Tunnels everywhere..

April 13, 2014

Today was a day filled with driving, which is actually a good thing in Europe because pretty much everything is closed on Sundays. We had a nice filling breakfast at our hotel, which included 2 cappuccinos for me because the barista made one for each of us instead of just one for me. We decided to travel on the smaller toll-free highways and side roads today, which made for a much more scenic route through rural Italy.

We drove for about 2 hours before reaching Verona and making our way to the city centre. We parked nearby and wandered about for an hour to stretch our legs. 

In Verona there is an arena that pre-dates the Coliseum in Rome, which is pretty cool. We didn’t go in because we were too cheap (Dutch) and there was a big line. We also found “Juliet’s House”, which of course was cram-jammed with tourists. 

After our little bit of wandering we headed back to the car because we didn’t want to pay for more than an hour of parking (Dutch). As a side note, we parked in the nicest, most efficient parking structure I have ever seen. Above each parking stall is a small light; when the stall is occupied the light is red and when it is vacant the light is green, so you can look down a whole lane of stalls and see right away if there is an empty stall instead of driving down one only to be fooled into thinking there is a free spot by a tiny car hiding behind a truck (not that there are really any trucks on the road here).

After leaving Verona we continued on our no-toll route west towards Milan. After about 3-3.5 hours of driving we were entering Milan and following the signs to “Centro” as we assumed this would be where all the cool stuff was. Turns out we were right and we found the really pointy cathedral that is on all the “must see in Milan” lists on the internet. 

It was free to get in but there were military guards checking bags (not sure what for…) and you had to pay 2 euro for an armband that indicates that you are allowed to take pictures inside. We didn’t pay for an armband but I did take 1 photo inside on the sly (and I wasn’t even struck down on the spot). 

Near the cathedral there was a street that had a bunch of world flags because Milan is hosting Expo 2015, so they are gearing up and advertising for that I guess. We wandered around Milan for about an hour and then we decided it was time to hit the ol’ dusty trail and head up to Switzerland.

Taking the toll-free route was going to take 5 hours to reach Lucerne, and with tolls it would take about 3. We decided to bite the bullet and take the quicker route as it was already 4pm. We ended up hitting one toll booth just outside of Como, Italy and then we passed through a checkpoint into Switzerland and were immediately hit with a 35 euro fee to use the highways (we got a sticker that’s good for the whole year, yay! Your welcome to whoever uses our rental car and happens to pass through Switzerland in 2014).

Switzerland is beautiful though; it’s a land of mountains with little towns dotted throughout. We saw houses and buildings so far up the mountains we were amazed that they were even accessible. It really was a breathtaking drive through the mountains, which also included many, many, many tunnels. At one point we went through a tunnel that was 17 kms long!

 There was a crazy backlog of traffic to get into the tunnel as the cars are spaced out so you aren’t driving bumper to bumper in there. Along the whole thing there were evenly spaced turnouts, SOS phones and signs warning you to keep at least 50 meters between you and the car in front of you. And it was only one lane of traffic in either direction, so I imagine any accident or stalled vehicle in there would be a nightmare to clear out.

Before we entered the tunnel we stopped at a rest area to stretch our legs and use the free (yay!) toilets. Also, since we had stocked up on snacks yesterday we were able to have quite the little feast for dinner in our car.

We finally made it into Lucerne just as the sun was going down. We hadn’t booked a hotel in advance since we were travelling in the “fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants” fashion, so we tried to look up some nearby hotels when we got close to the downtown area. Turns out everything in Lucerne is super expensive and the one reasonably priced hotel we could find online was a NIGHTMARE to find. We drove around in circles forever (it’s possible at one point that we were driving down a pedestrian only lane…some guy walking gave us the evil eye and was shaking his head, although we came across another car on the same lane so we followed him out). The whole thing was super frustrating; by this time it was after 9pm and we just wanted to find somewhere to stay so we wouldn’t have to sleep in the car.

Eventually we did find a hotel that had one available parking spot left that was walking distance to everything. Plus our car is parked outside our window, so I got to watch Ben try to sneak it in a tiny spot between two vans and against a wall. After a long day on the road we were pretty grateful for somewhere to sleep and that we had the foresight to buy 2 bottles of wine yesterday so we already had one to enjoy tonight.