Como, Italy

Our last adventure was a train trip to Como, Italy. The original train we booked was canceled, which was a problem since we had set up a boat tour starting at 9 a.m. After some panicked work at Milan's central train station, we had an alternate train that just barely made it. We took a taxi from the Como train station over to the docks, where we started our boat tour.

A view of the city from the water

The Black Pearl and driver

More of the city on the lake

The driver pointed out the Volta Museum, dedicated to Allesandro Volta, the inventor of the battery and Como citizen. The kids were happy because we visited on a Monday and the museum was closed. On the other side of the picture below is the town's World War II memorial. 

Volta and WWII honored

Leaving the city behind

The view north

Hotels along the lake

Construction still going on, a sign of vitality

More villas

Us on the boat

The guide pointed out a lot of the villas that are owned privately or are civic buildings that get used for weddings and film locations. 

Romantic view of the area

A little town with its church

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel is a high-end property that has its own dock, a pool in the lake, and an area for guests to sun themselves.

Mandarin Oriental Hotel

This house was originally built by a Russian aristocrat. It's only accessible by water or the elevator in the upper left of the photo. It's now owned by the head of Apple in France.

Russian Villa

More of the lake

Back by Como

More of the town

We really enjoyed the boat tour of the lake. Keeping up a vacation theme, we rode the funicular train up from Como to Brunate. It is a very popular attraction, though we did not have to wait too long to ride up.

Funicular Station in Como

The train

View from the Brunate station

View on the other side of the mountain

Enjoying the view

Not far from the station is the church of St. Andrew the Apostle. All the buildings up there are on the hillside, so there's always some stairs to climb or ramps to go up.

St. Andrew's

Nave

Main altar

Back of the church

Like most every other old church in Italy, the art is fantastic.

An unidentified saint

Trinity dome

Symbol of John the Evangelist over St. Joseph and toddler Jesus

Nativity fresco

Fake statue!

Saint in chains

We thought about going out to the lighthouse, but it was a half-hour hike and we were out of water. A jeep takes people over in ten minutes but the line was long to get on (and it was a little pricey). We headed back down the mountain.

Happy riders

View of Como

More of Como

Back in Como, we found a small beach and enjoyed the water a tiny bit.

Checking water temps

A swan nearby

The swan getting close

Back by the harbor

A last view of the lake

Como is a great place to visit.

Zurich, Switzerland

In Zurich, Switzerland, we spent some time visiting the local Google office, including some fun lunch food.

A happy eater

Google ice cream looks a lot like Ben & Gerry's

The game room has plenty to recommend it, including a foosball table, an old-fashioned Star Wars pinball game, and old-school Street Fighter.

Daughter versus mother!

Two games at once!

Pinball happiness

Brothers fighting each other!

The day was rainy, so we went over to FocusTerra, an exhibit at the ETH Zurich. On the way, we crossed the Limmat River that runs through Zurich. 

The river runs through it

A fancy building along the way

FocusTerra starts with a long hallway with almost everything in German! I was worried the kids would be extra-bored.

A lot of information

Inside, we discovered a fountain. As if we had not seen enough water with the rain and the river! It actually perked up the kids.

Indoor fountain

The geology exhibit focuses on the formation of the Alps. The European continental shelf intersected with the African, forming the mountains. Earthquakes do happen in the Alps, though not many people are impacted because of the lack of population density.

Strata coming together

Samples of rocks from different strata

More rock samples

A nearby display shows a Martian lander called InSight that is studying the geology of Mars. It is measuring core temperatures and recording marsquakes (I guess they can't have earthquakes there). The scientists in the building work with NASA to analyze the data that comes back.

NASA InSight Martian Explorer

Another exhibit goes through the formation of the universe, from the Big Bang to star formation to planetary formation.

Universe formation

As a last treat, we took the Polybahn up the hill to get a better view of the city. It was a fun ride for our youngest.

The funicular station

The train

Riding inside

Getting to the top

The other train on the tracks

View of the street below the train

Safely back on ground, we crossed the river again and headed to the train station to get back to our base of operations in Bern.

Pretty much the same view of the river

The Bahnhof (train station)

Weird art in the Bahnhof