An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
We were a bit bored of Italy after almost one full day, so we drove to Switzerland for the afternoon.
We began with their familiar, but well done, breakfast buffet, during which we sampled every one of their pastry offerings. It was then back to the road life. We took the ferry to Verenna, running into the same American foursome we took yesterday’s ferry with: Bob and Kevin (a couple), Bob’s mother, and Renee, Kevin’s friend since they were six. Another beautiful ride across a different part of the lake.
We drove out of Verenna toward Chiavenna with the towering Alps in the distance in front of us. We got there a bit early for lunch, so we drove up (and I mean up) the valley for 30 minutes of the most hair-pin and harriest-pin turns we’d ever experienced, then turned around and went back into town. We lunched exquisitely at Al Cenacola, a restaurant recommended by the Italian gastronomic deity, Fred Plotkin. The owner was a warm and welcoming women who made us a divine special appetizer plate of air-dried beef (bresaola), a beef pate/terrine, and smoked goose. This was followed by a tagliatelle with a very light tomato cream sauce and then a delicious duck with a cherry sauce. Dessert was grape sorbet with grappa, but we were too full to enjoy more than 1/2 of the three scoops.
We headed off to St. Moritz, a 46km drive away. The scenery was spectacular! (Like Norway without water! Ha-ha, just a little private travel joke) We drove through a valley with 10,000+ foot peaks and ranges — often snow and glacier covered — rising steeply from the lush green valley floor. Along the way we passed a deep blue lake filled with wind surfers with brightly-colored sails zipping across in all directions looking like the bug life on our upstate pond.
The town of St. Moritz was a Madison Avenue/Rodeo Drive in the Alps, with lots of grand old hotels. We didn’t spend much time there, then drove back down a different valley. What (new) spectacular scenery! A mammoth descending valley with huge glaciers and enormous sheer mountainsides. We descended for close to an hour, then were detained at the border crossing because Avis had included a copy of the registration, not the original. We sat for 20 minutes in the car while Italy’s finest hand-wrote multiple pages documenting this egregious international infraction. We were assured that it was Avis that had to pay, and we were given a copy of the paperwork and finally dismissed. As best as we can tell, the whole penalty amounted to less than $10.
Traffic along the road back to Verenna was annoyingly plodding, though it was nicely scenic and had some really great tunnels (and we know tunnels!). We just missed the 19:25 ferry, so had to wait for the 20:20 one, which we did at an outdoor table of a no-name hotel’s restaurant, enjoying a grappa and a tomato juice. The ferry ride was neat in the dark, looking at all the lakeside lights. We returned to our new lake-view room, which was only a partial lake-view and was right over the hotel entrance. Then downstairs to do the emailing in a room off the bar, while some guy watched “Kelly’s Heroes” (dubbed in Italian) on the TV.
An observation: there sure are a lot of old tourists here; guess they’re the ones who have the time and money this time of year.