July 7, 2009

This morning we woke up to cloudy skies and rain, which was disappointing considering we had planned to spend the morning on my mini-version of an Anabaptist study tour. In the end, we toured the Grossmuenster church, saw Zwingli’s statute, and saw the home of Conrad Grebel, located just a few blocks away from the Grossmuenster. Our drive south through the Alps was fairly dreary, although we were able to see some nice sites here and there. We arrived in Bellinzona, a small town in southern Switzerland, in the middle of the afternoon and settled in to our hotel. The cheapest hotel I could find with fairly decent reviews was located right in town. For $200 CDN we got one whole room with a bathroom just a bit larger than a porta-potty. Our keys were in an envelope in a box outside the front door, and we helped ourselves to the room. We had paid through Expedia, so I guess they had all the information they needed, including our credit card, so they didn’t see the need to check us in. Kind of strange, but it worked.

We had not had any lunch so we wanted to have an early dinner at around 4:00 p.m. before doing some exploring. Unfortunately, all of the restaurants we checked told us that they couldn’t serve us until 6:00 or 6:30! I couldn’t believe it, but we grabbed a snack and headed off for some touring.

Bellinzona is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and famous for the three medieval castles in and above the town. It was a little cool and breezy, but we ventured to one of the castles and had a great time exploring the grounds and part of the long wall that surrounds much of the city. From the one castle we could view the two others, and it made for a spectacular site, with the Swiss Alps rising in the distance.

Dinner was a simple pasta dish for each of us, with three soft drinks and a litre of water. Total bill? $125 CDN. I don’t care if there is anyone here reading this who is from Switzerland – this country is nuts in terms of the cost of items. How anyone can justify charging $10 for a litre of water (they simply don’t provide you with water from the tap) is beyond me. It is obvious to me that the country’s economy is completely out of sync with the rest of Europe in terms of salaries and the cost of goods in the country. Diesel fuel that is just over a Euro a litre in Germany and Italy is 1.60 Euros in Switzerland. I’m glad I didn’t have to fill up driving through the country.