2018 July

2018-07-26T15:52:30+02:00

Lugano is the biggest city of the canton of Tessin. It borders on Italy and boats a beautiful mediterranean flair. Italian is the official language spoken in this part of Switzerland.

Lugano has it’s own university and also a bigger financial center. The Italian speaking Swiss TV and radio stations are also here in Lugano. The city itself is compact and romantic and has only about 65’000 inhabitants.

The relationship with Italy hasn’t always been easy and there were numerous battles between Como and Italy often carried out in the area of Lugano. The Identity of the local people is clearly Swiss and not Italian.

The view on this picture is from the top of Monte San Salvatore reaching an altitude of 912m. Lugano lies 600m below (on the left). This peak offers a splendid view of the city and the lake Lugano with its many branches. A cable car leads directly to the top.

On our recent visit the water of the lake was at least 24°C and it was such a pleasure to go for a swim in the clean water of the lake with a panoramic view of the picturesque environment.

FIFA Soccer World Cup

adminci2018-07-03T21:53:36+02:00

The Soccer World Cup is a huge event taking place from mid June to mid July at different locations in Russia. There are 32 countries represented through their teams, each fighting to win the cup. There are many public viewing areas where all the games can be watched.

From a Swiss perspective the cup is over by today (July 3). The Swiss soccer team just lost against the Swedes 0:1. Now they are out of the games and will fly home.

On June 17 the Swiss team fought and ended with a tie against Brazil (1:1) and won against the Serbs on June 22 with a 2:1. On June 27 the Swiss team again finished with a tie of 2:2 vs Costa Rica. There were high hopes that the Swiss would actually make it past the Swedes into the quarter finals. But alas, today their hopes were bitterly dashed.

The Swiss have a very international team with most players coming from a migrational background but raised in this country. This also led to a hot controversy when earlier on the Swiss fought the Serbs who especially taunted the Swiss players with a Kosovar family background. At the end of the game two exasperated Kosovo Swiss player used their hands to make the Kosovar double eagle symbol thus taunting the Serbs celebrating their victory. Many Swiss disliked this gestured from the two Kosovar Swiss team members which led to a huge contraversy whether those players were true Swiss or not. However reality is that Switzerland isn’t a homogenous country anymore and as such probably has never been one.