Part 2 of Our Family Road Trip

      Since Switzerland is approximately 30km away from Cernobbio and Lake Como we decided we would drive over for the day.  It's just kind of cool to say, "We're going to Switzerland today.." haha
Anyway, we followed our GPS to the border.  'She' took us on a wild drive on the side of a hill, through tight roads and lots of twists and turns.(We were saying, "Is this really the right way?")  We saw an official looking gentleman standing next to a barricade and thought we would need to stop and show our passports. Nope. The man just waved us through; why he was standing there, I'm not sure.  After the fact, we realized we had just crossed over the border from Italy to Switzerland. Uneventful. Oh well.
     Switzerland was beautiful!  There was lots of leftover snow from what looked like a decent, past snowfall.  We were fortunate enough to find a great park to hike around in.  It was awesome! Hiking in that area is rather popular, apparently. The park was on a hill and the views from the top were breathtaking.
     After the park we drove down to Lake Lugano; city likewise named.  It was a Sunday afternoon so it was time for 'Passagiata': a stroll.  We joined in.  We walked around the lake a little bit. There were all kinds of birds we watched,etc. Then, we walked closer to shops and restaurants. There was also a public ice skating rink that anyone with skates (or rental skates) could use.  It would have been fun to go skating but I couldn't see the ice-the rink was PACKED! We were getting hungry so we searched for a place to eat.  There were a few fancy restaurants open and the McDonalds and Burger King were also open. We decided against all of the choices because every place was too expensive! A burger meal at Mc or BK was over 13 franks (12 euros or close to $15)  Plus, we were too close to Italy apparently, because every food choice was Italian too.  (What is Swiss food like, anyway?)
  

 View over Lake Lugano.  Race next to a snow marker

 Juliann was so happy to get her hands on some snow!

 Some art in the park

 More art? :-)

 Swiss mountains.  I wish I could name them

 Why am I carrying all this stuff?

 Not sure what Race is doing here..hmmm

 Family time

 Isn't this a cool swing?

 The next day we drove to Florence. We were really excited about Florence because so many people told us it was a beautiful city and that we would love it there! It was a nice drive getting there. Lots of hills, trees, and rustic buildings to see on the way. Our GPS, once again, got us close to our destination but not all the way. We parked so we could search for our hotel. We walked around a busy piazza (market central, in fact). We found a sign with our hotel name and rang the bell. The hotel entrance was not at all what we expected. We had to walk up 2 flights of stairs to the reception desk and it looked like a doctors office entrance. Everything was slightly run down; there were pieces of plywood under the cushions of the couch. hmmm. The man at the desk was not friendly and didn't even smile once! We should have turned around and left right then but we weren't sure what to do. Aaron had the car parked and we brought our luggage upstairs. Our room was a simple rectangle with 4 twin beds-2 of which were pushed together. The walls were painted a nice hospital blue with exam room flourescent lights above. It gets better...the bathroom was no bigger than a coat closet; you could go to the bathroom, shower and use the sink at the same time!(oh, not to mention, use the bidet too) When one took a shower in there, the whole room got soaking wet. ugh.. we only took a shower there once. After a few hours of being there we wanted to leave! But we were stuck. The guy at the desk would not let us leave without paying for 2 nights. And it wasn't cheap! So, we stayed.
There were a lot of cool things to see in Florence. It was fun to be out with everyone and to enjoy the lights,etc. there. We didn't go in any of the museums or churches because those that were open, were super crowded. It also rained on the second day we were there and it wasn't fun to walk around in the rain. It was definitely an experience. We might have to try Florence again another time.
Once we got back 'home' we all collapsed! We were thinking that we wouldn't go another trip for a long time. That lasted a day...I'll tell you about it in the next post :-)