Lake Lugano was beautiful this morning from our room!

We spent most of the day touring the Verzasca Valley and the city of Ascona, both in Upper Ticino. The captions on the photos will have to speak for themselves.

After the tour, we had a little time for a funicular trip to the top of Monte San Salvatore to enjoy the view and visit the church at the top of the mountain.

And now we’re back at the hotel, preparing for a very early departure tomorrow. Ciao!

Phase 1 of our European adventure ended today with a flight from Paris to Milan, where we were whisked to Lugano, Switzerland for a three-day/two-night mini-tour. Getting to and through CDG was none of the fun (buying “Speedy Boarding” on EasyJet helped a lot with the checkin and security lines), but the flight itself was perfectly acceptable.

Our local guide, Roberta, met us at the airport; there are eight of us taking the mini-tour, and the others had arrived directly from the US earlier in the day and were resting. :-)

We took a walk along the waterfront before meeting the rest of the group for a guided walk along the waterfront; here are some photos from the walks.

After the walks, we returned to the hotel for a welcome drink and snack before splitting up and going our separate ways for dinner. Diane and I had a light meal at the hotel bar; it was quite pleasant.

I’m glad we stayed in for dinner, because the weather turned very wet and windy while we were eating.