Exchanging Places--Konstanz, part 3

Three Vignettes, Switzerland

You are sitting on the terrace of a restaurant in an absurdly picturesque Swiss town called Paradies. The floor is stone; the posts supporting the tile roof are entwined with wisteria. To your right, beyond a flower garden, the Rhine slides smoothly by, rippled occasionally by a gondola poled along by a singing gondolier. Your entrée arrives—fresh-caught lake fish in a delicate herb sauce. You savor each bite of fish, using the homemade breads to sop up more of the sauce. Sated, you sigh and are leaning back contently in your chair when the owner-server emerges from the kitchen—and places in front of you the filet from the other side of your fish.

Having driven southward through Switzerland, having taken a cable car to the summit of Santis, having lunched on raclette in the Appenzeller cheese factory restaurant, you arrive at Lake Lugano near the Italian border. On the first morning you buy fresh bread and fruit, olives, prosciutto, cheese, mineral water, and wine. You find the Via Vercesca and begin the sinuous ascent as the road follows the course of an Alpine stream. After a few miles, you pull off the road and locate a well-worn path down to the ledges and boulders that line the stream. Rapids roar above and below you, but you spread out your blanket on a smooth shale ledge beside a deep, crystalline pool. It is here that you will spend your day.

There is no sign in front, but you have been given precise directions, so you knock on the door. A smiling Italian-Swiss hostess leads you through the farmhouse to the enclosed terrace in back. The ground is covered with pea-stone. The stucco walls are hung with planters containing flowers of every variety. The menu offers items that seem familiar but will prove to be extraordinary—tortellini, ravioli, pheasant; and other items more distinctly European—rabbit, for instance. When your tortellini in farm herb sauce arrives and you take the first mouthful, you are grateful to be sitting down, lest your knees buckle from sheer gustatory ecstasy.