Escape to Italy, Vol. 1

A week without blogging is like a week without sunshine, and a week without sunshine is pretty typical for cloudy, rainy, springtime Zurich. The solution to both problems, as hatched by our friends Max and Alesha, was an impromptu weekend road trip to Italy! Swiss Miss packed Mister's bag on Friday night so we could pick up the working man straight from Zug, and the four of us drove off into the long weekend sunset. Hooray for Pentecost, I always say.

After successfully smuggling Swiss Miss across the Italian border (my passport is currently busy at a consulate in Geneva -- ah, the perils of not being an EU citizen!), we made it to Lake Como, and what we believed to be the beginning of a hiking trail up to our mountain refugio. Given that it was already 10pm-ish, we were anxious to get going, and so perhaps some of us (Max!) ignored the instructions to follow the road to its end with our car... Instead we plunged into an hour-plus-long slog in the dark forest on foot! Luckily, we survived and were greeted at the refugio with pasta, wine, and triple-decker bunk beds! Plus, the view in the morning made us realize it was all worth it...
We hiked up the mountain to enjoy the sunshine, and we discovered we were not the only ones out and about: can you spot the mountain climber hiding in this picture? Click to embiggen.

Swiss Mister: scaling peaks and breaking hearts.
Swiss Miss in her superhero costume. Bionic.

Our intrepid trip planners, Max and Alesha!

What's that there off in the snowy yonder? That's right -- Zermatt and the Matterhorn, which we visited not all that long ago!
And finally, here is Swiss Miss, cupping the Pearl of Lake Como, Bellagio,
famous for its setting at the intersection of the three branches of the Y-shaped lake:

But given the nice weather, the real question on everyone's mind was, Where's the beach? The answer: Ze beech eez zat way!

And so our tale will continue in Cinque Terre -- stay tuned for beaches, all-you-can-eat gourmet food (complete with lobster sculptures), death-defying tunnels and hikes, and omnipresent Germans in camper caravans.