Now that was one long mama of a day - not quite 24 hrs, but it sure seemed like it. And I just have one question - why would anybody fly to Europe on United or Delta, when you could fly on Swiss or Lufthansa? The food was good and the service was better, and when was the last time you said that about an airline? One quirk about Swiss, it seems, is they won't let you carry on a suitcase weighing more than 8 kilos, about 17 pounds, so I had to check mine, and since we were already in San Francisco, and we weren't giving Alaska a shot at losing it from Seattle, I was OK with that.
But 11 hrs is a long flight, particularly after the five hour mark when you realize you aren't even half way yet. We both managed to get a little sleep, so it could have been a lot worse. I had decided that since Lucerne was only a little more than an hour away on the train, and it sounded much more interesting in Zurich, we'd spend our first night there.
It turned out to be a great call - it's a beautiful city and once we found the hotel, only about a 15min walk from the train station, all was right with the world. Even better than right - as we checked in, the desk clerk told us we'd been traded to the hotel across the square - a beautiful 4 star hotel right on the river. Well, that certainly worked for us! We wandered around our little 'old town' neighborhood on a beautiful warm, sunny evening, hoping to find a small restaurant to celebrate the beginning of our great adventure. What we found were a lot of pretty nice places, but really expensive. Pizza for two was about $50 in most places, and the fancy places were well beyond that. Since it was such a fabulous evening we found a store and got some bread, salami, some cheese and grapes and had a wonderful little picnic by the river. What a fitting end to a very long day. Good night all. Tomorrow it's off to Lake Como, a place my friend Thom calls his favorite place in all of Italy.
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