Photo of the Week

This is a view of the Alps west of Lucerne from Mt. Rigi, about 1.5 hours south of Zurich by train. You can actually reach Rigi's highest summit (about 5,900 ft) by cog-wheel train, but Christoph and I decided on Sunday to zip up by cable car from the base and then hike for three or so hours to the top.

My Walking in Switzerland guide (thanks again, Stef!) rated this an easy hike, but I thought it was a pretty good workout. I guess I'm not as in shape as I thought I was.

We made it to the top just as an afternoon wind storm swept in. Luckily there's a hotel up there, so we watched the storm roll through from the restaurant while enjoying panoramic views and cake. The storm cleared out the heat and the haze, which is how I got this shot on the way down the mountain.

Hopp Schwiiz!!!
The Swiss beat South Korea and advanced to the second round of the World Cup last night. And Zurich went OFF!

It was such an un-Swiss scene, I was kind of stunned. Pedestrians were piling on cars and peeing in the Limmat. Needless to say, there was lots of hollering, honking, fireworks and public displays of affection.

I wandered around town after the game and got swept up in the revelry. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera, so here are the best pics I could find this morning from around the Web...

Summer, my long lost friend!
There are lots of nice things about living in San Francisco, but summertime is not one of them. It's sort of the missing season, lost in a swirl of fog and wind.

So, here in Zurich, I'm enjoying a whole summer again for the first time in six years. It's wunderbar!


For one thing, Zurichers really know how to do summer. On every corner is a sidewalk cafe or beer garden teaming with people. The drinking laws are pretty relaxed, so you can order a beer at the park near my house and take it out on the grass while the kiddies run around and play.

I love this park, by the way. I call it the hip parents' park because it's where all the groovey parents go with their stylish bambinos, but it's actually called Bäckeranlage. It also attracts lots of earthy types and some seniors, who take in the scene in from the shady benches. Christoph and I meandered over there one night when it was all hot and stuffy in the house. The cafe was jumping and people were lounging on blankets, having picnics by candlelight. We didn't bring a blanket so we just plopped down in the grass and watched the clouds gather.

The nice thing about the lack of air conditioning - a rare thing in Switzerland - is that it gets people out of their houses and mingling. Who cares if everyone's a little sweaty?

Another fantastic feature of a Zurich summer is the Schwimmbad culture. All along the lake and river are lovely swimming spots, which are packed on nice weekends and evenings. Christoph and I biked along the lake last Sunday and must have seen dozens of them. The water looked so good we finally stopped at one and took a dip.

We also stopped for lunch and a game of rummy at Rote Fabrik, an old brick factory that's now a grungy, graffiti-covered entertainment complex with a lakeside restaurant, theater and art galleries. Between the lesbian couple cuddling at the next table and the guy smoking an enormous joint, it felt like Berkeley for a moment.

The swimming holes along the river in the city are more refined. One of my favorite spots, which I visited for the first time last week, is the Frauenbad - the women's bath. Men are only allowed in on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, when it becomes the Barfuss Bar (Barefoot Bar).

I went with a friend last Thursday afternoon. The water was pretty chilly but the ambiance was fantastic. It's a little old wooden bathhouse on stilts in the water, and it's right downtown across the street from city hall. From the outer deck, you can watch the boats and the city life go by. Of course, they can watch you too, which didn't seem to bother the topless sunbathers. (I kept mine on.)

Another nice spot is the Männerbad - just for men, of course. Women are welcome in every evening around 7:30 for the open-air bar. It's on a small, quiet tributary that's very lush and cool and green. Instead of tables and chairs, people lounge on Persian rugs and oversize cushions scattered around a wrap-around deck several feet above the water. Big paper lanterns give it a kind of bohemian feel, but it's a pretty posh, young crowd that gathers here, being just around the corner from the stock exchange.


It cooled down today, but I plan to further investigate the schwimmbad scene very soon.

My (almost) alcohol- and meat-free week
One of the occupational hazards of a hausfrau is that there's never any reason to refuse a drink. A glass of wine with lunch? A couple beers on Sunday night? Aperitifs with your girlfriends three nights in a row? Why not?

So I decided, after a particularly boozy Sunday in which I consumed a beer, a mojito and several glasses of wine, that I needed to give it a rest. I resolved to abstain from booze and, for good measure, meat for 7 days.

All proud and full of optimism, I told my yoga teacher about my undertaking on the first day. "Oh, are you cutting out coffee and dairy too?" she responded, obviously unimpressed. Yes, she is sadistic.

That was six days ago, and today I fell off the wagon. It's shameful, I know.

And I had been so good! I met some friends on Monday at a beer garden and just ordered a salad and sparkling juice. Christoph and I went bar hopping on Thursday and I drank nothing but water. Last night we went out to the Caliente festival, a big street party where every other stand was selling rum drinks and shish kabobs, and I consoled myself with a couple of sweet crepes.

I resisted through all that but finally caved in at home over a simple meal of cheese, bread, insalata caprese and fresh apricots. Admiring the lovely lunch I'd put together, I thought to myself, when did a nice glass of white wine ever kill anybody? The next thing I knew I had a cork screw in my hand and it was all over.

What can I say? Did I mention it's been really hot here all week? This weather can sure make a gal thirsty!

I'm happy to report that the lack of meat has been no problem. I've been cooking up a vegetarian storm - potato fritatta, baked peppers, onions and tomatoes stuffed with bread crumbs and other yummies. Tonight we're making baked trout and marinated zucchini - the first seafood of the week! My meat-and-potatoes husband has been a trooper.

But on the liquid front, the biggest challenge as I see it, is the lack of alternative beverages. I don't drink Coke or other sugary drinks. I only crave juice and coffee in the morning. It's too hot for tea. Some non-sweetened iced tea would be nice, but doesn't exist here as far as I can tell. Non-alcoholic beer just seems desperate.

So that leaves water. It's been a very watery week. I was feeling very deprived. This is important because should I ever get pregnant, I'll have nine MONTHS of this. How does anyone do it???

The Italy Files: Part 3
Maybe I’ve worried you. Perhaps you’ve begun to fear that this Italy trip was a bust. Well, fear not! The next two days restored our faith in Italy’s magic and the warmth and hospitality of its people. These were the days we spent at the farmhouse inn Il Casato, the most peaceful, welcoming and scenic spot on our journey.


The place is set back about a mile from the main road in a lush valley of vineyards, fields and forested hills. From the door of our room, we could see the Appennini, still tinged with snow, in the far distance. Cherry trees dangled their brilliant sweets just outside our window. It was like we had stepped into one of those Renaissance paintings we saw in Urbino's Palazzo Ducale.

There were several times I couldn’t believe my eyes for all the fairytale beauty of the place. Like the time I looked across to the next hill and saw a herd of horses in a wild gallop on the ridge. Or the sunset that streaked the sky with the most vibrant shades of pink and blue. Or the night we were out walking and spotted a field full of fireflies, or “lucciole” in Italian. How sweet is that word?

While the landscape was stunning, what made Il Casato so delightful were Mario and Mara, the husband wife team that own and run the place. From the moment we drove up, Mario was laughing and teasing us about the BMW. “Where is everyone else?” he asked. “That car is big enough for seven people!” Mario was our buddy from the start, always joking and telling stories.

That afternoon, after a nice long walk, we ate ourselves silly in Il Casato’s rustic, homey dining room. It was the full-meal deal - appetizers, a pasta course, a meat dish and a non-stop supply of Mario’s marvelous Verdicchio, a white wine made from the grapes of his family’s vineyard. Claudia and I drank a bottle each in one sitting, which is why I can’t recall more details about the food other than it was really yummy.

In between courses, we got to exercise our Italian with Mario, who brought out each new dish and kept the wine flowing. A big group of Italians at the next table were celebrating a wedding and made sure Claudia and I got a piece of cake and a glass of champagne. As we all toasted to the newlyweds, Claudia and I exchanged looks of joy and relief. We had escaped the American ghetto.

Over the course of the next day and a half, Mario was the supreme host, always welcoming new guests and brimming with a passion for his land that was absolutely contagious. He took Claudia and I on a tour of his vineyard and showed us the natural spring where he and his neighbors collect fresh drinking water, filling a big bottle for us.

The next night after dinner, Claudia and I, an American couple who were also guests at the farmhouse and a kid who helped out around the place all jumped in Mario’s car and went into town for gelato. Mario said he knew where to get the best gelato for miles, made by hand not in a factory. Sure enough, the place was packed with people at 11:00 PM. Mario made sure we all put in our orders and then insisted on paying for the whole group. Licking my spoon and being nudged along by Mario, I felt like I was about 15 years old.

We lingered outside the gelateria with our creamy treats along with a dozen or so locals, who were all chatty and sitting on eachother’s laps. That was also the night we saw le lucciole, and I was once again intoxicated with Italy.

The Italy Files: Part 2
Yes, it's true. I can't get enough of that boot-shaped, fashion-soaked, sun-drenched country to the south. So when my friend Claudia dropped in for 10 days from San Francisco, there was really no question about where we were heading. She too has Sicilian roots and spent time in Italy (Assisi) as a student, so we are joined in mutual Italy worship.


Following a tip in the paper, we decided to visit Le Marche, an area in central Italy some have deemed the new Tuscany. Like Tuscany, Le Marche has an abundance of medieval, hilltop villages, gorgeous countryside, and meandering back roads. But it's greener and more rugged than Tuscany with the Appennini mountain range separating it from the rest of central Italy and its crush of tourists. We were primarily on a gelato-seeking, wine-appreciation, language-refresher mission, so the fact that Le Marche is not the Italian epicenter of important museums and historical sites was not a problem. For that we had Florence and Assisi (our starting and end points).

In my mind, our trip had two distinct phases -- before and after our arrival at Il Casato, a wonderful farmhouse hotel and restaurant that's also an operating vineyard and small farm. The Italian term for this type of place is "agriturismo," and I gather that the concept has really taken off in the past several years. I first noticed it this past Easter when Christoph and I spent a day driving through Tuscany and saw agriturismo signs everywhere.

Before Il Casato, we were having a pleasant enough time shopping the markets in Florence, exploring picturesque Urbino, and putting miles on our rental car - get this - a BMW station wagon. Hertz had run out of Fiat automatics, the car I'd reserved, and decided to pimp our ride at no extra charge. We figured it was a real stroke of luck until we got that thing all tangled up in the impossibly narrow cobblestone alleys of every town we visited. And then there was that belligerent Italian driver stuck behind us in a particularly small parking lot who threatened to call the police.

I'm sad to report that we detected some anti-Americanism on this trip. Every restaurant seemed to have a special place for us --- let's call it the American ghetto. There was also the single-women-over-30 ghetto. Anyone who's gone for dim sum in San Francisco and found themselves in the Caucasian ghetto will understand this concept. Again and again, we were seated off in a corner by ourselves, the lone diners.


The worst was in Urbino, where we had a whole floor to ourselves. After we complained and looked really gloomy about this situation, they eventually moved us downstairs with the other patrons. Unfortunately this included a group of drunk Swiss men at the table next to us who made sure we understood, after we told them we are from California, that they think Napa wine tastes like shit. Nice. As we got up to leave, they started yelling "Bush! Bush! Do you like Bush?" My reply: "I LOOOOOOOVE Bush! Goooooo Bushy!!!!"

We took all this in stride, but it was starting to wear on us. Afterall, we weren't your average American tourists. We actually made attempts to speak Italian and look stylish at all times in accordance with local norms and customs. Yet it was clear, especially after being referred to once (albeit in a friendly way) as "le ragazze alte" (the tall girls), that we didn't exactly blend in.

Then we hit a real low point. After a long day of driving, we reached the town of Macerata, where we planned to stay for the next two nights. The Rough Guide described it as the perfect base for exploring the magnificent countryside.

Perfect, my ass.

After driving through the ugly modern development that surrounds the city, we parked the Beamer in a lot and proceeded to the youth hostel (yes, I'm aware of how absurd that sounds). Claudia had to pee and had a nasty cold. I was tired and frustrated after a set of directions that had us dragging our bags up and down several sets of stairs. We were lost and grumpy.

I ended up in the tourist office rubbing my face and saying, "Io sono molto stanca." (I am very tired.) From the look on the face of the woman behind the counter, I'm sure I appeared slightly deranged. She quit trying to explain the location of the hostel (just around the corner!) and cautiously handed me the map I had been asking for.

We finally reached the hostel. It had the ambiance (perhaps aptly by then) of an abandonded mental institution. We seemed to be the only guests, so we got our own room, which Claudia nicknamed "cell block A." As soon as we set our bags down, I started scrambling for a new plan and that's how we ended up staying at Il Casato, that little slice of heaven, the next night. It wasn't even in the original plan!

But first we had to go through more hell. After taking a stroll and eating some crappy pizza, we returned to the hostel and decided to hit the hay early. A few minutes later there was urgent knocking at our door. Before I could open it, a woman barged in and started yelling at us in rapid-fire Italian. I wasn't quite following all of it but I understood she was upset that we didn't leave the key at the front desk when went out. Just when I was sure she was wrapping up her verbal assault it escalated and this is where she lost me. She was on the verge of hysteria about how she's responsble for us and something about getting raped in the bathroom.

At this point it was almost comical. This really was the insane asylum. Finally she left, and as I climbed back into bed, I felt somewhat violated. I told Claudia, as I turned out the light, let's just pretend we're already on that nice farm in the country. And she said, god bless her, "Yeah, and that was the cow."

To be continued...