Lugano - Milan - Aug 16th

Well on my trip yesterday I saw a sign to the Hermann Hesse(HH) Museum. I thought it was farther away but now I knew I could walk to it. Today was a perfect day, no clouds, not too hot so I headed up the hill to find the museum. Well as usual I decided to take a few short cuts and soon I remembered that I didn’t bring my map. I was just about to turn around and I found a map of the HH trail except it didn’t have a ‘you are here’ mark.

I saw a nice church down the road and after taking in the view of the lake I ended up asking a couple directions. They weren’t sure but sure enough, I took 10 steps and I saw the signs. Turns out the #3 on the trail is the church cemetery where he is buried although I couldn't find it.

I then followed the signs back to #1 for the museum. I was amazed at the beautiful houses and views along the way. I see now why he stayed here for the last 43 years of his life. The museum was a little pretentious…

The markers in the museum were only in Italian and German. I asked for an English guide and got a little booklet with some of the information translated.

HH’s tortoise (I think) – He had free reign of the back yard and they live for many years and he was pretty big so I assume he has been there a long time.

I tried to find #9 and #10 but was running out of time. I did find this beautiful playground, again with no one in it, and decided to do Tai Chi while looking at the lake and the snow capped mountain in the distance.

Made it back and then we headed into Milan with a bunch of Lisa’s AT buddies. They decided to use the Milan Metro to get to our hotel. It is dirty, poorly marked, and tough to use. We made it and got out on the street and the streets were deserted. All the shops were closed and almost no cars around. Obviously we each made it to our hotels but we found out that this is what the non-tourist parts of the city look like during August when everyone is at the beach or traveling to see the sites.

A quick search of the area showed everything closed and I mean every bar, restaurant, pizzeria except the money machine across the street and surprise, surprise, the supermarket. We stopped in and got a bottle of wine and some cheese and onion foccacia for breakfast. We had dinner at the hotel which as expected was very good, spinach tortelli, grilled salmon, and a salad.