LET’S GO TO SWITZERLAND FOR LUNCH! (Monday, 2-23-2021)

John and Mike grabbed the local train (it literally passes right by our hotel) to head back to Bolzano to pick up our rental car.  Patte and I relaxed poolside!  It was nothing short of WONDERFUL!

Mike and John arrived back in the rental car — they had no issues picking it up — and said, “Let’s go to Switzerland for lunch!”  And so we did!  First, however, we had to figure out how to put the car in reverse!  

It took us about an hour to get to the border.  John hopped out of the car and talked to the border patrol.  He wanted to make sure we could get back into Italy without a problem!  He found out there was “no problemo” so off we drove.  

First stop was to the Hoppe office where John used to work.  He went inside to say “hello” to everyone and came out ready to make our way up the mountain to a restaurant he’d been to years ago called “Terza”.  OH MY DEAR LORD.  The road we were on quickly turned into nothing more than a switchback path.  We drove higher and higher, turned right and then left, and tried hard not to acknowledge the fact that there were no guardrails ANYWHERE!  It truly was s frighteningly (is that even a word?) indescribable drive!  John was a passenger the first time he came to Terza, so he was going strictly by instinct!  We drove and drove and drove when suddenly our “path” went from concrete to gravel, making it even more precarious….YIKES!  John let out a LOUD sigh of relief a while later when he saw this creepy statue pointing toward our destination!  We actually found the restaurant and survived the drive!  Yea us!!!

Here is a picture of the switchback  “path” we took all the way up that mountain!  Unbelievable!

The restaurant was darling, the view was SPECTACULAR,  and not a lick of English was spoken by anyone there!

This is the meal you get when you don’t know how to speak German in a German restaurant!  Mustard, bread and sausage!  Did I mention the beer was DELICIOUS?

Seriously, let’s talk about the view!  It made that long trip north worth it—to most of us anyway!

For some reason, the trip down that mountain on that precarious “path” was no big deal!  Whew!  We passed through the border with no problem and drove back into Italy!

I think we all were SO EXHAUSTED from the drive (!) that we decided to walk back down the street to the Gstirnerkeller for dinner and totally forgot to take a photo!

                                                              CIAO FOR NOW!!