Bellinzona and other weekend activites

Last saturday I went on a day trip to Bellinzona, which is in Ticino (the Italian canton of Swtizerland). I went with Richard, Lindsey, Olivier and Fengling (intern at Alstom). We left moderatly early on saturday morning and caught the 3 hour train to Bellinzona. We didn't leave really early, beacause the night before we were out lateish at a BBQ at KSB (learned a really fun new drinking game called "Flippy Cups" or "Tubo Cups"!). The reason we decided to go was because there was a wine festival that weekend, and some cool castles to see. Samuela from my work is from near Bellinzona, so she gave me all sorts of info about what to see.

We arrived around lunchtime and wandered into the market area to buy lunch. I had some yummy flatbread/cheesy thing. It was a beautiful day, though, apparently many days in Ticino are like that. We first went up the hill to Castelgrande and climbed up one of the towers. Something that is cool about the castles in Bellinzona is that you are able to walk up some of the towers and along the walls. Many other castles it seems you are only able to look from the ground (or they are lame buildings that are called a castle to trick you into thinking it is a cool thing to see).





Castelgrande (taken from one of the other castles)








There was a big wall that stretched out away from the castle, so we walked along that to the end...it had a nice grassy path and everything. Then we walked back underneath the wall, in a cool tunnel thing. After that me, Lindsey and Richard decided to take a nap on the lawn (it was a pretty lazy trip).


Fengling and Lindsey in the tunnel under the wall at Castelgrande













Lindsey, Olivier and Richard all taking pictures of the Castelgrande wall. Man, we're tourists.












Lindsey, Fengling, Richard and Olivier on Castelgrande, with Montebello Castle in the background.









Next we walked back down the hill, and up the other hill where Montebello Castle and Sasso Castle are. We only went as high as Montebello, becasue the other one is small and not really worth seeing. Once again, we got to explore along the walls of the castle and take some nice pictures.




View of Bellinzona












Lindsey, Richard, me and Fengling near Montebello Castle.










After seeing the castles, we went back down to the town to find the wine festival in full swing. For 6CHF you could buy a wine glass and then go around to all the booths and sample wine from different regions. It was pretty fun, I was able to work on my wine conneseur skills (they still suck). I only stayed for a little while, and caught the train back to Baden (the other's waited until after 7 so they could ride for free...hooray for my GA!)





Me and Lindsey tasting wine.










*************************************************************

On Sunday we got a new table! The Berg had gotten a used coffee table from their neighbours, and realized that they had nowhere to put it, so offered it to the other praktikants. We claimed it the fastest, so on sunday me, Richard and Vance carried it from the Berg to Kehl. It was a bit of an adventure, since we live about 30min away, up a hill. But there were no fiascos (though, we got some funny looks) and it fits beautifully into our living room.

Sunday night I went to a hip hop concert in Baden with Lindsey, George, Phil (German guy who works at ABB), Travis, Devon, and Dan (new praktikant from England). We saw a group called De La Soul, and it was interesting because I have never been to a hip hop concert before. It ended up being lots of fun (any kind of live music always is) and me and Lindsey even went up on stage at one point when they wanted a whole bunch of girls up there, haha.


Me and Lindsey on stage with De La Soul! (thanks to Travis for the pic)












It was a nice low key weekend. Next weekend I am going to Ibiza!!!