Wait, we’re in Switzerland?

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While hanging out in the northern Italian paradise town of Como, I met up with some friends for the day and we decided to rent a car and explore the surrounding lakes. It was a beautiful, clear, warm day, perfect for traveling around and taking in the fake-looking landscape. Also, driving in Europe? A whole new level of craziness! I now know why Jersey drivers drive so badly; they are channeling their Italian relatives.

Our car was a futuristic yellow box named Panda. I’m sure you can imagine we had a lot of fun with that. The highlight of the morning was when we passed through border control into Switzerland and we fumbled around for 5 minutes trying to figure out how to lower the window. When we finally got it down, we were so startled that the first words out of our mouths was “hey.” Seriously? Who greets Swiss border officers like that? However, I don’t think he was in the mood to deal with a couple of idiot Americans, so he looked over his left shoulder then his right at his comrades to see if they were paying attention, and just motioned for us to pass. Win!

We ended up driving up around Lake Como into Switzerland to Lake Lugano and finally Lake Maggiore, stopping in beautiful places like Lugano, Bellinzona, Locarno, Ascona, and Stresa. We saw a lot, and had some great views of the snow-capped mountains with the sparkling turquoise lakes below. It couldn’t have been a better day. I am such a sucker for big mountains. I love standing still with skyscraping mountains in the distance, just taking it all in. A modern-day (female) Hemingway. Or maybe just a wandering young adventuress looking for the next breathtaking sight.

Now I will stop rambling and just let the photos speak for themselves.