Lugano is the Italian part of Switzerland. The
climate, geography, homes, language all are entirely different from the rest of
the country. My travel buddy on that trip wanted to extend out stay and visit
Lugano, and that was fine with me. Our guide insisted that we should visit
a certain grotto restaurant. He drew us a map, gave us directions and assured
us they spoke English and accepted credit cards.
We were game. We took the city bus to Paradiso and
walked the short distance to the gondola station to get to the top of Mt San Salvador. We had a spectacular view
and after walking a footpath to an old church and climbing a flight of stairs
to the observation deck we had an even better 360-degree view above the tree
line of the city and lake.
Back at street level we found our way to the post bus
stop where we had a short wait for the bus. As we boarded the bus I showed the
driver a card from the restaurant to make sure we were on the right bus. Little did we know we were in for a
hair-raising ride over a narrow switch-back, hairpin-turn road up, up, up! At
one narrow overpass the driver had no more than an inch of space on either side
of the bus. He was good!
The driver alerted us at the proper stop and pointed
us in the right direction. It was a Saturday and we never thought to ask when
the bus returned. We followed the cobblestone alley for quite a distance and I was
beginning to wonder if we really were in the right place when around the next
curve the grotto restaurant appeared.
English—forget it. No one, even the other diners,
spoke any English. The menu of course was in Italian, which neither of us
spoke. We had been told to sit at a
stone table, but for the life of me I can’t remember the significance of why.
But we did it anyway. We could figure out pizza and salad on the menu. I opted
for the former and my buddy the latter. Both were good, but we were a bit surprised when the tomato salad arrived and a large bowl of quartered tomatoes was set before us!. The setting was lovely,
cool, picturesque with flowers and greenery everywhere.
We paid our bill and made our way back down the alley.
The bus schedule was posted on the outside of the post office. It was a bit
confusing so I walked next door to another restaurant and found an
English-speaking gentleman who informed us the bus was due in five minutes;
then the next and last bus would be 3-hours later. Talk about unexpected good timing!
After an equal hair-raising ride down the mountain we
were happy to be back in Paradiso where we decided to walk back along the
waterfront to Lugano. It had been a fun day.
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