Yesterday (day 10) was a unique and stand-alone experience from the rest of the trip. Instead of strapping on the tennis shoes and taking the metro system around the current town, we spent the whole day on a tour/trip into the Swiss Alps. Milan is fairly close to the Swiss boarder, but now super close. So the day began with waking up earlier than any of us really wanted and rushing off to the tourist center to board our bus. With a quick intro from our tour guide, the doors closed and we headed toward the Switzerland boarder.
Of course, there was a lot to see before we actually reached Switzerland. The day began with a 3 hour bus ride, filled with incredible views, quaint towns, and hillsides covered with vineyards. I can only imagine how beautiful the hillsides will be when they are filled with vines and grapes in the summer. The bus tour ended in Tirano, Italy, where we had time to grab lunch and briefly explore the town before meeting back up with the tour group and boarding a train destined for the alps.
The train quickly pulled out of Italy and into Switzerland. In the two-and-a-half hour ride, we passed many lakes, traversed up and across numerous mountains, and transitioned from a world in which our light sweaters created too much heat to one which had been frozen for a long time and would continue to be frozen for a while still. I love the mountains and felt so blessed to have the chance to travel up into them. It was a perfect opportunity to find a world which still lived slowly, where the only noise was the train passing through town and the wind through the trees. Seeing those places was my miracle for today. Attached here is a little snippet of what the ride was like (hopefully it works for you, it works on my computer. It will be miracle #37 if it does).
Our train ride ended in St. Moritz, a small, cold, tourist town. Actually, considering the quantity of snow surrounding us and the very solidly frozen nature of the lake, it really wasn't that cold. We explored the small town, and found ourselves a place to buy hot chocolate. After finishing that, we found a store selling Swiss chocolate and each probably bought more than we reasonably should have. Finally, running out of time and wanting to avoid spending more money, we headed out of the town and took a stroll along the frozen lake, which is not only frozen, but further covered in snow and veined with walking paths which the locals frequent.
We returned to our bus, which met up with us in St. Moritz, to head back down the mountain and eventually return to Milan, tired, but very pleased with our adventures into Switzerland.
#36; the snippet worked for me!
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