Thursday......go to church day

The morning started out pouring rain, looked like it was going to be  a miserable day. However around 9 or so the rain stopped and the clouds lifted and it was quite pleasant. This seemed to be the perfect day to head down the road just a bit and explore the Il Santuario Della Madonna del Sasso. It sits very majestically on a rock outcropping overlooking Lake Maggiore, Locarno and the surrounding mountains. The origins date back to 1480 when a monk propagated the cult of the Virgin Mary. According to tradition the monk had a vision that appeared to him on the night of the Assumption of the Virgin. He built several chapels on the hill. They have been greatly added to over the years and centuries.

It's fame began to spread with the establishment of a new diocese and the growth of tourism in the region. Just after World War II, the statue of the Madonna del Sasso was taken from village to village, until it had been to the most remote places of the canton. This was the year of the 'Great Visit' and contributed greatly to spreading the news of the Madonna and her Sanctuary among the people of Ticino.

Several of the small chapels incorporated into the church each have sculptures in them depicting the life of Christ. There is a life sized scene, done in baked clay of The Last Supper, a life sized wooden carving of the Pieta as well as others that we did not understand the meaning of.

When we arrived at The Presbytery itself there was a service going on. We quietly stepped into the door and when the service was over we spent almost an hour exploring everything. Throughout the area near the entrance, the walls are covered with paintings placed by people whose loved ones have died. The unusual thing about these paintings are that they depict the way in which the person died. There was a lot to take in at once. I imagine that if we went back again we would see many things that we never noticed during this visit. Just exploring the grounds around the church would be fascinating. And leave it to Pauline to find the garden area that the nuns cultivate is a secluded corner!

Afterwards we hiked back up to the road an enjoyed a lovely lunch at the Funicolare restorante overlooking the Madonna del Sasso. Our intentions were to head right back home afterwards but we got a bit side tracked as usual and spent some time in Migros, the local department store (where we found more seeds!!!), as well as a drive thru some small roads right along the water front. Finally arrived back home late in the afternoon, had a dinner consisting of cleaning out the fridge then off to bed early. Tomorrow we pack, haul everything back up the stairs and spend a leisurely day driving to Dagmersellen where we will spend the night again in Hotel Rossi.

A semi lazy Wednesday

     After our adventures yesterday we were all ready to just hang around the house for most of the day. We slept late, had a leisurely breakfast and everyone went off in their own little corner for the morning. Pauline and I poked around the property taking photos, watched the workers in the vineyard and enjoyed finding lots of plants and flowers that we had never seen before. After lunch we decided to head down to the internet cafe, sip a cappuccino and post a few more photos on smugmug. Afterwards we headed up to the eastern end of Lake Maggiore. At least we tried to. The only route we knew was completely blocked by police, barricades, crowds of people, etc. Turns out there was a huge bicycle race that was passing thru Locarno. The bicyclists racing were also followed by cars with spare bicycles, more police, medics and on and on. We happened to be in the right place at the right time to actually see the riders go thru and they were followed by a helicopter with a camera mounted underneath. Once the bicyclists went thru the crowds turned to the TV's in cafes and shops to watch the rest of the race. The fascinating thing for us was to see how well organized it, how smooth it ran, and how little it affected traffic. Within moments after the riders went thru an area, workers were cleaning up the barricades, advertising, etc.

Somewhere in the middle of all this we managed to get up to the eastern end of the lake. Our fascination with this area is that it is a large, flat river delta. In other words, rich soil. It is covered with greenhouses, hoop houses and field crops. There was no way we were leaving the valley without spending an afternoon exploring the area.

Once we got past all the bicycle race traffic we found a narrow little dirt road that went right thru the middle of the area. Close inspection of the hoop houses has given us lots on new, efficient and inexpensive ways to extend the growing season in Maine. It was an afternoon well spent.

Afterwards we picked up a few groceries, stopped to take a few pictures of advertising signs in town, headed home for dinner and a relaxing evening.

Hello again T-Mobile

It is Wednesday and we are running around today to finish up all the little things we said we wanted to do while we were here.  We are going down in to the valley of Locarno where there are a lot of hoophouses with veggies growing in them.  We are going to see if we can find anyone that speaks English and ask questions about how they work.  They have all kinds of cool ways of closing their greenhouses and opening them and we want to learn for our greenhouse.

I've visited a couple of different cell phone stores.  Pretty much the same as we have at home, even a lot of the same model phones.  For example I saw the Motorola Krazr.  But they have a lot of Siemans phones and a lot of Sony Ericson phones and data devices. This is me pretending to fall at Gotthard Pass

It's hard to believe my vacation is just about over, some of it went by really quick.  You all have just a few more days to work this week and I'll be BBBAACCCKKK on Tuesday!  Woo Hoo, I'll be there to kick off June and see what awesome things we can accomplish.  My guess is you are all rocking it out for a strong finish to May.  Keep up the good work and I'll see you all soon!!

 

Note the T-Mobile Oakland ME logo on the back of this blanket.  All the way in the Swiss Alps!!

Does any else see the humor in this?

....sign for a small restaurant up the road from the house

 

Free advertising for Joe and Dee

Hopefully this gets us at least a free cup of coffee when we get home. It's not our fault that not a single car or person passed us when we were here..........

Hey Mark! This ones just for you

Mark, thought you might want to see what the pecker poles look like in Switzerland.

Tuesday, 450 kilometers in one day.

     Up early today, in the car and on the road at 6:28. This was the big adventure day. Everyone wanted to go see Trummelbach Falls, which was somewhat south of Interlaken, Interlaken was somewhat north and a bit west of here, Italy was between here and there, and one range in the Alps that had no roads. Add to that the fact that most of the higher passes here have not been opened yet. Gottard Pass was just opened this week. To get there we had to travel through the Centovalli region, which is the same route that we took on the train to Domodossola. Since we were in the car this time we had a lot of stopping to do along the way. Before we were 30 kilometers from the house we had probably already gotten side tracked about 5 times.

     One of the first stops was a dam in the valley. They had a great diagram of how this particular system worked, which is typical of most of the ones here is Switzerland. Most of their power is hydroelectric. There are small dammed areas all over the country, in the unlikeliest of places. Several of them in an area will be connected through underground tunnels and in places you will see the tunnel come out high up on a mountainside and then there are large pipes running straight down to the valley floor.

     Next it was another white knuckle drive up the valley to the Italian border. We have done several border crossings this week and no one has asked to see our passports! This time the guard just said "You Americans?', when I said yes he just responded 'Go ahead'. A few miles later we came around a corner and saw a spectacular view of the town of Re, famous for its church and the story from the 1500's that goes along with it. (we'll write about it when we can find it). We spent about a half hour here checking out the church from all angles.The original was built in the 1500's, the part showing in the photo was built between the 1920's and the 1950's.

     We tried hard to stay on track after that, we still had a long way to go. Drove through Domodossola, then headed up to the border, back into Switzerland and over the Simplon Pass. Then down the pass and into the town of Brig. From here we headed west to Steg, only to head north again to the town of Goppenstein. Not far from here the road ends, but you can take the auto train under the mountains to pick up the road to Interlaken. Here, every half hour a train pulls these rail cars thru the tunnel. About 100 cars can fit on each train. Even tour buses were on our train. You just drive on the end and keep going until the car in front of you stops. Set your brake, turn the car off and get weirded out for the next 12 minutes. They are basically just flatbeds with canopies. When it first starts moving you want to hit the brake and grab the wheel. Then you are in the tunnel and it is totally dark. Before you know it you're back out in the daylight and on your way.

     From the train we pretty much drove straight thru to Trummelbach Falls. The parking area was packed so we drove past it a bit to another waterfall were we had a picnic lunch and took a walk through the wildflower fields to the base of the falls.The falls are quite famous as being the only falls entirely inside the mountain and still accessible. A small rail car takes you half way up, inside the mountain, then you can climb another 420 steps and several walkways up inside the mountain to few the various chutes of which there are 10 in all. Mom, who said she was tired, managed to do the whole thing. The views inside are spectacular, very had to capture on film. But it was definitely worth the long trip to get here. The wild flowers are just starting to bloom here and the fields were beautiful.  After out journey through Trummelbach we stopped for a snack at the local grotto and then headed towards Luzern, where we hoped to be able to drive over Gottard Pass in the daylight. We found the road to the pass and stopped many times to enjoy the view and even spent some time driving on part of the old cobblestone road near the top. The snow banks near the top were high and it was cold and wet out. We did manage to spend some time at the top enjoying the view. After that it was down the pass and thru the valley back to Locarno and home. Needless to say, we were all in bed pretty early. A long, long day, but worth every second of it.