Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Long day out today in Bellagio at the tip of the peninsula in Lake Como. The weather forecast was for cloudy and mild weather, with light rain expected – ha! They lied…

First was the ~2 hour ferry trip from Torno, which stopped at many of the small villages along the east and west coasts of the left arm of Lake Como. We were sitting outside, but when it started raining a little, we went below under full cover. By the time we got to Bellagio the rain was pretty strong, so along with HEAPS of other people, we swarmed off the ferry into the nearest souvenir-type shop where they were selling rain ponchos for EU4 like hot cakes (we did have our own… but they were back in Torno in our suitcases!).

Bellagio, like many towns here, is full of steps, so up the stairs we went and found a nice little place to have lunch. I had gnocchi, which I’ve rarely eaten because my first experience was pretty ordinary. This was absolutely delicious. The others had the tagliatelle that they said was equally as delicious. But it wasn’t long before the rain came bucketing down! Even though we were outside under an awning, the water came through a little, so we donned our new ponchos again to eat in relative dryness! With our meal, we had fresh-baked focaccia (more like a pizza crust than the commercial focaccia we get in Australia) and a garden salad, followed by creme brulee with a pistachio-flavoured custard.

After lunch we wandered around some of the hilly streets (more steps…), popping into little boutiques etc. No, I didn’t buy anything, though my sister and friend contributed many Euros to the Italian economy!

We decided to take the bus back to Torno to get a different perspective of Lake Como and the villages—it took about an hour. It was an interesting experience being in a big coach on a very winding and narrow road. Most cars did the right thing and pulled over, but a few had to reverse to allow the bus to pass. They did this politely and without any obvious rancour… I’m not sure if Australian drivers would do the same!

We decided to have a drink at one of the local bars overlooking the harbour/ferry dock, and as at the Bar Italia, drinks came with a decent plate of nibblies. That was followed by some gelato (no photos of that as it was so delicious it was scoffed down fairly quickly). With all that food, we decided to skip dinner!

By evening the rain seemed to have dissipated, though it was still cloudy. We’re heading to Como itself tomorrow…

More steps, this time in Bellagio. Also, they were very wet and slippery cobblestones, so you had to watch your step

One of my sister’s purchases was this gorgeous silver octopus ring

Delicious gnocchi!

Afternoon drinks back in Torno – Limoncello spritz

The nibblies that came with our drinks

What I can hear through the open windows on a lazy Sunday morning in Torno… lots of birdsong, a piano recital at a nearby art gallery, some people talking (can’t hear what they’re saying, and even if I could, I don’t understand Italian!). Waiting on a friend to arrive from Poland—she’ll be joining us for the rest of our few days here.

Just took it easy today and hung around ‘town’ after yesterday’s long day of travel and negotiating steps with luggage! We decided the best way to get our friend and her luggage to the house was to meet her at the municipal offices, go down the steps to the area near the ferry terminal, then along the path to the 40 steep steps up to the house—there were now 3 of us to deal with her luggage, which fortunately was only a medium case and a carry-on.

The weather was a little cooler today, with cloudy skies and some light rain.

Bar Italia on the Torno waterfront, where we spent many hours and Euros over 5 days on their food and drink. There were a couple of other places to eat and drink, but they were in the two much fancier (and far more expensive) hotels.

The waterfront area in Torno (ferry terminal is at the end of the pier, where all the people are gathered)

One of the 2 hotels on the water employs a local to move luggage via the steps! Yes, we asked him if he could take our luggage when we were leaving, but no, he could only take luggage for the hotels he was contracted to.

Pizza from Bar Italia. I wasn’t used to seeing big slices of ham/proscuitto like that—in Australia, we’d chop it up into much smaller pieces

Bar Italia’s virgin mojitos certainly hit the spot on hot days

Torno harbour, with the ferry terminal in that shed at the end of the pier

Torno harbour on a lazy Sunday

Long travel day today on 3 trains, to get from Zermatt to Brig to Milan to Como San Giovanni. Every train was on time and all were great experiences. The Brig to Milan train was a high-speed one, so seat reservations were required in addition to our Eurail pass. We arrived in Torno about 7pm. Torno is only about 7 km from Como but takes about 30 mins by road. It is serviced by the Lake Como ferries, so we thought it would be the perfect place to stay away from the crowds in Como itself.

The house we’d rented was lovely but Torno is an old village perched on the edge of one of the hills surrounding Lake Como so cars can’t get near much of it. The taxi dropped us off on the main road—based on the maps and the managers’ information pack, we’d calculated it was the shortest way to the property. While it may have been, they didn’t mention how many steps were involved! We then bumped our luggage down about 400 steps before we found the house (which was 4 stories and also full of steps!! ). Most of those steps from the main road were long and sloping (and rough!) with shallow risers, so we were continually fighting against gravity, which wanted to take our wheeled luggage down all by itself. It was also HOT and my jeans were soaked with sweat from the exertion of holding back heavy luggage to prevent it from ending at the bottom in a broken pile. I was very glad I’d invested in some silicon wheel covers for my luggage wheels.

After a long drink to cool down and a bite to eat at Bar Italia near the ferry terminal, we walked up to the municipal offices (about 100+ more steps) and watched and followed the video of the ‘no stairs’ path that the managing agency had provided in the info pack for the house. The path started off well, but by the time we got to the point where we had to turn towards the house, the cobblestones were very rough (not good for luggage wheels). But the worst was that the video stopped here with an arrow pointing, yet there were a further 60 steps down to the house at the end of it—the info pack and video did not mention those steps at all. The other route to the house was from the ferry terminal—this was a flat option, with a very good path, but at the end of it there were another 40 very steep steps (with the handrail not starting until about 3 steps up) up to the house. Yes, I counted all those damned steps!!! The house was really inaccessible for anyone with mobility issues, with heavy or bulky luggage, and/or who couldn’t cope with lots of steps.

Side note: I had asked the owners/managers on Booking.com several times in the previous months about the step situation to get to the property and asking for DETAILED instructions as Google Maps and similar weren’t clear as to whether there was a road there or not. They never did answer the question about the steps, and while we got good instructions for getting to the property a week before, including a video of the ‘no stairs’ option, there was no mention of accessing it from the ferry terminal, nor any mention that the ‘no stairs’ option had a further 60 stairs to negotiate at the end! After our stay, when I reviewed the property on Booking.com, I mentioned that the steps would be an issue for anyone with heavy luggage or mobility issues—they had the cheek to respond saying I should have reached out (I did, numerous times) and they would’ve found a more suitable property for us! I call BS on that!

It was a nice house (we had a friend joining us the next day) but because it was an old property with high ceilings, there were 4 floors. The basement bedroom had its own bathroom (which had issues of its own), then there were 30 steps (not the usual 16 or so) to the entry level, where there was another bedroom (with a ‘bathroom’ with NO shower or bath!). Another 30 steps up to the living, dining, kitchen area, which had glimpses over Lake Como, then a further 30 steps up to the top bedroom/bathroom. The steps were all painted black, with no strip to indicate the edges, and no handrails, so they were dangerous too. It didn’t matter where you were in the house, you had a minimum of 30 black steps to negotiate to get anywhere else. Then all those steps outside… Our 5-night stay was going to involve a LOT of exercise!

Finally, the flat bit! We’d come down about 400 steps from the main road by this stage and took a breather once we got to this ONLY flat stretch. We still hadn’t got to the house.

From that flat bit shown in the photo above above, we still had another 60 steps to negotiate to get to the pink house you can glimpse at the bottom of the steps

The flat path from the ferry terminal area, but notice the steep steps at the end — there were 40 of these to get to the house

The 40 steep steps you had to climb when coming from the ferry terminal. Our house is the pink one of the right.

Some of the steps from the ferry terminal area up to the municipal offices—long, sloping steps, with low risers, perfect for losing luggage on!

Bar Italia in Torno gives you a decent plate of free nibblies with your drinks order! We weren’t expecting that but got it each time we had a drink there; one of the other bars we went to did the same, so it might be a Torno thing, or even an Italian thing

Ever have the perfect day for the activity you planned? Today was it for us! Beautiful weather, cloudless skies, 25 to 30 C temps, no wind, and the most awesome train journeys that were as on time as you’d expect Swiss trains to be.

Our first train of the day was from from Zurich to Chur, with the first part going along the edge of Lake Zurich. Why Chur? Because we couldn’t get accommodation in St Moritz, even booking 3 months out. It’s 8 hours on the Glacier Express from St Moritz to Zermatt, but only 6 hours from Chur to Zermatt—close enough. We had a couple of hours’ wait in Chur before we got on the Glacier Express. They had a massive food truck thing happening but we chose to eat (schnitzel of course!) at a small local restaurant in a side street. It was a HOT day.

Chur

Schnitzel

Around 2pm, we boarded the magical Glacier Express to Zermatt, arriving at 8:15pm and catching glimpses of the Matterhorn before the sun set after 9pm. I took HEAPS of photos, but will only post a few here. Some have reflections from the train windows, so apologies for that. No filters—the greens were that green and the blues were that blue. The main river we followed was the Rhine, with the Rhone in the latter parts. (Note: Despite its name, the Glacier Express is actually one of the slowest trains in Europe, with a maximum speed of around 24 mph [40 kmh]. It’s not cheap, and if you’re using a Eurail Pass, you will still have to book and pay for seat reservations, which are a fraction of the normal fare. You can book seat reservations about 60-90 days ahead, and will need to do so. If there are only two of you, try to get the seats for 2 facing each other.)

Glacier Express – engine

Views from the Glacier Express

Zermatt is a car-less town and the train station is quite literally in the main street. Only small electric vehicles authorised to travel on its streets can come into town. Which means it’s a super friendly town for pedestrians. There are some high-end shops here (e.g. Rolex), and I would expect that getting accommodation is difficult. We booked 3 months ahead, but there wasn’t a big range available, even that far out. We had trouble finding somewhere to eat after our arrival—everything was full and we got stuck in a little corner of a restaurant that took pity on us (it was a VERY ordinary, but expensive, meal too!). It was cool here, much cooler than Zurich, and was about the only time we wore warmer clothes.

Matterhorn at Zermatt

Some final observations about Switzerland, after only 2 and a bit days here:

• Everything is very clean – the streets, the towns, the cafes, the buses, the trains
• Everything is VERY expensive (food, accommodation, even a coffee)
• Everything runs on time – don’t be one minute late or your train will have left!
• Catch the train from the airport to the centre of Zurich—it’s much cheaper than getting a taxi from the airport (about CHF7 compared to about CHF 60-70 for a taxi). In both cases it takes 10-15 mins. If you need to get a taxi to your accommodation in town, get one from the train station as it will likely be much cheaper. Or jump on a tram or bus if you don’t have a lot of luggage.
• If you have luggage or ski gear you need to get from place A to place B within Switzerland, I can highly recommend Jaisli Mobility Services (https://www.jaisli-mobility-services.ch/index), who took our luggage to Zermatt so we didn’t have to deal with it on the trains, particularly the Glacier Express, which only has limited luggage carrying capacity. It wasn’t cheap, but it meant we didn’t have to worry about luggage for the few hours we were in Chur (they do have luggage storage at the station there) or on the Glacier Express. It was waiting for us in our room in Zermatt!

Why Zurich? Our cruise ship certainly wasn’t going to depart from there! Well, when we were discussing what we wanted to do in addition to the cruise (when you’ve travelled halfway round the world, you want to see and do as much as you can!), two of the bucket list things my sister mentioned were taking the Glacier Express train from St Mouritz to Zermatt (or vice versa), and spending some time at Lake Como. That got us talking about where else to go, what else to do, how we were going to get there, etc., so one of our earliest decisions was to buy a Eurail Pass each and use trains to get around Switzerland and Italy, the two main places we decided to spend some time. I discovered that the very expensive fare on the Glacier Express is covered by the Eurail Pass (plus a small seat reservation fee), so that was one of our first decisions, and why we took a flight that landed us in Zurich.

But of course, we had a full day in Zurich before we ventured onto the Glacier Express part of the trip, so what to do, what to see? Zurich is the home of Lindt chocolates, so that got added to the list and after we’d booked our airfares, our next purchases were the Eurail Pass and tickets to the Lindt Chocolate Museum.

We took the train from Zurich Airport into the main station (about 15 minutes and only a few Euros [EU]); trains go about every 15 minutes and it’s WAY cheaper than getting a taxi (about EU100). We’d deliberately booked a hotel close to the train station, the weather was fine, and we needed a walk after 30+ hours either flying or in airports, so we hoofed ourselves and our luggage to the hotel, which was across a bridge, over several tram tracks, and across main roads. And at the hotel we encountered the biggest thing about Europe that a lot of people won’t tell you—there are stairs EVERYWHERE! We took our luggage inside, only to be confronted with a set of steps to the reception area. Fortunately, someone noticed us and our luggage and told us to go back outside, up the hill at the side of the hotel (thank goodness for wheels on luggage!) and then come in the back entrance, where there were only about 3 steps. Phew! There was also a small elevator inside the hotel to take us to our floor. Even though it was early morning and we were going to just leave our luggage and head out until our room was ready, they said our room was ready now, so we dumped our stuff in the tiny (and very expensive for its size!) room, and headed out into the early morning sunshine. The weather was just perfect. Sunshine, not at all cold, and the city was just starting to wake up.

We wandered across bridges, walked down to Lake Zurich, into the old town, and stopped to have breakfast at a cafe overlooking the river. And there we encountered the next thing about Switzerland in particular—it is VERY expensive. I don’t drink coffee, but my sister does. Her cappuccino cost around EU7 (about AU$14—a similar thing in a cafe in Australia is about AU$5), and with the small pastry she had for breakfast, we were suddenly looking at a bill that was about EU20 (AU$40) for a single coffee and a small slice of apple tart! She said it wasn’t even very good coffee!

THIN slice of apple tart

But the main thing on our agenda for Zurich was Lindt. Back to Lake Zurich to see what time the ferry left, only to be told there wouldn’t be another for a while (it was a public holiday in Switzerland). The person at the terminal suggested we catch a bus from across the street, so we did. It dropped us right at Lindt and in we went. Our first reaction? Wow!!! In the middle of the main area is a 2-storey chocolate fountain!!! No, you can’t sample it, but you can certainly see it. We were a little early for our scheduled entry time for the museum, so we wandered about in the store. More wow! Every conceivable choc flavour was available for purchase. We held off until after we’d been to the museum.

Chocolate fountain at the entrance to Lindt

Lindt store

Lindt store

The museum itself was OK, but unless a museum is really different, one is very much like another. So we got through that part fairly quickly hoping there’d be a sampling section… and there was! In fact, there were THREE sampling sections.

In the first, you stuck a plastic spoon under a large tube containing molten chocolate, pressed a little pump and got a dollop of deliciousness on your spoon. After watching some others, I realised you could put your spoon under and press the pump 3 or 4 times to basically fill your spoon with yumminess. They had milk, caramel, and white chocolate tubes, and my favourite was the caramel. It was SO yummy that I forgot to take any photos of this area!! Who knew that warm runny chocolate could be so good???

The second sampling area had more tubes, but this time there were about 16 or so of them, each with bars of different Lindt chocolates in them. There were no labels so you couldn’t tell what was in each until you sampled it. At the base of each tube they had a light ring—it glowed green when you could put your hand under, and red when you couldn’t. When you put you hand under, a piece or two of the chocolate bar would be chopped off and drop into your hand, ready for you to sample. Also yummy.

Tubes of chocolate bars

And the third sampling area had ‘buckets’ of wrapped balls of Lindt chocolates—you could put your hand in and grab what you wanted. But to be honest, by this stage we were almost chocolated out! We did take several for eating later, perhaps in a week or so (I brought mine home, so it was over a month before I ate them).

After all that chocolate, we decided not to go back into the Lindt store. Instead, we ordered the hot chocolate drink in their cafe, which was very nice but probably wasn’t the best thing to have on a hot day (it was 28 C in Zurich that day, which is hot for them).

Hot chocolate at Lindt

A walk was in order too, so we wandered along the edge of Lake Zurich to the ferry terminal and caught the ferry back to the edge of the main city centre, then walked a heap more to try and wear off some of the chocolate overload we’d experienced. The ticket we’d purchased on the bus also covered the ferry, so that was a nice surprise. Zurich has a very efficient and clean public transport network of trains, buses, trams, and ferries, and it was a great (and cheap) way to get around. If we’d been staying there longer, we’d have bought a travel pass for a couple of days.

By the time we got back to town, there were a lot of people around (there’d been almost no-one earlier on—the shops etc. don’t normally open until 10am, and because it was a public holiday, not many were open at all, but the bars and restaurants were certainly coming into their own on our return). We walked some more, then decided to share a late lunch/early dinner of bratwurst, with rich onion gravy and rosti (potato dish). Very yummy! We have an early start tomorrow and figured we should probably get some sleep!

Bratwurst, onion gravy and rosti

This is the first in a series of blog posts about a month-long trip to Europe. I’ve now returned, but need to process photos and write up each day, so I’ll post each day’s adventures when I can.

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My sister and I travelled in Europe together for a month, from late May to late June 2025. We hadn’t shared a living space for any length of time since we were in our late teens, which was an awfully long time ago, but I didn’t think we’d have any issues living in the same space for a month. We’ve become much closer since Dad died (May 2023) and since Mum was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in her occipital lobe and died some 8 weeks later, in May 2024.

Mum and Dad had LOVED cruising, so I planted the seed some time back with my sister about going on a cruise together to honour Mum and Dad. She’d never been on one, and I’d only been on two (one to the Caribbean in 2014, and one to NZ with Mum in early 2024). I’d never been to mainland Europe, whereas she’d spent her 18 months of her late teens/early twenties there, as well as numerous trips since. What started as an idea to do a Mediterranean cruise (less likelihood of rough seas), became a full-blown 4-week long trip to Europe for us both, plus an extra week for her. Our travel agent (a family friend we’ve known forever) said that June wouldn’t be too hot where we were going, typically about 25 to 30 C most days. She lied!!! 🙂 It was stinking hot for much of the trip! Despite living in Australia for most of my life, I don’t do heat very well, but I coped because there was no other choice.

From Perth, there are very few direct flights to Europe (one daily one to London, and a seasonal one to Rome that starts in late June, well after we wanted to go). If you opt to not go direct to London, then you have to have at least one—often lengthy—stopover in either Abu Dhabi (Etihad), Doha (Qatar), Dubai (Emirates), Singapore (Singapore Airlines), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysian Airlines), or Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific). All will take you on to Europe, and all will have several hours’ layover at the hub airport. We priced the options, checked the total number of hours each way, the cities they fly into, and the affiliation with our existing frequent flyer programs and decided to fly Cathay to Hong Kong, have a 7-hour layover, then fly from Hong Kong direct to Zurich. Coming home would also be on Cathay, direct from Rome, with a long layover in Hong Kong before the final flight to Perth.

The outward bound flight was perfect—it left around 9am and arrived in Hong Kong around 5pm (same time zone as Perth), then the next flight left at midnight, arriving in Zurich at 7am, 13 hours later, meaning our body clock would be wanting to sleep around the time we normally slept.

The first flight was uneventful. There was WiFi on the plane for the entire journey, even over the Indian Ocean and other large bodies of water (Starlink??). Landing in Hong Kong was equally uneventful—we had a long walk to the transit area, more security checks, and then we ensconced ourselves in Cathay’s Pier Business Lounge for the next 7 hours. Some seating areas in the lounge (one of several that Cathay has at Hong Kong airport) have a clever way to manage charging points—instead of making you hunt all sorts of nooks and crannies looking for somewhere to charge your devices, this Cathay lounge has them inside a small drawer in the table between two lounge chairs.

The flight to Zurich was pretty bumpy for the first 8 hours, so I only catnapped at best.

A large quokka said goodbye to us at the generic lounge at Perth International (Cathay doesn’t have a lounge here)

Power outlets and USB charging points are hidden inside a desk drawer at the table between two chairs in Cathay’s Pier Business lounge

Our flight path took us north of the Himalayas and avoided the Middle East and Ukraine