Lugano - Aug 14th

Today I took the day off. Instead of hanging around the hotel and working on the internet and then going to the plenary session, I left around 7:30AM to head to Mt. Tamaro. The brochure advertised a great sounding walk between Mt. Tamaro and Mt. Lema. The problem was you could get to Tamaro's cable car real easily but it was almost a 2 hour trip to get back from Mt. Lema which is only about 20 km away. After almost an hour of studying the website and brochure, I figured out that they have bus service at the end of the day to take you back to Mt. Tamaro. Well I showed up and the ticket guy called the Mt Lema operator to see how the weather was and they said that there was no visibility.

He suggested that it wouldn't be a great trip so I decided to take the cable car up, hike to the top and Mt. Tamaro and then hike all the way back down the mountain. During the ride up raindrops started to hit the cable car but when I got to the top it was just foggy and cold. I kept to plan and started walking.




So I started up the trail and it was alternately clear and foggy. I get a ways up and see in the distance something that looks like a church. I am amazed at how many beautiful churches I have found on the top of mountains. Well I get up close and find out that it is a microwave, cell phone tower with about 50 different dishes. I guess this is a religious monument of sorts...






I made it to the top and guess what, there was no view. In fact, just as I made it to the top it starts to rain. In addition, a guy is walking his bike up a different trail, leaves it to go back down to help his daughter, friend with his son. They spoke German mostly but had enough English that we could communicate. They started in Austria 4 days earlier and were planning one more night before taking a climbing vacation in northern Italy.



I made it down walking with a little pain in my left leg. It looked like the bottom but this is a view from a small village almost all the way down with lots of old buildings and stone alleys. I tried to find a place for a good meal but it was 5PM. The restaurants don't open for food until 7PM. I was stuck getting beer and pizza but the pizza was the best that I had all weeks in the Italian area. A nice chewy crust with great gobs of ricotta and spinach on top.

The evening event was a panel discussion that was a bust. Not very interesting so I got a nice rest after my long day of hiking.