Hello Again! We woke up in beautiful Domodossola and headed down for a decadent breakfast. The bartender in the dining room was delightful to talk with. He seemed to know everyone in town and loved practicing his English. We must’ve talked to this guy for over an hour about everything from Italian history to Domodossola culture. In this conversation, he told us about the Market on Saturday mornings. Having no idea, we were just going to wander and get back to the train station. Instead, we walked through the marketplace for a few hours. There was everything from clothes to purses to pocket knives. It was a really cool market and worth a visit, for sure. It happens every Saturday. When you plan your trip to Domodossola, be there on a Saturday!

Shops in Domodossola near the Market on Saturdays, Italy

We went into some of the local shops, too, not just the booths. One of the stores we went into was a linguistic adventure. Like many of the conversations I end up involved in in Europe, it was multilingual. Between the four of us, there was English, Italian, and French being thrown around to try to hold a whole a complete thought. I always enjoy these chats and they remind me that I need to dedicate more time to another language. I have pieces of a few, but I really need to get fluent in something.

We boarded the train to Geneva and found ourselves sitting near a delightful young lady. These travel buddy chats are everywhere. I always recommend that: talk to everyone. Well, almost everyone. Be smart about it. Don’t put yourself in a compromising position by talking to too many people or sharing too much information. Geneva was an interesting adventure after we arrived.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip. He enjoyed the trains so much, I was surprised. Train to Geneva from Domodossola, Italy 2018

So, we headed back to the same hotel that we stayed in the first night. They were booked up and we pressed on around the corner. Not too far away was a hotel that we decided to try out. Like a lot of hotels here, we had to take an elevator up to the next floor to talk to the proprietor. As soon as we got off the elevator, we got nervous. Behind glass, sat an older gentlemen, surrounded by stuffed animals. That was a red flag, but we went through the motions anyway. The price was good, so we gave him our passports to check us in. He said that he needed to keep them behind the glass for a few minutes to get the information in. This made me very uncomfortable. I don’t like being without control of my passport for longer than about thirty seconds.

He walked us up to our room, handed us the key, and left; with our passports still down in his office. There was a strange vibe in the room and a door that was locked from the other side that led to a closet, it seemed. We tried to get into this little room. We thought the maybe it was just for cleaning supplies, maybe it was for creepy-guy-cameras. Neither of us had a good vibe about this place and we hadn’t paid yet, so we were out. We got our stuff and walked back downstairs to retrieve our passports. He was very mad that we didn’t want to stay there. He yelled at us to get out. We said we would as soon as we got our passports back. He begrudgingly handed them back to us and we left. This is not meant to freak you out. Just to teach a small lesson: trust your gut. If a place feels strange or uncomfortable, leave. It is that simple.

We continued down the road, feeling very off-put by what had just happened and found a cafe to have some coffee and find another hotel. I used another app of mine, HotelTonight to find us a place. There was a hotel not too far from where we were, so I booked it and we made our way there. We walked up to the counter to check in and the lady, with a very apologetic look on her face, said that the app made a mistake and that we would have to go to one of her sister properties. We were pretty annoyed by this point, but we recognized that it was not this woman’s fault that the internet screwed up somewhere. So, she called her friend at the sister property and had us set up for the night. She told us where to walk. Back on the road, we found the other property. It was only two blocks from the train station, that was at least nice as we would be back on that train tomorrow to get back to the airport.

Walking into what was probably our seventh hotel of the day, we were greeted with a lobby that made us feel under-dressed. This was a 4-star property with a lavish lobby. We started to get excited. We walk up to the counter and they get us checked in. We head to our room and just wow.

Stunning room in our upgraded hotel only 2 blocks form the train station in Geneva, Switzerland 2018

We dropped our stuff and rested for a little bit. For dinner tonight, one of my favorite meals to have in Europe. McDonald’s. I’m not kidding when I say that McDonald’s is different everywhere you go. The food tastes different, the sauces are different, the menu is different. It is an experience. This time, we had Swiss McDonald’s and it was quite good. We walked around a little bit, but opted for a quiet evening. Geneva had held enough surprises for us for one day.