We woke up in Varenna this morning to cloudy skies and sputtering snow.  I had a terrible night of mostly sleeplessness.  I am sure it is due to the extended nap yesterday afternoon and further complicated by the firm bed on which we tried to sleep!  So after breakfast, we packed our bags and drove north along the lake. 

I spent sometime last night learning how to use my new Garmin GPS.  I discovered a lot of features such as exploring the map, adding way points, traffic information, speed limit and traffic camera notification, and even switching the language.  With this new knowledge we struck off in the direction of St. Moritz, a famous resort in the Swiss Alps.  Driving along Lake Como I switched the GPS to “speak” in Italian which sounded a whole lot better than the “American English” voice trying to pronounce Italian street and city names.  In a short while, we were at the Swiss border and really making headway uphill.  Although it was not snowing much it was apparent that there had been a lot of snow in the past few days.  The roads were clear, but at times there were snow banks reaching eight feet or more. 

We arrived in St. Moritz by one o’clock and found the town closed for “siesta” which I guess they adopted from the Italians.  Situated on the banks of Lej da San Murezzan,  St. Moritz is a beautiful Hapsburg-esque town.  I am traveling here without any historical knowledge of the town, but I can guess it has been a resort of centuries.  Uhmm…it is also expensive, but we decided to stay a night just to get a feel for the place.  We are here between seasons.  Fall is over and the winter ski season does not begin for a couple of more weeks.  All around town folks are decorating for Christmas and the town looks so festive decked out in snow and twinkling lights.

We are picnicking in our room tonight to offset the hotel cost.  We visited the local COOP for bread, ham, cheese, coke light, water, Beaujolais Nouveau, and sweet.  Now we’re holed-up in our toasty room with frigid 20 degree F temps outside. 

-David