From: Rainer Subject: Rainer's Europe Trip 1998 -- part 25 Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 19:38:29 EST Sunday, 10/18 -- part 25 I have to marvel at the timing of things. The only really bad weather we've had on this trip has been on days when we've had to train or drive. Yesterday's beautiful weather gave way to rain this morning. The clouds that the hikers ascending the Schilthorn saw were indeed "the weather moving in." Breakfast was much better at the Bernerhof, a place we found while walking around last night after dinner that advertised a decent breakfast menu. The lady at our hotel doesn't know squat about what's in Interlaken when she said you couldn't get anything but a continental breakfast here. Omelettes, roestis, pancakes -- we were stuffed. After packing up in the room and loading the car we leave Interlaken in the rain and set our destination to Como, Italy. We start off climbing through a pass over 7000 feet high before we descend again and reach the autobahn. Most of the way we are in the clouds. Near the top of the pass, the clouds part a bit near "Steingletscher" or "stone glacier" and we make a pit stop and take some pictures, too. The drive is very slow because of the twisty road and the clouds. Once we hit the autobahn, we start cruising again. We drive through an even longer tunnel than the one billed as the second longest in the world. Hmmm. It really is very tedious driving almost 16 miles in a tunnel with two-way traffic. I wonder how they ventilate such a thing? Once out of the tunnel we find ourselves in Ticini, the last province of Switzerland before Italy. It is practicly Italian. It's amazing how this little country is split into French German and Italian. Once we reach Italy, the weather turns worse. It really starts to rain and keeps on raining and pouring all the way to Como. Como is a great disappointment to all of us. Haze, smog, and a very crowded city don't sit well with us after the clear, clean, lowly populated villages of Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland that we've just come from. We find the hotel that we picked out of the tour book earlier by chance. Finding a parking space in the maze of one-way streets raises tension levels even more. The rooms are very expensive. They have no computer connections. A suite, however, can be rented for just 60,000 Lire more and it has a fax line -- just what a modem needs. We take it. The room is actually quite nice an faces Lake Como. On a clear day, when everyone in the piazza below is at home, this could actually be quite nice. But now you can't see the lake much and it is very crowded and noisy below the hotel windows. Parking is a pain, especially since it is several blocks away and since it is still raining pretty hard. We unpack and get settled and decide to visit Bellagio since Dietrich had talked of it so nicely when recollecting his visit to Italy. We try to drive to Bellagio but should have taken the ferry. The drive is awful -- like a bad video game. Lots of cars going way too fast on way too narrow a road which is way to curvy. I only swipe one car's side mirror. Luckily the mirrors of both cars are flippable and no damage is done. We drive for a long time and keep looking for a pullout. There are none. Finally, the road widens and we stop, letting the raft of cars behind us pass. We see a sign that indicates we're not even half-way to Bellagio yet. We decide to turn around, eat dinner, and stay in the room. We hope for better day tomorrow.