Lugano

This past weekend we decided to take a quick trip to Lugano, Switzerland. Lugano is the largest city in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, though it only has a population of about 60,000.

Despite Lugano being in the far south of the country, and us being located on the northern border of Switzerland, we were able to get there by train in about 5 hours. We left Konstanz and Singen around 3:30 PM and arrived in Lugano around 8:30.

Arriving in town, we could see how beautiful it was right away. Located on Lago di Lugano (Lake Lugano) just south of the Alps, Lugano is still in a very hilly area which creates great scenery. Huge hills surround the lake, with houses and villas dotting a number of the hills.

Lake Lugano is right on the border between Switzerland and Italy. The hills are very lush, and palm trees can be spotted all around the city of Lugano. Throw in 30-degree heat and its very easy to forget that you're in snowy Switzerland.

After arriving, we checked into our hotel about halfway down the hill from the train station, and then headed out to explore the town. The mostly pedestrian-only downtown is actually quite small. It's full of high end boutiques that are expensive even by Swiss standards. There are a number of squares around town, and we found a nice restuarant right on the main square for dinner. We sat on their patio to enjoy some delicious beef carpaccio and pizza, and its a good thing the patio was covered, because in the middle of our dinner, a huge thunderstorm hit the town and drenched the main square. However, by the time we were done dinner, the rain had stopped, and with the tropical-like Lugano heat, most of it had already dried up.

We went out Saturday without much of a plan, deciding to just wander around the city and see what it had to offer. We checked out the old town some more, walked along the waterfront and saw the St. Mary of the Angels Church, which dates back to the 16th century and has an amazing fresco of the Passion of the Christ painted on the wall inside. See the slideshow below for a picture of that.

After that, we walked along the water the opposite direction, through a very nice city park with some beautiful gardens, and had lunch at a little restaurant along the water. After lunch we spent some more time in the park before heading back to the hotel for a quick break. We then explored more of the town, including the St. Lawrence Cathedral, with its great location on the hill, dating back to the 8th century. We spent some time in the courtyard admiring the view of Lake Lugano before heading back into town for drinks and dinner. We each had some fresh pasta, bookended by some Port wine before and after dinner, a legacy from our trip to Portugal.

Before heading back on Sunday, we squeezed in one more walk along the lake. There wasn't too much else to do since everything was closed for Sunday, but that's alright, because just checking out one of the more beautiful places we've been was nice enough.

Lausanne

The first week of June, Erin had to go to Lausanne for work for a few days, and I decided to tag along. Lausanne is one of our favourite places we've been. On the hills above Lake Geneva, it's one of the most picturesque places in Switzerland, and that's saying a lot.

We arrived tuesday night and stayed until Thursday evening. While Erin was working I was able to explore the city a little. Having already been here a few times before, there wasn't much left for me to explore, but it's still nice wandering around the steep, cobblestone streets of the old town, and along the Quai d'Ouchy along Lausanne's waterfront.

On Tuesday, I spent some time checking out the city before heading down to the lake, where I walked along the Quai until I found a quiet little pebbled beach to read and go for a quick swim. The weather was great; mid-20's and sunny. After Erin got off work, we had a nice dinner at the Thai restaurant in our hotel and walked the meal off with a hike through town at night.

Wednesday, Erin was stuck working again, so I made a visit to the Olympic Museum. I've visited the museum a few times, and always find it enjoyable. They have a permanent collection with memorabilia from athletes past, as well as all the torches, medals, etc. used from every Olympics.

Unfortunately, that was it for this quick trip, and we were back to Konstanz that night. Lausanne, as usual, was beautiful, and hopefully we can make it back there again soon.

Mainau - die Blumeninsel

The last weekend of May was yet another long weekend here in Germany (another Catholic holiday, don't ask which one), and around a lacrosse game for Tim in the too-far-away Bavarian Town of Erlangen (which took up an entire saturday), we took some time to relax and enjoy the sun.

Our friend Laurence, a co-worker of Erin's who came out to Vancouver last summer with her boyfriend Fred all the way from France, spent most of the weekend with us, adding a touch of French sophistication to our normally lowbrow weekends!

The highlight of our weekend was probably our Sunday trip to the nearby island of Mainau, known as the Blumeninsel, or Flower Island. Despite being in Lake Konstanz in Germany, the island was property of the Swedish Royal Family until about 35 years ago. They used it as a private retreat, but it is now maintained as a garden island, full of beautiful flowers, manicured gardens, and a butterfly house.

The island wasn't quite as beautiful as it could be, unfortunately, due to a huge thunder and hailstorm that caused a ton of damage and flooding in the town of Konstanz on the preceding Tuesday. So, while it was still very nice, a number of plants and trees were kind of beat up from the storm.

The plant highlights were probably the rose gardens and the "Globemaster" Allium flowers, some of which are pictured below. But as usual, our favourite time was probably spent in the butterfly house. (When we way "our favourite", by the way, we are excluding Laurence, who for some reason seems to be afraid of butterflies). We spent a while in there, looking at the gorgeous butterflies, and Erin used her special charms to get a number of them to land on her hands.

Hopefully we will have the time to visit Mainau again before the summer is over. It is really beautiful, but its one of those things we often forget about doing since its so close.

Portugal Part III - Lisbon

After a couple of relaxing days in Porto Covo, we hopped on a bus early Thursday morning and arrived in Lisbon around noon. We took a cab to our rental apartment, where we were met by Deb, a transplanted American, who along with her husband Jordan rent out a number of apartments in the heart of Lisbon through their website Visiting Portugal. She was really great, and after letting us in the apartment, she gave us a little food to keep in the fridge, and then gave us a tour of the neighbourhood around our apartment, which included some nice restaurant recommendations that we took her up on during our stay.

After our tour, we decided to hit up a local grocery store, where we bought some fresh fruit, and ate that along with some fresh Portuguese buns and cheese from Deb for our lunch. We washed it down with some green wine, or Vinho Verde, a Portuguese wine that we quite enjoyed.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the city, and did a little shopping for Portuguese potteries. Airline luggage restrictions stopped us from buying too much, which may have been a good thing, because there was so much beautiful pottery around that we could have easily bought enough to fill up 5 suitcases. For dinner we went to a Nepalese restaurant that Deb recommended, and it did not disappoint.

On Friday we went to see the Castle of São Jorge, which dates back hundreds of hundreds of years, and saw a number of important battles before eventually being used as a palace for Portuguese royalty. The castle was very cool, and offered great views of Lisbon as well.

To get down from the castle, we hopped on one of Lisbon's street cars for the ride back down to the old town. Riding the street cars through the old neighbourhoods is supposed to be one of the best tourist attractions in town, but we found it not as enjoyable. Instead, it was just like being stuck on a hot, crowded street car in rush hour, barely moving, and really, we could have done that anywhere...

For dinner we took another one of Deb's recommendations and went to a nice restaurant called Café Buenos Aires, a tiny little place that puts tables out on the stairway overlooking the main square of Lisbon. It was really nice, and much to Erin's delight, offered a number of dishes filled with vegetables, which is rare in meat & potatoes Portugal.

On Sunday, we ventured out of the city center and took a 15-20 minute street car ride to the historic suburb of Belém. There, we toured the Belém Tower, a fortification built in the early 1500's, which was built to be both a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon and also for defensive purposes.

Afterwards, it started to rain (fortunately the first rain we saw all trip), so we rushed over to the town of Belém and found the world famous Casa Pastéis de Belém pastry shop, and had some delicious Pastéis de nata, which small custard tarts that are very popular in the area. They are served fresh and warm and were very, very good. While we were inside, the rain stopped, and we headed back into Lisbon's old town.

For dinner that night, we went to a tiny little hole in the wall that we'd seen the night before, and had one last traditional Portuguese meal (i.e. meat and potatoes) before heading home. After 9 days of travel, and with an early flight the next morning, we were pretty beat and just went back to our apartment for a somewhat early night in.




Portugal was great. Porto, Porto Covo and Lisbon were all quite different from one another, but there was a definite similarity between these towns as well. The Portuguese seemed quite laid back and friendly almost everywhere we went. The weather was great, the food was great, the and the beaches were great. Hopefully we will get to go back one day.