Rain Rain Go Away.

The sound of rain was disappointing when I woke yesterday morning. But what was devastating was when I looked outside and I couldn't see anything, not even one of the biggest lakes in Italy that was only 20meters away. Why so devastating? We had a car booked and I intended to show the family the local sights including driving up Mottarone, down to Lago Orta and down through the valley I used to love riding through. So in the end we decided to cancel the car, no use spending the money and not being able to see Jack Sh#te. Instead we headed to Verbania for the morning. Kylie did some shopping and I walked around in the rain wishing she would hurry up. 

Lunch was back in a little bar back in Stresa and Sebastian loved his Spaghetti Bolognese although he seemed to get more on his jumper than in his mouth. We did some wandering around before having the usual gelato. 

This morning I woke up with optimism, it had stopped raining and there was reasonable visibility. We had decided that today we would take the Lago Maggiore Express  (not a very good description of the speed) to Locarno and get the ferry back.

I had a quick run and the one down side to Stresa is that if you want to have a flat run you almost have to do loops up and down the main drag or brave the road with no edge or footpaths. If they have footpaths around here they aren't in very good condition. Unfortunately by the time I had finished running it had started to rain and clouds had rolled in. We decided to go for it anyway.

We caught a train to Domodossola that rolled passed Lago Mergozzo, a lake I used to love swimming in and through the valley to Domodossola. We then bordered the Lago Maggiore express that wound its way up the mountains and back down to Locarno in Switzerland. Despite not being able to see all of the tops of the mountains the scenery was unbelievable. There were many sheer cliff drops and valleys, plenty of rivers and waterfalls and numerous small mountain villages. Some of the houses were so remote that they seemed to have a cable line across a huge valley with basket attached. At the border Swiss border patrol boarded the train, they didn't bother to look at our passports, they just saw that we were Australian and kept wandering, they did however give the German couple behind us a good grilling.

Lorcano was a nice town, unfortunately we didn't get to really explore as much as we would like because of the weather. I had forgotten how expensive Switzerland was, our Maccas lunch (I know we shouldn't have eaten that junk) cost the same as $57 Aus. We found an awesome chocolate shop and spent up. Sorry none of it will be making it home.  We wandered some more and we aghast at some of the prices for shoes etc. 

We jumped on the ferry for the slow 2hr trip home, pity the hydrofoil wasn't going at the time we need it. No passport checks on the way home. The fog was probably worse on the way home. I was disappointed for the family as I know how beautiful the area is and it was a shame they couldn't see it in all its glory.