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Having been granted two days off work this week, Dan and I decided to take off south in search of sanity and relaxation. Yearning for freedom, we hired a car from Bruno, a local taxi driver, and took the highway towards the Italian region of Switzerland. For the first few kilometres I struggled to remember how to drive, frequently riding the kerb and attempting to change gear with the door handle on my left...

European Tales: Road Trip

Joseph Tame
2006-06-30 17:16:41

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Road Trip to Lugano

Having been granted two days off work this week, Dan and I decided to take off south in search of sanity and relaxation. Yearning for freedom, we hired a car from Bruno, a local taxi driver, and took the highway towards the Italian region of Switzerland. For the first few kilometres I struggled to remember how to drive, frequently riding the kerb and attempting to change gear with the door handle on my left. However, by the time we began to climb the first of two mountain passes I felt fairly competant, and even managed to carry out an emergency stop when suddenly out of the thick fog traffic cones appeared across the carriageway in the entrance to a narrow tunnel. I think Dan was a bit freaked out - but not as much as me when earlier I simply couldn't remember which was the brake and which was the accelerator. Thankfully Dan's driving wasn't half as bad as mine - we both then had the opportunity to relax.

Reaching Lugano everything fell into place. A rare space for the car appeared right beside the tourist information office on the lakefront, and not 50 metres from there a cheap hotel where we got their last room which apparantly sported "lake views". Hhhmm, yes, we couldn't deny it - we could see a thin slice of water at the end of the narrow alleyway that lay between the buildings opposite.

Lugano held a great surprise for us in that it was Italian in every way. It was difficult to remember that we were actually in Switzerland when all around people were speaking a language neither of us understood, Pizzas topped every restaurant menu card and the architecture was undeniably Italian with the cobbled squares and arched walkways. The local population were sophisticated in their dress, looking appeallingly sexy in an unmistakingly Meditteranean fashion. Ice cream carts stood on every corner and there was the relaxed disorganised ...