Stanford Student Letters and Memoirs

After the morning in Uffize and a good lunch (spagetti, roast beef, potatoes, salad, fruit, bread, wine - 65c) we spent the afternoon out of doors window shopping, walking back up to Piazzale Michelangelo for a look at the city by sunlight, then over to the huge Boboli Gardens behind Pitti Palace. We spent about 1 1/2 hours here, sitting on the lawn to rest our feet and gaze out over the gardens to the city beyond, the walking along tree covered paths, through open areas where boys played soccer or families walked and let their little children play, overlooked from the shadows by sculptured figures watching silently, past ponds with fountains in their center and swans swimming around. It was a beautiful, peaceful place to spend the afternoon. From here we went back across the Arno to get to St Lorenz church just at dusk, where we heard the organ play and watched the light fade as the 6pm mass was about to begin at one of the small side altars.

Both night in Florence we four met (Bridger and Mary Jeanette Erdman, Mary Ann Campbell and I) for a leisurely supper of pizza and red wine, enough to make us good and sleepy. Then straight back to the hotel and early to bed.

Sunday morning we were up at 5:30 to pack and catch a train for Milan. The ride there was pretty bad because the train had come from Sicily and by the time it reached Florence it was filled to overflowing. So we sat on our suitcases or stood, first on one foot, then the other, for most of the 4 hour trip. We had sat first in a 1st class compartment, but of course were kicked out when the conductor arrived after 1/2 hour to check tickets. From then on it was in the aisles with us. On arrival we checked our baggage at the station and set out to do as much as possible in the 3 hours we planned between trains. Mary Ann and I went immediately to the address given me by Marcia Fisher, since I had written that we would be coming to Italy that week. We were immediately received at welcomed to a real American breakfast - grapefruit juice, bacon and eggs, oranges, sweet rolls, coffee, which was delicious and doubly appreciated after so many mornings of cold rolls and coffee. We ate and talked for about an hour or more, then were driven back to the station, by way of the Milan cathedral and La Scala opera house, in time to reclaim our baggage and get a comfortable compartment.

We had decided while in Florence to spend our last night in Lugano, Switzerland instead of Milan, so this was our destination on the afternoon train. This way departure the following morning was at 8:07 instead of 6:30, and besides Lugano is indescribably more beautiful than Milan, which is mainly an industrial city. We arrived at 3:30 pm and after a 45 minute walk (suitcases and all) to the youth hostel only to find it closed for the winter, we returned by bus to a small hotel right across from the train station. The lady was very nice, gave us the rooms for $1.25 each and told us of an inexpensive restaurant a few blocks away. We had a marvelous and filling dinner for only 25c, and afterwards walked through the lightly falling snow (very uncommon for Lugano they said) down to the lake shore. The town is situated on several hills at one side of Lake Lugano, in the gorgeous southern Swiss lake country which Hemmingway uses for his "Farewell to Arms" (a scene from this occurs at Stresa and Locano, a few kilometers from Lugano, on another lake). We could look across the lake at the lights of homes on the hill opposite, which were also reflected in the water below. It was a beautiful thing to see, and the setting would be equally lovely on a summer's day, as it was on a quiet winter's night. We were in bed that night by 8:30 for almost 10 hours sleep (the girls found hot water bottles in their beds, as a courtesy of the family who runs the hotel). The next day was again beautiful and a perfect one to be traveling through the magnificent Swiss Alps - Bellinzona, Arth Goldau, Zurich, Scheffhauser, etc. back to Stuttgart. The mountains rise suddenly from valley floors, without foothills. They were quite beautiful and proud in their fresh coats of snow, more sheer and rugged than the Sierras are. We'll see them more closely on a coming trip to the Lucerne area (Mary Ann and I, on a 4 day weekend Feb 26-29, I think). We got back on the good old Burg just in time for a good dinner and a good night's sleep.