directions to the Doria Park Hotel a three-star hotel in Lerici, along the coast. Even though the directions weren't that clear, we again managed to see the right signs at the right times and made it to the place without any errors. We checked in and went up to the room, and when I saw where the room was, I thought it would be facing the back instead of looking out over the water and the town. We went in the door and Walendo opened the doors to the balcony and it turned out we had this gorgeous view overlooking everything, with a nice corner deck. It was wonderful.

Looking across Lerici inlet to San Tereno

The hotel turned out to be extremely friendly, comfortable, and convenient. The bathroom was a bit cramped, but the furnishings were very nice and room was fully stocked, including a fridge and even a safe. Many thanks to Larry, Chet's dad, who got us this room via his Domani travel agency. We got the rest of our stuff, and settled in. I took a bunch of pictures of the sunset overlooking the town from our balcony and Walendo sat and chilled out after all the driving.

We decided to eat at the restaurant downstairs, which turned out to be delicious. They make their own bread, which was really good. I had two light courses, one of which was some shrimp in a bed of veggies that was so good (TM), and another that was spaghetti with seafood that was okay. Walendo had that spaghetti too and then some fish baked in foil that he liked. No chocolate dessert, so Walendo had ice cream and I passed. By now it was late, so we pretty much read for a while and then went to sleep.

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