When the Lord made the Swiss Alps He must have been in a fine mood!

We left Zürich the morning of the 22^nd and drove south towards the Italian border. Little did we know what awaited us? Pristine mountain lakes, chiseled mountains with snow topped peaks, and rolling hillsides covered in the largest dandelions I’ve ever seen!

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We stopped often at roadside overlooks that gave us stunning views into green valleys, where little villages or farms nestled into the hillsides. Sometimes charming little chapels were built at the overlooks and we were able to meander in the yellow flower covered fields.

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At one of these unbelievable stops Liam, Faywen, and I hiked 15 minutes down to the lakeshore. Robert’s stomach wasn’t feeling well and Seamus was a bit tired. They stayed up top and enjoyed the views before taking a nap in the car. I thoroughly enjoyed this alone time with Liam and Faywen. We meandered down a country path past cow farms and eventually made it to the lakeshore where there was a lovely outdoor chapel. There were little steps down into the lake and Liam took off his shoes, rolled up his pants, and stuck his feet in the cold mountain lake water. The wind was blowing and so waves lapped against the shoreline. Liam did get his britches a bit wet, but he dried out quickly.   

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On the way back up we saw a bell tower with over 40 bells. They began chiming the William Tell Overture. However, it was a bit hard to hear over the clanging of the cowbells! Each cow had a massive bell around her neck. We would find out later at a nearby rest stop that William Tell was from Uri, Switzerland! We also picked up our own cowbell in the rest stop gift shop.

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Gotthard Tunnel was up until recently the longest tunnel in the world at 17km. A tunnel in Norway now holds the record. We drove through this iconic tunnel and thought we had popped out in Italy on the other side because all the signs were in Italian. Little did we know that it would be another 50+ kilometers before we reached the border. The very southern tip of Switzerland is an Italian-speaking region.

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Milan, Italy isn’t too far from the Swiss border. We entered Italy and paid to get on the Italian toll road that took us straight into Milan. Our fist impressions of Milan were that it was a huge, kind of dirty city. Though as we got closer to our apartment we discovered that it was old, had graffiti, but still had charm. We parked in an underground neighborhood-parking garage and then walked by a neighborhood block party. Everyone was eating, drinking, and playing football in the streets. Some of the locals even waved at us as we passed by and offered up a bottle of wine as if to say “come over have a drink” to which we waved back “no thanks” and pointed to our luggage as if we needed to check into a hotel somewhere.

Our apartment was in a gated community with a lovely balcony overlooking a large piazza garden. The boys and Robert went out to the nearest grocery and bought some food. Robert made spaghetti with pesto in the tiny kitchen. Our first Italian meal actually made in Italy!

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