Ticino-Switzerland : April 22 - This past weekend and walking tour of Lugano

A quiet weekend in Lugano as it RAINED all weekend. On Saturday there was supposed to be a football game in Zug, and the evening before a message came that the game was still on. So Saturday morning the team got on a bus and were on the road a few minutes into their 2 hour road trip when word came in that the game was cancelled. There was so much snow on the ground up in Zug! And as you can see from last weekend's posts, when Rick and I stopped in Zug last weekend, it was summer - this weekend winter again.

Since we were not in Zug, we were able to attend a party Saturday evening at Berny's house. Berny is the Swiss teacher with whom Rick did a Fullbright exchange 8 years ago. There were about 12-14 people and we all ate Raclette - special Raclette cheese grilled on a special Raclette machine on the table, which we scrapped the melted cheese over little boiled potatoes. (it IS really good!)

On Sunday morning we walked to the Catholic church here in town. The priest spoke very clearly, so we were able to understand the mass quite well. I remember trying to go to church 8 years ago here. We didn't understand anything, but would get a chuckle out of every time they said "benedetto", because it means "blessed" in Italian!

Fortunately the rain stopped for a bit on Sunday for us to take a nice walk. On Sunday evening Rick and I had invited Berny, my friend Sara and her family, and the Volpi family (head coach of the Lugano Lakers and our landlord) out to dinner at the Ristorante del Sole across the street. A good dinner with good friends!

Today, Monday, in downtown Lugano they offer a free, 2-hour walking tour of the city. This is a little like my Chicago Greeter tours, but here, everyone meets in front of the tourist office and we do the tour - no matter how big the group. The tour guide usually does the tour in the 2 predominant languages of the group, so that was going to be Italian and German, but there were some English only speakers so she repeated everything in the 3 languages! I enjoyed hearing it all in German too - what a treat! And she was quite easy to understand.

Here are a couple of pictures of a famous church along the lakefront in Lugano. It's called Chiesa di Santa Maria degli Angeli (Saint Mary of the Angels) It was begun in 1499 and it contains a wonderful fresco by a disciple of Leonard da Vinci, Bernardino Luini, painted in the early 1500's. After all those years, the colors in this fresco are all original! He also painted the fresco of the Last Supper on the side wall (this was actually moved here from a monastery that used to be next door.

We also learned that the oldest building in Lugano, which has been totally restored, dates from 1425!