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Saturday the heaven's opened. It was just bucketing rain down, but that's what rain tires are for. The track's dirt roads were mud pits and everything was just soaked. Thankfully we were prepared with our raincoats and rainpants! Some locals apparently missed on buying the Ferrari rain coats as they were seen shivering in their bright red soaked to the bone t-shirts just hoping to get to cheer on the home team. The Saturday morning practice was deemed too wet to send the cars out, and all the support races were canceled. Our grandstand had a giant tent that was serving food and was a refuge for the showers. Cappuccino for Simi and we split a freshly made Philly cheese steak for lunch and continued to wait out the rain. A small break in the deluge had the cars on track for the first of three sessions only for the one driver to hydroplane and spin bouncing off the concrete walls like a pin ball. He walked away, but the head official then set out a red flag ending racing acti

Friday morning - Race Weekend! What better way to get our engines running with a slice of chocolate cake. Breakfast Cake! They served it and we ate it! The hotel's breakfast buffet standard bacon, eggs, cereals, etc. lined the table, but at the end they had chocolate cake, apple pie, and apricot tarts as if the chef forgot them from the night before. It must be some customary service because each brekkie we had in Milan always had the assortment of cakes. Technically a muffin is like cake, so why not just change the shape and remove the muffin wrapper? Back to the racing, to let you know Milan is the closest major city to Parco Di Monza. Inside the largest walled park in Europe lies droves of Ferrari fans for their "home race" in Italy. The original Monza oval rivals our Spa visit the week prior as one of the oldest and most historic race locations. The track has changed in the decades but it still is the Cathedral of Speed for the Italians. There are still remains of

Thursday was a lazy day as the rains came down in the morning. We hit up the breakfast buffet at the hotel, and then with no real plan opted to just go back to sleep on a full stomach. Post breakfast naps are amazing. The laundry was picked up and the luggage was re-repacked. Not wanting to waste the day, we trekked to the bus station in full rain gear, and took a bus down to the National Swiss Automotive Museum. The general lobby had a lot on display, but peaking around the entry gates there wasn't a whole lot in the history of Swiss automobiles. The rain still fell so it was movie time! Next to the museum were a few other attractions and they were playing a 3D Space movie. This American made film dubbed over into German for the locals, but dubbed back to English for us yanks chronicled the NASA Space Program at a Swiss Museum. The rain finally drained the clouds, and the roads were drying and time to just explore some more before everything closed again and we had to get to t

Wednesday was started off with a breakfast buffet and then a quick with a walk down to the boat docks where Simi had booked us on a Golden Route Tour. We boarded the boat and went on take a nice leisurely cruise across Lake Lucerne while gazing off in the distance the soaring Mount Pilatus - were we'd be standing at the top of in a few short hours. The boat stopped at a few docks to unload some passengers. Our boat dock stop was at the base of the world's steepest cogwheel railway to take us to the top. A rail car with big windows and bigger teeth grab the specialized train track as the little engine chugs up the side of Pilatus. The teeth prevent the train from jumping the tracks or giving in to gravity as the slope maxes out at 48%. That's steepness near impossible to walk on, but if you are adventurous and don't mind the exercise, you can walk the hiking switchback filled trail to the top in a mere 4 hours. The cog is about a 40 minute clickity-clackity ride to the

Breakfast fueled us up for the one scheduled day to soak in Zurich. The local tram escorted us downtown to get a lay of the land. After doing some exploring we opted to just go south of the city to Lake Zurich and found a park bench where we lost track of time staring off at the nearly clear blue water, and the puffy white clouds that ebbed and flowed around the mountaintops. We hunted down some souvenirs (Swiss chocolate!) and then were at the train station for a trip south west to Lucerne, Switzerland. We had gotten the recommendation for Lucerne from our wise neighbor who had traveled to the area on a school trip many moons ago.   https://photos.app.goo.gl/ A0cw9KjQui02OQTl1 Arrival in Lucerne meant a spark of excitement, quickly unloading and immediately going exploring. At the base of Lake Lucerne the city was thriving with life. The two parts of their main city center are split by the Reuss River that drains the lake. The two banks of the flowing waters are connected by t

Monday bought with it a 5am alarm. Our shuttle to the Brussels airport was going at the crack of dawn, but it also meant zero traffic. We were scheduled to fly south to Zurich, Switzerland. At the airport, we stored our bags and took advantage of the internal combustion engine and hopped onto a double-decker tour bus of Brussels for a majority of the afternoon. This wise move limited our walking. I tried some hot pepper chicken pad Thai for lunch, and then almost lost that lunch when we found out that they offer up carbonated ice tea. The bottle wasn't labeled and I don't think I'd ever tasted anything that foul. I tightened the cap and shook the bottle and released the pressure repeatedly for a good 15 minutes to maybe see if it was salvageable, and no friends, it was not. Brussels had the amazing building called the Atomium. This is a 1958 World's Fair creation of an iron crystal that's been magnified 165 billion times. It's a remarkable structure only out do

Race day meant Sunday morning was super bright and early as we were going with 60,000 potential new friends to the circuit. Simi's favorite driver blew the car's engine, and the race itself was great. There were two teammates battling for position and they slammed into each other right in front of us with their car's breaking apart and the debris lined the track. This has been a strangely consistent issue between these guys. Their wreck brought out a safety car that brunched up the field for a last lap battle that just didn't pan out to be one for the ages. It was still an epic race and when the driver's were spraying the champagne Simi and I were climbing the exit hill and all under the darkening clouds that threatened more rain. Once out of the mass exodus jam, Sunday evening was more discovery of Maastricht and just getting lost intentionally to see what's around the next block. That night we shamelessly were in bed and fell asleep at 8pm. It was still light