Bellinzona - Lake Como - Sat. - Sept.25

Travel day.  We say good-bye to the AmaSerena and start our post cruise adventure in Lake Como, Italy.

Luggage is loaded on two buses and we head East and South.   Our driver is Luigi and our host is Andre.

I can't believe how many tunnels Switzerland has.

Well, after all, they are the best boring machine engineers and designers in the world!   Just ask Ben.

We are on our way to experience the granddaddy of them all!  The Gotthard Road Tunnel.   It's 10.5 miles  long.  But before we arrived there, a strategic and interesting rest stop greets travelers.

Gas station, restaurant, major souvenir shop, a large number of restrooms, a suspension bridge across a glacial stream outside, and a neat statue of William Tell and his son with mechanically-moving orbs above them.

Onward to the Gotthard Tunnel.   It's a two-lane tunnel.

There's two-lanes feeding both ends.  Everyone queues up and awaits traffic signals for release to enter.  They let approx. 6-8 vehicles go at a time.   Many times during summer weekends the wait is over two hours.

We made it through with only a short delay.   

Bellinzona, say it with me.. 'bell in z oh na'. Pretty, eh?

Close to the border with Italy, but it's in Switzerland.  They speak Italian.  Quite a turbulent history.  (what part of Europe doesn't have one?)

Bellinzona is in the foreground (looking north), we drove in from the left valley :

It has some interesting medieval castles.

Here's some pic's from Castelgrande, and then looking across the valley to Montebello Castle and Sasso Corbaro Castle ..

These castles were built in the late 1300's - early 1400's.

It was very neat walking around Castel Grande.

We headed back down the hill to the town square.  They were just finishing their Saturday market day.

At first, the church on one side of the square didn't appear to have a grand exterior.   This was the

Chiesa Collegiata dei SS Pietro e Stefano.   We almost didn't attempt to go look inside.   But something was pulling me in .. and I'm glad we visited.  Take a look!

and looking back at the organ pipes ..

All in all it was a very pleasant drive from our ship in Basel to the Hilton at Lake Como.   A wonderful walking tour of Bellinzona broke up the 5-hour drive.

We're looking forward to the next several days.

But I'm fearful we may have some rain heading our way.   What's a little rain to Oregonians?

Ciao bella!