Day 25 - TT European Whirl (Day 8) Lucerne

Yep you guessed it... Today started with a 6am wake up call!

 

We had our bags packed and outside our rooms as we prepared to say goodbye to Italy.

 

With the seat rotation we were now at the front of the bus... well kind of... The seat behind the bus driver is kept empty for the tour director to dump bits and pieces and for those not feeling too good so we were as far forward as we could go in our row!

 

I was looking forward to being down the fromt for this trip as I had heard so much about the gorgeous scenery on this drive.... Unfortunately the weather beat me!  With the fog we couldn't see far in fromt of us at all as we drove through Italy.

 

We drove past Lake Como and I waited, and waited, but no invite from George Clooney to drop in for a coffee  :(  Very disappointing!

 We drove past many familiar names - Modena... home of balsamic vinegar. 
The Ferrari factory
The town of Parma - home of parmesan cheese and proscuitto

We crossed the border into Switzerland and the south of Switzerland was cold and rainy.  I was a bit worried as we had some special outdoor plans this afternoon.  Sigi kept telling us "No, no it will be fine".  As we entered St Gottard Pass it was raining and 12 degrees.

 San Gottard pass is this amazing tunnel that goes for 17km straight through the mountain.  They have so many tunnels through Europe but this one has to be one of the longest.

 Anyway we finally come through the tunnel and what an amazing sight.  On this side of the mountan (as Sigi had told us) it was sunny and 25 degrees.  It was mind blowing to go in one side of the tunnel, and come out the other to a totally different atmosphere.  Kyle and Tasha likened it to entering Narnia.

 The chalets and mountains in this area are simply gorgeous.

We took up the optional extra of a visit to a farm via horse drawn carriage.  We were picked up in the town of Giswil and had a nice scenic tour of the town from a unique perspective of the carriage.  Tasha was excited to be given a front row seat!
We ended up at the farm house of Hans and Hermina where we were given a yummy feast of bread, cheese, cold meats, pastries, apple juice, wine and schnapps - all made there on the farm.

 Tasha was also happy to have Leona along with us on this excursion.  Leona and Tasha have shared lots of laughs and fun times on this holiday.  We only met her just over a week ago but she is a lovely lady and brought tears to my eyes the other night at dinner when she told Tash she would love to be an honorary grandmother and Tash promptly started calling her Nanna!

Todays Tally:

Steps:  3808 (lots of sitting today)
Hours on the bus:  7 hours