Day 9 Travel to Italy

One of the joys of traveling is the rediscovering of home.

After an early rise, we caught an 8am train from Lucerne to Arth-Goldau (40 minute ride picking up lots of locals, including school kids) where we had an hour layover then caught a Trenitalia line to Milan Italy. We went through the Swiss alps...the landscape littered with small towns and majestic peaks. Between reading our books and looking out the window, David must have gotten introspective and said something like "it will be nice to be back home". Pressing in a bit, he spoke of friendships. What a great reality to know that there is a big world out there but understanding it is no substitute for home.

Sometimes I get concerned that this blog will become like a series of Facebook posts, showing the glamorous side of life. The truth is it has been a very smooth trip and we have gotten along splendidly. Just know that we do feel blessed to have this time together and opportunity to see other lands and meet new people, but I dare say that the keys to this being a great trip can be replicated in smaller bite sized trips to the Smokey mountains, visiting small towns, hitting the coast or even taking a stroll along the river walk downtown. The point I am trying to make is that we can all look for beauty and new experiences in what is close by, and those will also serve to remind us of the blessing of home, and most importantly that we have an eternal home that will fully satisfy our every yearning.

Ok. Back to the train ride from which I am typing this on my phone :-)

I think we have gone through over 30 tunnels, weaving through these glorious mountains. We have had a few stops, but traveling by train is very low stress. We walked to coach #4 to grab a sandwich, plugged our phones in to recharge, kicked back and listening to music while reading our books. This 3 hour segment is going by quickly!

In Milan we had a one hour layover and walked through an open air market near the train station before boarding another train to Monterroso. On that train we shared seats with a young college aged couple from New York. We had some pleasant conversation to pass the time.
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We arrived to Monterroso Italy at 5pm and walked 15 minutes to the apartment. Unlike the last two places, we have an entire one bedroom apartment to ourselves. We live in a super old building on a cobblestone road in the middle of the tiny  town. This is going to be a nice relaxing time, I predict.

After unpacking we hit the streets and found a place that specializes in cheeses, wine and anti pasto. We had what amounted to a sampler platter. Of course, the adventuresome David ate all the weird cheeses...too bitter for me.

We had beautiful weather in Paris and Switzerland, but it is cloudy and rainy in Italy so far...hopefully we will get some nice weather for the next few days.