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Hotel Dante: then and now

With Swami Kriyananda at Hotel Dante in Lugano (2012)

One of the things we planned to do in Lugano today was visit the spots where we had spent time with Swamiji — especially Hotel Dante, where the above photo was taken.

Swami loved coming to Lugano on vacation and always stayed at Hotel Dante. We have a number of precious memories with him there; we even got to have breakfast with him on my birthday in 2005.

We had thought it would be nice to take a picture by the chair where Swamiji had sat, as a way of remembering our time with him. You can imagine our dismay when we arrived and discovered the room had been remodeled and is completely different!

It’s still Hotel Dante, but the lobby where Swami would sit and receive visitors is now a very modern looking restaurant. It wasn’t just disappointing, it actually felt like a loss.

But then I remembered that I can feel Swamiji close to me by tuning into him inwardly. An important and reassuring reminder.

The traditional lobby is now “FLAMEL Bistrot & Mixology”

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Follow-up to yesterday’s walk

Funicular tracks near our apartment in Aldesago

Here are three little videos to give you a sense of the delightful experiences we had yesterday.

First of all, as we were walking up the driveway on the way to our walk in the forest, I just had to stop and listen to the joyful birdsong.

Then, while we were still standing there, we noticed that noise was coming from the funicular track. We waited a few minutes in order to video the funicular passing by — one going up to the top of Monte Brè while the other headed back down to Lugano.

Finally, while walking through the forest we heard a cuckoo call. I had never heard a live cuckoo until I lived in Italy.

I always get a special kick out of hearing them because of playing Mahler’s 1st Symphony back when I was a student at the SF Conservatory of Music. Mahler famously orchestrated the cuckoo’s call, although his cuckoo sings the interval of a perfect fourth, while the actual bird sings a (not-so-perfect) third.

Writing this blog post made me curious why I’d never heard the cuckoo before living in Europe. I learned that there actually are cuckoos in the United States, but the numbers in California have declined drastically in the last 100 years due to destruction of their preferred habitat and to pesticide use. 😕

At any rate, it was lovely to hear not just one, but two cuckoos going at it. And then the church bells started to chime! It was the perfect “aural” nature experience.

(The cuckoos were fairly far away, so you’ll have to listen carefully — maybe with headphones — to hear them.)

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A quiet kind of day

We’re way up with the clouds

Today we pretty much put on the brakes and stopped.

We both slept in and then took things slow and easy.

We didn’t go anywhere or see anybody. We didn’t even get in the car.

Our only excursion was a walk on the forest path that’s minutes from our apartment.

It was exactly the kind of day I needed.

Left at the top of the driveway to reach a path into the forest (notice the funicular tracks behind the trees; more on that in a future post)
A sweet chapel to St Joseph at the beginning of the path
Wildflowers
Heading back from our walk, with Ramesha up ahead and the rooftop of our apartment building below the path to the right
Almost “home”, with Monte San Salvatore straight ahead
The entrance to the apartment complex parking area
My attempt to capture the beautiful night sky with crescent moon and bright stars
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Drained and out of steam

Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola

All I’ve got in me is to share a few photos from a short walk we took before meeting Ramesha’s niece and her new boyfriend for coffee this afternoon.

In the first photo below we’re in Cassarate looking at the view of the mountains across the lake, but all the rest are of the Grand Hotel Villa Castagnola and its beautiful grounds.

When we left Ananda Village the tulips at Crystal Hermitage hadn’t yet put in an appearance. The ones we found today were lovely, but nothing like Springtime at Ananda will be by now!

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Making new Ananda friends

The village of Maglio di Colla (which translates as “Mallet of Glue”)

We spent this evening at a pizzeria called Ristorante Washington and located in the village of Maglio di Colla, about thirty minutes outside Lugano.

We traveled along a small, curvy road in a sparsely populated area. As we got out of the car I felt like we were really out in the countryside. Until we walked into the restaurant, that is!

It had a cozy, homey kind of feel, but was quite large. And within half an hour it was completely full, and felt like a popular restaurant in the middle of a big city.

We were there to meet new friends Gianna and Maria Grazie (who are friends of a friend of Graziella’s) who are acquainted with Ananda Assisi.

It was delightful getting to know them. And as they’re relatively new to Ananda they really enjoyed hearing our stories and about our experience with Ananda over the years.

We also learned from them that there’s going to be an Ananda event here in Lugano in early May, which we’re definitely looking forward to attending.

Maybe you’re as curious as we were about how a restaurant in Switzerland came to be called “Washington”. Turns out the great-grandfather of the current owner emigrated to the United States back in the 1920’s. He eventually returned to Ticino and had a family, naming his son Washington and his daughter Philadelphia.

Washington opened the restaurant named for himself and it’s still in the family. A fun story, but I really have to wonder what became of the daughter named Philadelphia!

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Swamiji: gone 10 years today

We were living in Los Angeles ten years ago when the email arrived saying Swamiji had left his body.

My immediate response was utter denial: “NO!”

Now I can hardly believe it’s the ten year anniversary of Swamiji’s Moksha day. Although I miss being in his presence — hearing his laugh, seeing his smile — at the same time it feels like he hasn’t really gone away at all.

Maybe he’s not right in front of me, but it’s as though he’s simply visiting a different Ananda community at the moment (a very long moment!).

And maybe we’re no longer receiving emails and messages from him, but he’s still managing to instruct us in what we should do.

Thank you, Swamiji. My loving gratitude is yours forever.

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Living way up high on Monte Brè

The apartment house where we’re staying is in the small village of Aldesago, which is located more than halfway up Monte Brè (I believe it’s one of the yellowish buildings circled in the above photo).

I wanted to provide a better idea of how high up we are, so I took a video of the view we see each time we drive to town.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t such a great video — seeing as how I was in a moving car, on a bumpy road, with the view intermittently blocked by trees and houses — so I extracted a couple of “snapshots” from it to give you the idea.

The mountain you see across the lake is Monte San Salvatore, a famous Lugano landmark.

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A walk by the lake

Manu and Ramesha

Today felt like our first real visit to Lugano itself.

We parked at our usual autosilo (parking garage); made a stop at the bank; and walked to a pizzeria near the lake. There we had our first real pizzas (le prime pizze!) of this trip and they were delicious.

Le prime pizze

Then we walked down Via Nassa and along the lake to Parco Ciani, where we met up with Ramesha’s sister, Manu. We got gelato, then went for a walk along the lake. An altogether lovely afternoon in centro Lugano.

Lake Lugano
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Mercury is about to go retrograde

This explains so much of what’s going on for me right now.

Complications galore in getting something forwarded on from the States. Not being able to send or receive normal texts (only WhatsApp and Messenger). Feeling kind of slow and heavy and like I don’t really want to go out much.

Mercury going retrograde brings the “re” words to the fore. Basically it’s a good time to re-treat, re-flect, re-new, re-lax, rest…to simply slow down.

Of course, that’s the exact opposite of the plan when we come to Lugano!

So, my goal (as a Mercury-ruled Gemini person) has to be to find a way to balance the need for friends and family social time with allowing time for myself — to be still and to simply BE.

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Torta di mele = YUM!

One thing I loved about living in Europe were the desserts, because they’re so much less sweet than those in America.

As usual, Silvio made lunch for us, but today Fulvio provided dessert: una torta di mele. The literal translation is “apple cake,” but it isn’t cake the way we think of it at all.

Bottom line? It was literally so good that Ramesha and I — who never bake! — asked Fulvio for the recipe so we can make it once we’re back home in California.