Road trip till Tessa Point

View from the Balcony towards the border with Italy

I received a Smartbox last christmas. For those of you who don't know what a Smartbox is ; a Smartbox is like a catalogue with different themes. Anyway the idea is that you buy these catalogue-like little books and offer it to someone as a present or gift. Now that person will choose whatever he/she would like to do from the listed activities depending on the theme of that Smartbox. 

For example mine the theme was on hotels in Italy, Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland. The package is a night at any of the hotels which were listed in the book, plus a 3 course meal, welcome drink. That's the standard package. Other hotels offer an entrance to their spa facilities, a guided tour, champagne, bottle of wine or a shopping voucher. 

It took me almost a year to choose from the.....hotels listed. Process of elimination started with Germany, Austria and France are crossed off the list......(Germany-Food, Austria - Food, France - Hospitality). Yes apart from sausages I don't like to eat anything German, Austria even though some people like to claim that croissant is an Austrian thing, they sure do have the worst croissants around. France, ump......they need to work on their hospitality. Trust me I'm in the hotel business and if theres someone you don't want handling your food especially if you're a demanding guest ( not implying that Im one ) , its the French. 

Now I had to choose between Switzerland and Italy. Once again Switzerland is divided into three cultural regions. The Italian region Lugano, Ticino. The French region which includes Geneva and Lausanne and where yours truly is blogging from. Then the German region, yes the  "Mighty" Zurich with its stuck up population and Bern the overshadowed capital and lets say the rest of Switzerland. 

So once again, the German and French region is off my list. I'm left with Italy and the Swiss-Italian region. To confirm your rising questions; I adore Italy. The food, the life, the shopping and everything  Italian. Italy is just amazing. Not into Italian men though, unless he comes with a Lambo as a bonus....LOL

Finally the region was decided, Ticino,  then the Hotel. Which is Tessa Point Bay Hotel. We decided to pass through Brig, head into Italian Territory to do some shopping at Domosdosola, then cross back into Swiss territory to arrive at Tessa Point. Which is a little town huddled beside the lake. They share a border with Italy. Which was 100 meters from the Hotel. So you can imagine the Foooood. 

We started off fine, we've done this road before. Spent half the day shopping, then we started off again. That's when things got tricky. Now,  I have so many complaints about the Italian roads. Apart from being very very old. The exists, imagine your rolling at 130km/H and you had to exit. The exits are badly planned and constructed ( not saying in all of Italy). You had to reduce your speed to 40km/H and do a sharp bend all of this in less than a minute. Because according to what I was taught at the driving school here in Switzerland is that you cannot break or reduce speed while your still on the highway. You start breaking once you're  on the exit lane....Those were not the issues though. We got lost along the way. Unlike Swiss roads, in Italy theres hardly any indication. If they have, its not clear at all. We lost almost 2 hours going in the wrong direction, partly because when we realise our mistake we couldn't find an exit. We had to keep going in the wrong direction for 30 or so more minutes.
We finally arrived at Tessa Point Bay Hotel around 6pm. The staff were really kind and helpful. Despite it being the Swiss-Italian region, the receptionist speaks fluent French. Neither one of us know any Italian words. Well my husband understands but he cannot respond. His responses were always met with a sympathetic smile. The food was great, the room was standard but we had this magnificent view of the lake from the b
alcony.
On our way back we decided to drive through the 'Centovalli', roughly translated as ' Hundred Valleys'. Little narrow winding roads deep in the mountain. It was an amazing drive, the sight seeing was superb. We stopped along the way for lunch. Sadly, we were told that they don't serve pizza during Sunday lunch...huh???? Is this like an Italian thing that we didn't know about ?
Coming home, it hits you that the Swiss are a bit cold........that's where when we ( or only yours truly ) would normally announce that the Swiss are happy in the morning because they woke up remembering that they are rich and they are happy in the afternoon because they are drunk