Un-freakin-believable. This morning we were able to watch sunrise on the Matterhorn from our bed in the Parkhotel Beau Site. Is that beautiful or what?

Never, while growing up on a dairy farm in San Bernardino, California, did I ever imagine that this is something I would experience.

Not too far north of Lugano we saw road signs for San Bernardino, Switzerland. Since I grew up in San Bernardino, California, I wondered if the Swiss town looks anything like its California namesake.

The answer is a resounding no.

San Bernardino, California is overrun by illegal aliens, bankrupt, and home to more methamphetamine manufacturers and dealers than any other city in America. The streets are full of crime and the air is full of smog. The once lovely city is often called Detroit West.

All things considered, I think I prefer San Bernardino, Switzerland.

Believe it or not, this is the view out the window of our hotel room in Zermatt, Switzerland. It’s beyond anything the Swiss tourism people could possibly have promised.

We’re staying at the Parkhotel Beau Site, which sits just slightly above Zermatt. The hotel is more than 100 years old and it’s magnificent.

Making hotel reservations online is always a bit of a crapshoot. We’ve learned that we’re better off assuming that hotel websites stretch the truth to the breaking point.

As an advertising guy, I’m skeptical of most advertising. So when the Parkhotel Beau Site’s website said we could get a “mountain view” room, my ad brain kicked in and I wondered exactly what that might mean.

Did it mean a view of the Matterhorn? Or did it mean a view of some other mountain? Was it what real estate agents call “a peek-a-boo view” that you can only get if you stand on a stepladder and look out the bathroom window on a cloudless day?

So I sent the Parkhotel Beau Site an email asking for clarification. Their response was quite clear and clearly not open for interpretation: “Mountain view rooms overlook the Matterhorn.”

Much to our surprise, the delightful Parkhotel Beau Site gave us the best room in the hotel. We don’t know why. It’s far from the most expensive room in the house, but I can’t imagine that any other room has a better view. Our room is on the corner of the top floor nearest the Matterhorn. We have floor to ceiling glass on the Matterhorn side of the room and the photo above is the view from our bed.

Yes, that’s what I said. We can lie in bed and look at the Matterhorn.

But let’s pause now for an aside, which I swear to God will eventually bring us back to Zermatt:

Many years ago, when I was a so-called ad agency executive, I served on a non-profit committee with Jack Lindquist, the President of Disneyland. He was an absolutely wonderful guy. We had weekly meetings in his office at which each committee member was required to make a report on the progress they had made in the prior week.

Jack soon realized that I had absolutely no interest in listening to the other committee members relate details of things that had no impact on my area of expertise, and he knew that I loved Disneyland. So each week he asked me to make my report first and when I was done he’d say, “Jim, why don’t you go out into the park and see how the Matterhorn is doing.”

I’d leave Jack’s office, wander through back stage Disneyland where I’d see things the public never gets to see, like Mickey Mouse without his pants or Pluto without his head or Snow White in her bra, and then enter the park and stroll past the Matterhorn, ride a horse drawn carriage down Main Street, get an ice cream, and finally arrive back at Jack’s office just before the meeting drew to a close.

Each week Jack asked me the same question: “How was the Matterhorn?”

I always said, “It was perfect,” but until today I never realized how perfect the Matterhorn could really be.

The funicular was not the last of the Godfather’s Lugano recommendations. He also suggested that we try his favorite Lugano restaurant.

To tell the truth, we weren’t too confident in this recommendation because the Godfather couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant and it seemed to us that he might not really know it all that well if he couldn’t remember its name.

“When you’re standing at the lake, looking back toward the Hotel Walter du Lac,” he said, “it’s about four or five doors to the left. It’s a little pricey, but the food and the service are incredible.”

So we wandered down to the Walter at lunchtime and walked four or five doors to the left, and sure enough, there was a lovely looking restaurant called La Cucina di Alice.

We sat down at a sidewalk table across the street from the lake despite the fact that we had already had lunch. We weren’t sure this was actually the restaurant the Godfather had recommended, but it was a very warm day so we thought we’d dip our toes in the water slowly by ordering a cold drinks and desserts.

Let’s cut to the chase:

Jamie had a molten chocolate cake. I had cheesecake. Not only were they fabulous, but so was our waiter Edwin. So we made dinner reservations and asked to be seated in Edwin’s section.

Dinner was even better. Edwin was funny and gracious and responsive and he gave us free drinks, which as far as I’m concerned, makes even the finest meal taste even better.

So, Godfather, we hope La Cucina di Alice was your favorite restaurant in Lugano, because it certainly has become ours.

We need to get out of Switzerland soon. Jamie now defines the four basic food groups as coffee, chocolate, gelato, and paninis.

We just happen to be here at the same time as this year’s Lugano Blues-to-Bop Music Festival. They have stages all over town and different groups perform on each stage every night.

The photo above is an American gospel group that performed on the main stage on opening night. They were pretty damn good, but the audience just didn’t seem to be into it.

A brief aside:

One day a few years ago, Jamie and I were going through some old boxes of paperwork and ran across all my elementary school report cards. Turned out my mom had saved them all. Jamie thumbed through them and howled with laughter when she got to the one from kindergarten.

“You won’t believe what your teacher wrote,” she said. “Jimmy does not participate in rhythms.”

Mrs Kelsey had me pegged at an early age. Fact is, I have no rhythm. I have nary a scintilla of musical ability nor even comprehension. I can’t keep a beat. I am, I admit, pathetic when it comes to music.

Anyone who’s ever been to a concert with me knows that nothing has changed since kindergarten. We went to a Rolling Stones concert in Dallas a few months ago and while 80,000 other people were dancing and singing along with Mick, I basically stood with my two feet planted in place for the whole show, hands at my side until a song ended, when I applauded as if I was really feeling the music. I wasn’t.

I tell you this for one simple reason: The Swiss audience at the American gospel group’s concert looked like it was composed of a thousand me’s.

“If you like to dance,” the lead singer screamed, “come on down in front of the stage.” No one moved.

“Come on down,” the lead singer reiterated. “We want the dancers right here in front of the stage.” No one moved.

Jamie’s theory is that no one in the German, Italian and French-speaking Swiss audience understood what he was saying because of his strong Cajun accent.

I choose to believe that the Swiss do not participate in rhythms.

Our buddy Mike knows Lugano and he said we should take the the Monte Brè funicular while we’re here. And when the Godfather says, “Take the funicular”, you take the funicular.

In case you’ve never run across this peculiar mode of transportation, please allow me to explain what it is: It’s a cable railway in which a cable is attached to a pair of trams that ascend and descend a steep slope on rails. The ascending and descending vehicles counterbalance each other.

The Monte Brè funicular starts up the mountain right at the eastern edge of town at about 900 foot elevation and then rises over 3000 feet before it arrives at the mountain top station.

No matter how it may appear, this is not a photo of a doddering old man who’s fallen asleep on the funicular.

There. That’s more like it. Now let’s put an end to the sniggering about the doddering old man.

Jamie and I are having a disagreement and we invite you to express your opinions. One of the two photos above is shot going uphill and the other is shot going downhill. She contends that it’s easy to tell which is which, but I say that the perspective makes one indistinguisable from the other. Your opinions?

We got off at the top and had lunch at a restaurant that hangs off the edge of the mountain and overlooks Lake Lugano and the Alps. Not a bad view.

Jim discusses the finer points of funicular engineering with captain of the Monte Brè funicular. As a brief aside, she looked at me and said, “You are not a doddering old man. I heard you had the vigor of an 18-year old boy.” Well, it was in Italian, which I don’t speak, but I’m pretty confident that’s the gist of what she said.

It was a warm summer night, the kind we used to love in Southern California — hot enough to bring you to the edge of a sweat, but with gentle breezes cool enough to keep you from actually getting there.

Jamie and I were walking along the Lugano street that’s home to all the world’s top luxury brands (luckily, it was late enough that they were all closed) when we heard what sounded like an orchestra warming up down the street, so we headed in that direction.

Lo and behold, we stumbled upon a piazza where a symphony orchestra was just getting ready to play. It all seemed pretty impromptu. As we watched them warm up, a city truck pulled into the piazza and workers began haphazardly unloading fifty or so plastic chairs. Passersby quickly filled them, and others sat down on the steps of nearby businesses. The total audience couldn’t have numbered more than 75 or 100. There were no lights except the ambient lighting of the nearby stores.

All of a sudden, the orchestra began to play. Between selections, the animated conductor turned to the audience and joked and told stories and interacted with audience members. Of course, it was all in Italian, so we have no idea what he was saying. But he was saying it all with great enthusiasm.

It really was a perfect evening.

The Godfather told us we would love Lugano. And as you might expect from someone who answers to the name The Godfather, he was correct.

The Godfather is actually our friend Mike Leone. He was a client of mine about 35 years ago, but we didn’t become good friends until many years later when he bought the house directly across the street from ours.

The Godfather and The Godmother (his wonderful late, great wife) loved Lugano. It was her favorite place. So when we were planning this trip, The Godfather said, “If you’re going to Switzerland, you must visit Lugano.”

To tell the truth, I barely knew the name Lugano and didn’t know what to expect. It couldn’t be better (well, it could be better if it were cheaper, but that’s another discussion).

It sits on a beautiful lake very near the border with Italy. While Zurich and Lucerne seems much more German, Lugano is clearly Italian. The people are as warm as the weather and their swimsuits may be small, but their smiles are large.

According to Wikipedia, the town’s population is only 55,000 but neither Jamie nor I believe that number. It seems much larger, much more cosmopolitan. It seems like there’s another square (piazza in Italiano) every couple blocks. The streets are narrow and twisted and very steep.

We’re already talking about coming back again.

Lake Lugano. I know it’s a fresh water lake, but the town reminds me of Laguna. Except it has an Italian accent.

Beautiful old buildings run along crooked, narrow, steep streets. Mountain goats would feel at home here.

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Sorry for being out of contact for the last few days. We’ve just been having too much fun in Lugano. But before we get to Lugano, here are a couple last photos of Lucerne.

Jamie caught this shot of the Swiss flag with the cityscape in the background. We were standing on the dock waiting for our cruise on Lake Lucerne.

We had such a great meal at Nix Restaurant, which overlooks the river, that we went back again on our return to Lucerne. Luckily, we got the same waitress – Katja. She showed us the offical three kiss greeting common here in Switzerland. Thanks for the great meals, Nix. And thanks for the great service, Katja.