Swiss-Italia Adventure Tips

Beautiful Cinque Terre above Vernazza.

The Swiss - Italia Adventure was awesome!! We started in Zurich, went our separate ways for a couple of days while I was at Lake Zug at work meeting, D went to Luzern, and Mt. Rigi. We met back up in Luzern, and then to Interlaken-Shilthorn (alps), and then to Milan, Cinque Terre, back to Milan, over to Lake Como and back to Zurich, and home. A serious whirwind trip. Check out the pics, and here are some things I learned about overseas travel that I hope I don't forget.

Notes to Self:

Kindness of strangers - I was touched by how helpful people were to us, even when they didn't speak English, and I didn't speak German/Italian, people were generally quite helpful. In Zurich, one girl actually got off the tram to physically walk us over to where we needed to be, as we were headed in the completely wrong direction. She spoke no English, but we were able to communicate, thank you where ever you are!!

If you don't know, ask. It works for the Amazing Race people, and I asked people everywhere if I was headed in the right direction, right train, etc. if I wasn't sure and it worked great. We only got lost once.

Weather - make sure to check the weather where you are traveling, along with the humidity! Switzerland and Italy were VERY humid, there was a heat front that came up from North Africa that had us drenched in sweat for most of our trip.

Shoes - Make sure to bring good walking shoes, (mine died at the end of the trip), and I had no flip flops, tragedy!

Suitcases - I can't emphasize packing light when traveling by train, I should have brought a backpack, much easier to carry up stairs which are everywhere in Europe, and to run to the train lightening fast (which we did on one occasion) and to fit into tight places, everything is not super-sized like the in U.S., so the suitcase is quite cumbersome to move around with.

Train travel - I learned the hard way how to read train tickets, and if you are in a reserved seat, make sure you are in the right train, right car and the right seats, it will save you lots of hassle later on. We were in the wrong car once, and the wrong seats once, and after that, never forgot.

Planning locations - Plan a new destination every OTHER day. We didn't get a chance to get to Venice, we tried to pack it all in and underestimated how long it takes to get places by train. Plus, you may not want to be on a train for 7 hours, its better to break it up in 4 hour chunks. Plan for one day of travel, and at least one day to sightsee.

Milano Centrale train station at night - Do not, I repeat NOT leave the train station at night, unless you want to meet up with roving marauders as Dennis calls them, or the hooker-bum-drug addict, generally scary experience of finding your nearby hotel at night.

Watch for pickpockets/gypsies/roving marauders - No joke in Milano Centrale and connecting trains. Watch your stuff, and don't get distracted when they bump you, talk right in your ear, try to help you pick train tickets at the machine and ask you for money, or show you some gold teeth and jewelry in a dirty tissue (as they did to Dennis on our way from Milano Centrale to Genoa).
The rest of the rest of the train stations were ok farther away from the MC one, and I don't know how they are in the rest of Italy, but MC was a bit intense.

Go with the flow - Our Americanness gets in the way in Europe where things are a bit more relaxed, and this was hard for me as I wanted to go go go, but its important to take things at a slower pace there, I need to remember this as a life lesson I think.