Route 66: 2010

Monday, October 25, 2010

Paisano European Tour 2010 - Day 7

Day 7 is September 13
Well, today starts off in a much better "place" than the end of yesterday.  Momma & I both had a pretty restful night at the Holiday Inn.  We had a decent breakfast in the morning and got ourselves ready for another day on the rails.  I asked the front desk about getting back to the rail station and because we were in a decent place, I got some good info from the front desk clerk and found out we were able to just walk up the street to take the bus back to train station for 1.60 ch (that's Swiss Francs, by the way), instead of the 30 ch for the taxi the night before.  That's good stuff.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, uh, train station, we're trying to get on the Wilhelm Tell Line.  Unfortunately, that was a big fat no go.  The cool part about this time out was that the lady behind the glass was Very nice & tried to help.  She wasn’t able to book the Lucerne to Montreux portion of the Golden Pass Line, for some reason.  She said she could only do Interlaken to Montreux  & that nobody could do the full trip.  To me, that just didn’t make any sense as the literature I had didn’t say Anything about this trip being this way.
In the end, we booked a train from Lugano to Lucerne as that’s where we’re staying for this night.  It's not like we could really hang out in Lugano for another day.  Too bad really, I think Lugano looked like a great city.  The rail trip cost us an additional 60 ch.  By now, I'm getting rather tired of paying extra for Everything.  The pass I bought was supposed to be for 1st class & 50% discounts, which we didn't seem to be getting much of.  All of that being said, I'm pretty sure this agent did give us the discount anyway. 
In the end, we had a very good trip, but we were told we could have been in 1st class, even thought our tickets said 2nd.  In reality, 2nd class is still pretty good stuff.  At this point, my frustration was on the rise again because I felt the $700 I spent on the rail pass seemed like a bit of a waste.

We arrived in Lucerne or Luzern as the Swiss call it, at a reasonable time and for the most part had a pretty stress free ride.  It would have been nice to have taken the other "touristy" trip, but hey, we didn’t have to change trains,   Yay!!!!
After we got out of the station, I wondered around looking for our hotel.  I don't think I would have walked around lost, except that the information I had, said it was about 900 yards from the station.  Well, OK, perhaps my measurements are off, (I'm a guy, after-all), I just couldn’t find it.  I got back to the little lakeside cafe I "dropped" Momma at and then we took taxi again.  This time it was a 20 ch ride.  That was OK because the hotel was a bit out of the way.  Out of the way & small, but very cool and quaint.




Again today, like the rest of this trip, Momma has Totally rocked.  She's been Great as I’m running around trying to find crap & has hung out with bags more than I would have liked.

 Tonight, we stayed at Hotel Drei Koenige - Lucerne, Switzerland
We got ourselves checked in by a very nice lady and
then we were up to our room.  This room was by far the smallest we had, but it was pretty nice.  We still haven’t gotten much at all for souvenirs because we’ve been using our resources in different areas and other "fun" stuff like that.  I'm not at all pleased about that because I'd really like to have gotten some really cool stuff, but that's the way it goes.  As much as I'm bummed about all the extra money spent, I have to remember that the most important thing is that I'm hanging out with Momma for her 80th birthday and That, as they say, is Priceless. 


 
Dinner was next door to the hotel in a nice little pub.  The food was really good AND the service was Great!  We ended up having 2 different waitresses.  The first was just fine, but the second waitress was cute with tattoos.  I find it always interesting to get in a conversation with someone from another country & discuss things like tattoos, motorcycles, music, food, wine and other things like that.  More often than one might think, there is a common ground.  How cool would it be if Everyone would take the time t listen to someone else's opinion and of course, could have their opinion heard without anyone having the need to tell the other person they are wrong or don't know what they are talking about.   The young lady I talked about ink with had two great things to share.  A.  If a person doesn't like my tattoos, that's OK, they don't have to look and 2. my tattoos are an expression of who I am are are very personal.  I don't need permission & if you don't understand, that's OK, I still like YOU because of who you are, not how you look.  Bravo!  I know there's at least one person out there that will ask.  No, I don't remember her name.


Dinner was quite good & Not hugely overpriced…yay!  As we were eating, Momma and I got to thinking about how cool the area was.  This was a nice little “neighborhood” with the pubs & restaurants right there, along with little shops & businesses.  Houses and flats, too.  If it were like that here, maybe living in the city wouldn’t be all bad.  You know, a person wouldn’t even really need a car.


 
After dinner, we wondered around a bit and got a look at the buildings, the neighborhood and the really awesome university area, the theatre section and shops.  This was a very cool little city.  Tomorrow, we on our way again.  This time we'll be heading to Montreux.

Cheers to you & enjoy.

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