Lugano - Aug 11th

My first day almost to myself. I jump on the computer to catch up with email, work, and blogging. I didn't get too far. Lisa recommended going to the plenary session today. Turns out that Baroness Susan Greenfield was a great speaker on a great topic. She gave a 20 minute intro on how the brain works and then showed how important 'nuture' was to the way we humans end up. She is pushing Britain to prescribe less drugs to kids to 'solve' behavior problems.

I then literally ran and caught the #1 bus and took it to the end of the line. That left me about 2 km away from my first destination. I started walking up the road until I found a path down to the lake. This dropped me into the middle of the Olive Path.

I turned left and headed past San Dominico and ended up in Gandria.







For those of you that didn't click the link, this town is on the hillside and does not have roads for cars. If you live here you park at the top of the hill and walk down or take a boat and walk up. Here is main street along the lake...





After exploring a few of the streets, I decided to head up following a sign that I thought meant Upper town. After leaving the houses behind I kept seeing this sign. At an intersection, I met Will, whose wife is also at the conference, coming down the hill. He pointed me in the right direction ( and gave me a pep talk) about continuing my climb to the town of Bre. See I made it and someone laid out ice tea (well at least not hot), cookies, peanuts all on the honor system.

So I roamed the streets of Bre and finally found the Museo Wilhelm Schmid but the best I could figure out it is only open Thursday through Sunday from 2 to 4. I checked at the local restaurant if I could bring Lisa up there for dinner but the last bus and funicular is 7PM. I decided to hang out there and have beer. I met Achmud and his 2 kids. He is from Egypt and in the energy business. His kids were a little shy and didn't want to speak English. I sure could have used my son Howie!!!
Well it was 5PM and time to catch the bus down. He does this everyday but taking a full size bus down switchbacks on a one lane road seemed a little dangerous to me.






Well I made it and Lisa and I decided to hit the San Salvatore Funicalare since the only thing up there is a view, a museum, and a restaurant. We did splurge and have a local bottle of wine with risotto and a chicken dish. The nice thing about the wine is that it is bottled in .5 liter sizes, just right for 2 old people.