Italy, Livestock and Little Miss Sunshine Euro style

Day 2
On my second day here we went to Italy, just 15 minutes away. Ah Italy, land of Espresso and Gellato where life moves a little slower (except behind the wheel of a car) and people give their children numbers rather then names (like Primo Levy). I actually don't have much to say about Italy, except that there are a lot of churches there too and they are really ornate, sometimes the point of being ridiculous. In addition to there being churches every few meters in Switzerland and Italy there are also little shrines to the Virgin Mary set up periodically by the side of the road or in the middle of little villages. This is big time Catholic country. In fact I haven't seen much evidence of any other religions being practiced here at all, aside from the two families of Hasidic Jews that were on the flight into Zurich with me. My step-grandparents tell me there is a large Jewish population in the German states of Switzerland, but here in Ticino it's pretty homogeneously Catholic.


Day 3
We went up into one of the Alpine valleys and saw a bunch of Rustica villages. The houses in these villages are all built out of stone (including their roofs). The Alps here are basically solid granite so the cutting (and selling) of granite is big business here and everything that can be made of granite is. The curbs on the sidewalk are granite, the cobble stones are granite, fence posts are made of granite, the stakes holing up the grape vines are granite, the drain grates are granite, any outdoor stairs and many indoor ones are granite and up in the alpine villages whole houses are made of it. Granite is everywhere.


Another thing that is everywhere here - dairy products. I swear it seems like the dairy products aisle in the grocery stores takes up at least 1/3 of the total shelf space. Switzerland has crazy dairy products. Way better than anything we have in the states. I'm told that this is true of all Europe, which I suppose I'll see a bit of for myself by the time I'm done. The icon of Switzerland is a cow though so it stands to reason they'd have a pretty good handle on making dairy products. Butter, cheese, yogurt, it's all good here.

We got a chance to see first hand some of the super adorable livestock Switzerland has in such abundance. I know, "adorable" and "livestock" aren't usually words you hear together, but take a look at these pictures and tell me you don't think they're super cute.


Tap water is also better here. In fact where ever water runs from any kind of tap, fountain or spigot you can drink it and it's great. Every little village up in the mountains still has a community water source (like the fountain in this picture) and, while animals bathe in the trough the water coming from the spigot is cleaner than anything you'll find stateside.

We, of course, had fondue for dinner so I could get the complete Swiss experience and fully enjoy the fantastic cheese that abounds here.

Day 4
We went back to Bellinzona for the market they have on Saturdays which was remarkably like Pike Place market except they only have it one day a week (half a day really since it closes at 1:00PM). We also saw the other two castles there which were actually, along with the one we saw my first day here, at one time all three connected by a wall that went all the way across the valley. So, really the three castles were once one castle. More castles meant more opportunity for me to take zillions of pictures, of course, and on our way back to Locarno we stopped an watched some Go Kart racing which was fun and provided another opportunity for me to indulge my photography obsession. The drivers were all little kids (maybe 7 or 8 years old) but it seemed to be a pretty serious race. They had a pit crew and little racing suits and everything.

Day 5
My last day in Switzerland, spent mostly in the car. I was actually in 4 different countries (none of which had anyone stationed at their borders so I still don't have any stamps on my passport), Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria and Germany. We drove up through the Alps which was pretty amazing. Unfortunately I got hardly any good pictures of that because I was in a car on the Autobahn the whole time. I'm in Munich now and, as you might imagine, have loads to say about it too but apparently the Internet hasn't come to Europe yet, at least not to Germany or Switzerland, you'll have to wait a day or two for the next update because I'm at a wireless hot spot but only had 2 hours battery life on my laptop and it's nearly out.