Lakes, Lights, and Lugano

 We had planned spend the final morning in Lucerne by joining the optional excursion up the cable cars to as near as they get to the summit of Mount Pilatus this morning, however, it was not able to proceede due to strong winds. So instead a leasurly morning before the coach trip to Lugano. The views of the lakes and alps as we traversed the forest cantons were incredibly beautiful and I spent much of the morning swapping seats to try and get the best snaps of the views out the windows!

Lunch at "the services" (aka servo) as the driver had to take a mandatory rest break so an ice cream for me and a beer for Matt. Only another half hour or so of travel before dumping the bags to the hotel and farwelling Vasily, our driver. 

We set off for our final orientation walk with Aga, our lovely guide which looped round the lake and town and up to the cathedral and a final gluhwein at the markets.

Next to the Cathedral is the funincular mentioned in Drina Dances in Switzerland and we caught it down the hill.  Hmmm, maybe we should have caught it up and walked down instead to the way we did it!

We wandered the town a while including a brief stop at a local bar. For a wine or the conveniences? You decide.

The sun came out briefly! 

Rejoinng the group we set off for a sunset cruise on the lake and to see the lights. It was chilly but pretty - however, Aga made sure we kept warm with Jagermeister shots! 

 

Our final group dinner at was at our hotel for the night as we said goodbye to our companions of the road. The hotel was our nicest yet. Our room was huge and featured the red an gold velvet curtains I've always coveted.

finishing the trip with a bottle of bubbles seemed appropriate.

Really there was not enough time in Lugarno to get any feel for the place which was a pity. Switzerland's resorts were very popular as locations with writers of middlebrow fiction and Lugano is somewhere that I have read about in many mid 20th century works of girls fiction (mostly Mabel Esther Allan springs to mind) and thus somewhere that felt almost familiar and I would have liked more than just half a day here.

Packed and ready for an early start to commence the homeward leg.