There’s a pretty funny story about how we ended up starting our honeymoon in Switzerland. It was one of those accidents that turned out to be way better than what we were actually trying for.
I spent months planning our honeymoon, and that’s not an exaggeration at all. Countless hours comparing, over-thinking, and booking two weeks worth of hotels, restaurants, rental cars, trains, planes, and activities. Nothing could have gone wrong, right?
Well, a few days after finalizing all of our plans, my husband got an email from a hotel in Switzerland saying that we’d need to call them to finalize our reservation.
Funny, ’cause I booked everything and knew for sure Switzerland was not part of the plan.
Turns out when you get super amped about finding a surprisingly affordable hotel with the most epic view of Lake Como, you fail to see that the hotel is not even in Lake Como, let alone, Italy.
To this day, I have no idea how it happened. Lake Lugano, where we ended up booking, is relatively close to Lake Como, so I imagine the search engines got them a bit jumbled up, or I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the distances. Who knows. It was probably the latter.
We decided to roll with it, and we are soooo glad we did! After two straight weeks of wedding insanity in both Pennsylvania and Portugal, we wanted to start off our honeymoon somewhere relaxing, and Lugano was just that.
Day 1
We flew from Lisbon to Zurich and then took a train to Lugano. I had always heard that train rides in Switzerland are some of the best in the world, and now I firmly believe it. I was like a kid in a candy shop the entire ride, unable to take my eyes off the beautiful scenery.
The rolling green hills, steep mountains, crystal clear lakes, and cottages in the hills were more picturesque than I could have ever imagined. I could go on and on, but the point is that you need to add train ride through Switzerland to your bucket list – immediately!
After being on the train for a little over three hours, we arrived in beautiful Lugano late Monday afternoon. Our hotel was 12km (about 8 miles) from the train station, but it took almost an hour to get there. The hills and hairpin turns were unlike anything I had seen before.
The stunning hotel we stayed at, Kurhaus Cademario Hotel & Spa, was situated on the hillside about 600 meters above Lake Lugano. The views were out of this world and seriously surpassed my expectations!
We got a room with a lake view and we probably spent more time on the massive balcony than we did our actual room. It was so serene and peaceful, and just what we needed after the busy weeks we just experienced.
Once we got settled in, we went to the hotel’s restaurant, “La Cucina” and had ourselves one of the fanciest meals ever. While super gourmet food usually looks divine, I never actually have interest in eating it. Probably because I’m a relatively picky eater and I want to know every ingredient, and gourmet usually means complicated.
Both of our meals were exceptional and the service was even better. Our waitress spoke very little English and we knew very little Italian, so we all shared a laugh at our broken sentences and mispronunciations.
Shortly after our meal was delivered the sky put on a beautiful show. The colors were insane! The restaurant was just a couple of stories directly below our room, so it shared the same stunning view of Lake Lugano. It was the perfect backdrop for the most perfect restaurant. We were all smiles all night and to this day, it’s still one of our favorites.
Day 2
We are NOT morning people, so we slept through breakfast. It didn’t bother us one bit because we had a spa day scheduled for the day and we had been looking forward to it for months!
The hotel has a very highly rated spa, so once we decided we were going to stick with our reservation, I booked a couples massage. I kid you not, we talked about it everyday until we got there. We treat massages like a real treat and only get them every couple of years or so, and only on vacation. We were stoked and the staff at the DOT.Spa did not disappoint. It was so relaxing and the only complaint I have is that it didn’t last longer.
As guests of the hotel, we also had access to all three pools on the grounds. There was a large pool behind the hotel, an indoor mineral pool, and a heated indoor/outdoor pool near the spa. Of course we tried them all out, but our favorite was the indoor/outdoor pool. I think we timed this part of the trip well. Our full day here fell on a Tuesday and it seemed like a lot of the guests that were there on Monday were gone. A good portion of the time we spent in the indoor/outdoor pool was alone, and we couldn’t have been happier! Of course this meant I had to take advantage of the privacy and set up the self-timer to snap some pictures of us.
It was extremely difficult to find time in our busy spa/pool day for lunch, but we managed to make our way back to La Cucina for some exquisite cuisine. We even saved room for dessert, which was delightful. The amount of creativity they put into their food is mind-boggling and makes me want to step up my food styling game!
After lunch we spent more time at the pools, and eventually made our way back to our room where we watched BBC and ordered room service for dinner. We’re truly exciting people! In all honesty, we were still exhausted from the wedding, parties, and all our travels. Plus the next morning we were headed to Venice, so we knew we needed to settle in early to get ready for another travel day.
We were both devastated to leave the next day, and if we had known how much we would love Lugano, we would have booked a few more days there. It was such an incredible surprise and we will without a doubt be going back someday!