May 17th: Staying over in Ravenna was a very good decision. Walking through the old part of the town was great and had so much flair. For us it was also getting a bit closer to our European civilization 😀.
After breakfast we left Ravenna behind us and has already Switzerland in mind. However our GPS seemed to be still in Iran mode and guide us through narrow streets ending at a grade crossing that was closed… we waited and waited… 15 min … no train passed by . Hmm you can imagine Matthias? Ok we turned around and after an other 30 min and some weird turns we got onto the highway direction Bologna. The learning: make sure you tell your GPS that in Europe Main Streets are Main streets and you can take them.😊. Ravenna- Bologna- Milano- Lake Como – Switzerland… that was the plan.
The traffic was in our favor up to the border. We had no problems in Bologna or Milano with heavy traffic which meant we made huge steps direction Switzerland. We were not sure how the customs process would work as Switzerland can be a bit tricky. Reaching the border area there was a huge traffic jam and as we had to change the driver anyway for legal reasons we left the highway and drove into the city to make the switch. After that we planned to go back onto the highway and be part of the long queue ahead of us. We had that thought , but our GPS was still in Iran mode and guided us via small roads to a small inner city border crossing… haha … there was nobody… no customs… no controls …. we did ask ourselves are we really in Switzerland now. We were!
After all that difficult borders that one was the best. If you ever cross the border between Italy and Switzerland there please use the inner city one it saves a lot of time and is without any stress. What an easy ride to Switzerland 😀. Our next stop was planned on top of the St. Gottardo mountain pass. Hmm …. the weather was not allowing it. Up there they have still too much snow …. so the pass is closed. No choice for us we had to take the 17km long tunnel to keep going.
After the tunnel weather was nice… sunshine and we started our scenic drive to Unterägeri…. you don’t know Unterägeri…. it is the place to be in Switzerland. We drove alongside some nice lakes in the middle of „Heidi“ country …. mountains on the top still have snow… you have magnificent views there.
In Unterägeri we visited friends and by accident it was also Beas birthday…. that in combination with our last evening on the road made it a very long night out. We ended up in the wine cellar of Thomas and if I remember correctly we walked to the hotel with a smile on our face….😂
