Road Trip, Part Three

From Baldersheim, Alsace: The next morning was very cold, wet and windy, which limited us to a much shorter walk than we had hoped for but had the advantage of getting us on the road to Italy that much sooner. We entered Switzerland, which of course is not part of the EU, after a fifteen minute ride and got in line for an immigration/customs check. This is when we remembered that we had packed our passports in the luggage in the back of the car. Cindy displayed an amazing agility as she twisted and turned to get to my suitcase and passport.  After all of that work, we were simply waved through and entered the river city of Basel. Once out of the city Switzerland looks just like all the travel posters: chalets, neat farms, tall mountains capped in white and I swear I could smell chocolate. We stopped for gas so that I had plenty to get though tunnels and passes, and we had a chance to use our German as we inquired how to pay and where were the toilets. It seems that now in order to use a toilet at a gas station, you must insert a euro, take a receipt and use the facility. The receipt allows you to get a euro discount on something from the shop, all very time consuming and rather silly. I doubt that they get a ‘bad element’ on autoroutes, but perhaps it provides more employment since there were at least two people at each station helping folks understand the process.

In all of our planning for this trip, the words “January, Switzerland, snow” never appeared in the same sentence and therefore we were really surprised when we hit tons of snow and a veritable blizzard at the higher elevations. Traffic was down to one lane following two snow plows up the hill toward the Gotthard Tunnel, a ten and a half mile respite from blowing snow and slippery roads. I had hoped that at the end of the tunnel it would be sunny and clear but that was not to be. While the snow was not as heavy, it was still coming down and the road was slippery, but we were now heading downhill and with every five miles, the conditions got better and better until we were finally out of all the weather and we could see a bit of sunshine and we knew we were closing in on Italy.

Sure enough, Italy greeted us with brilliant sunshine and we were soon ensconced in our corner suite at the Metropole Suisse, right on the edge of Lake Como. The views were jaw dropping and we had a 180 degree view of the lake, hills, homes and city that make the Como area so famous.  We decided that the trip was well worth the hassle.