A wonderful New Year celebration

The view from our Hotel

It’s been a long time since I have come home from a night out and have had to hang my clothes outside because they smell so badly of alcohol and smoke (both legal and illegal I’m sure), well that was the case tonight.  We are celebrating New Year’s Eve in Lugano Switzerland.  Lugano  is a city of about 56,000 people which is very close to the Italian border - so close in fact that we all feel like we are back in Italy and have ever so quickly reverted to grazie rather then danke.

Ice Skating

Back to our New Year celebration.  Our Hotel is very close to the town square where we knew celebrations for the new year were taking place.  We left home around 7 and headed for the square where we had a pre-dinner drinks at a stand up outside bar (it is  a balmy  0 degrees so why would anyone sit inside) while watching Kaela and Josh ice skate.  Preparations had begun for some sort of concert so we were also entertained with bits of songs as they did their sound checks.

Dinner of course was Italian and then it was back to the square which had filled up enormously with the young people of Lugano, the older people of Lugano and even a few families with young children.  Somehow we ended up in the mosh pit part of the square with all the young people which was a tad embarrassing according to Bella.

The singer in pink tigh

The music started at 11pm and as the photos will attest it begun with a guy in pink tights, moved on to a group of 3 guys and then back to the guy in tights.  Who knows what they were saying or singing for that matter - occasionally they would sing a snippet of a song in English and they even sang Gangmen Style in Italian!!

Lugano Locals

12pm came around with the countdown which even with my rudimentary Italian I understood (Yes Frances I can count to 10). But at midnight everyone opened champagne which of course they had shaken.  Mind you if I was going to get covered in champagne I was glad it was with Veuve Clicquot - but I would prefer to drink it rather then wear it!

The other band

It is now 1.45am the music is still blaring outside our very lovely hotel but that’s OK it is the beginning of the New Year.  To family and friends happy 2013.