| Our friend Becky lives in Lugano, Switzerland, which
is a town on Lake Lugano. Andrew and Becky pose by the
lake, with Monte Bre in the background. |
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| Monte Bre and the lake. |
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| A view of downtown Lugano. |
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| Andrew says “Wow!” That’s an understatement. |
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| Andrew and I pose by the lake. |
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| Becky’s neighborhood was amazing. Many of the
houses are really old!!! |
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| A lot of the houses in her neighborhood have ancient
frescos on the outside. A fresco is a painting done on
wet cement, and they last for centuries. |
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| Here are Becky and her sweet dog Mufasa. He and I became
great friends. I got him riled up and got him barking
(sorry Becky!). |
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| Here are some frescos from a church in downtown Lugano. |
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| This fresco is from a church near Becky’s house.
Looks like a dark-skinned Virgin Mary to me… |
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| This is downtown Lugano. It’s ancient, but there
are a lot of very chic stores, high fashion, etc. |
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| I found roasted chestnuts in Lugano too! I love it! |
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| Vespa heaven for Chris B! |
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| Andrew became equally enamored of the smart cars. |
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| This church is near Becky’s house. The grape vines
are part of the local vineyard. You can pre-order cases
of the local wine, sort of like buying shares in a co-op. |
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| This fresco is in the above church, and dates from the
11th century. So it was done in the 1,000’s. |
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| This is the view from the church! |
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| In Italy and Switzerland, Santa doesn’t come in
to your house through the chimney like in the US. Santa
instead comes in through a window. Though Christmas was
a while ago, there were still plenty of Santas hanging
out of windows when I was there. |
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| I loved this staircase. You’ll notice on the left
are palm fronds. Yes, palm trees grow in Lugano. The lake
creates a microenvironment known as the “Swiss Riviera.”
Lugano is much warmer than the surrounding towns. Lugano
only gets a few inches of snow a year, and the Swiss alps
are so close… |
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| Here’s a taste of what we saw on the drive from
Lugano to Davos. |
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| The highway from Lugano to Davos passed through some
towns, and the road became so small that only one car
could pass at a time! We thought for sure that we messed
up, only to find this tiny street became the highway once
we passed through. |
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