Monday,only 2 hours from Locarno........

.........but it took us 8 hours! We got up early, had a nice breakfast at the Rossi and headed off to Locarno. We barely got out of the parking lot and had to stop because there was a bakery across the street. So over we headed hoping to get some of the bread that we had for breakfast. Of course we had to buy a few other things as well. Shopping is an adventure between trying to read the labels and figure out the price. Groceries here are very expensive. We may be eating pasta the whole time. So we get back in the car and decide to take to local road, made it almost 7 kilometers before we had to stop and take pictures of the cows. Quite a few of them had bells on and it was rather noisy, but they were so cute. Then it was back in the car where we made it almost another 15 minutes before we had to stop and take pictures of an old farm right in the town we were in. Next stop was Luzern where we tried to find the wooden bridge that all the tourists go see. It had actually burned a while ago and was rebuilt. We got a bit lost and instead found an even older one, mostly original and enjoyed crossing it and admiring the construction and paintings. Every arch in the roof had 2 three sided paintings (one facing each way) all very religious in their themes. Lots of writing on each, but all in German so we don't really know what they said. Finally we got back on the road only to find another place to stop in about 5 minutes. Luzern was once a walled city and we found a road that went right up along a long section of the wall. Of course we had to go check it out. Every few hundred feet there is a tower, each one constructed differently. Upon closer inspection we saw that one of the towers was open and that you could walk up three of the towers, crossing to the next one along the top of the wall. Needless to say, Pauline and I had to check it all out. One of the towers is a clock tower and as you are walking up inside you are passing by the pendulum and the clock mechanism. Near the top is a display with the original clock face and clock works. ...stayed tuned, this will be added to tomorrow as well as what we did on Tuesday and today, but I gotta end it now before the internet cafe closes

AND HERE IS THE REST OF MONDAYS STORY...More on Mondays travels…..
So after we left Luzern we headed off for Locarno, going thru many tunnels including the Gottard. The Gottard Pass is still closed, they hope to have it open sometime after the 25th so we may be able to go over it on the way back to Zurich. Shortly after Gottard Pass there is a town called Altdorf. One of Pauline’s fellow employees told her that if we where any where near there to be sure and check it out. Since it was lunch time we thought that it might be a great place to have some. We were very pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the town. Plus it is not quite tourist season over here yet so we pretty much had the whole town to ourselves. Beautiful buildings, piazzas, fountains and amazing shop signs. The main piazza has a monument to William
Tell who was from the area. Lunch was enjoyed in a small out of the way place, with panini’s and fresh made ravioli’s with local cheese. By now it was after 2 and time to get serious about getting to Locarno. Somewhere between Bellinzona and Locarno we stopped at a Migros, a local grocery chain. It was our first adventure in shopping, trying to figure out prices, where they keep things and what they call them. For example peanut butter is called Burro Di Arachidi, which to us translates to donkey spiders…. Of course we had to have some cheese! The cheese counters are bigger than the meat counters back home. The fellow behind the counter was very generous in giving us samples of many different types. At one point we wanted to find some sheep cheese and I asked him if he spoke English. When he said ‘no’ I pointed to the cheese display and said ‘baaaa’. He said ‘aha’ and pointed to the cheese with goats on the label. I tried to explain to him that it was a smaller animal. Then along comes another clerk and she comes over and says ‘moo cheese’, ‘baa cheese’, and something else I was not sure off. Then she points to the sheep cheese. At this point the fellow helping us says ‘where from?’. I told him ‘ the US’ and he again said ‘where’, at which point I told him ‘Maine’. I though we were going to fall over laughing when he said ‘ah, Maine, Steven King!’ I guess that is what Maine is famous for over here. Finally around 4 or so we arrived at the house. Or should I say driveway, it is another 146 steps down to the upper level of the house and then 10 or so more outside down to the lower level. There are no inside stairs from the bedrooms upstairs to the downstairs kitchen and living room areas. At this point we were all running on empty and were determined to take all our luggage as well as all the groceries down to the house in one trip. We managed it without any mishaps. We quickly unpacked our stuff, put away the groceries and enjoyed a nice supper of fresh bread, local cheese and fruit out on the patio, finished the card game we started at Logan and headed off to bed.