Saturday 16 June 

As the hotel did not provide breakfast, we headed into the town centre checking out the market first.  It was a great market with sellers grouped according to the goods they were selling.  Maria can’t miss a bargain so we began to acquire clothing and other items to bring home.

 

The food stalls had a whole range of goods from fresh fruit and vegetables to deli style goods, meats, oils, wines and prepared food or takeaway.  We bought a few items to eat on the way such as peas (1 kg), apricots, peaches and cherries.

We had a late check out, so packed our bags and left by 1130 hrs, heading for Switzerland and then onto Lake Como, Italy.  Our route took us on the A6 (E15/E21) to the A36 (E60) which we followed to Mulhouse.  Turned right onto the A35 (E25/E60) to the Swiss/French border and the city of Basel (Bale).

562 km and about 6.5 hours, it took us nearly 7.5 hours

At the Swiss border we were stopped by an official who offered us a pass - known as a Vignette -  to their motorways which he stuck on the windscreen in the corner, it cost me €40 for a 12 month pass.  It cost me €40 to enter and drive on Swiss roads for one day!!  

There were no other checks, the Euro Zone is a great way to cross borders, you don’t get your passport stamped at each border so you can’t collect those stamps which show where you travel.

Onto the Swiss motorway system with our motorway pass, traveling along the E35/N2 which took us all the way to the turn off to Lugano.  This motorway includes a number of tunnels, the Seelisberg Tunnel is 9 km long and the St. Gotthard Tunnel which is 16,322 m long (16.3 Kms).  The St. Gotthard Tunnel is one lane in each direction, speed limit is 80km/hr.  I found it interesting in that the roof is quite high, no sprinkler systems, regular safety zones to get off the road and well lit and identified refuges.

Gotthard Restaurant

E35/N2

E35/N2

E35/N2

Continued onto Castione, following the E35 south to Lugano.  We exited the motorway here going through Lugano to get onto the SS340 to the Swiss/Italian border near Oria, Italy.  This border crossing was very different to the French/Swiss border, the road was one lane in each direction, narrow with a rock face on our left and Lake Lugano on our right.  The Swiss border was first, 3 border guards watching the traffic, through the first tunnel then the second tunnel was quite narrow into the Italian border control.  It is a control point literally cut into the mountain side.  Drove through and we were in Italy.

The following photos are in Italy, notice the narrow streets and this is the main road SS340 from the border to Menaggio.  There was some work being done to improve the drive with a couple of tunnels under construction, but it is a bit difficult as you have Lake Lugano on one side and a rock face on the other.

The first thing we noticed was the roads were much narrower and there was a lot of road construction work being done including a new tunnel.  The SS340 to Porlezza and then onto Menaggio had numerous sections where the road is very narrow, especially going through towns with a rock wall on one side and a building generally someone’s house or apartments.  We did not notice any damage to buildings being hit by vehicles, amazing.

At Menaggio we turned south to Griante.  The Hotel Riviera is across the road from Lake Como and across the lake is Belagio.  Andréa’s welcomed us to his hotel and helped us into our first floor, we could not have a room with a balcony as they were booked out but we could have one the next night.  He reserved a table for us in the restaurant next door, next the water.

Hotel Riviera

However I was not feeling well, had not been well for 1-2 hours, thought I needed the toilet and a beer and feed, but these only made me worse.  After resisting the urge to not to throw up, I eventually did, several times throughout the night. I believe it was the 1kg of peas that Maria made me eat when we left Beaune.