The Lugano Experience

I recently had the good fortune of taking a surf trip to Biarritz, France… How freakin’ cool is that?  It didn’t really matter that the surf was only sort of mediocre while I was there, or that I slept in bunk bed made for an 8 year old or even that it rained for a portion of my trip… No, what really mattered was that I was going to be in France.  Surfing.  I perhaps may finally break the cool barrier and take my rightful place next to Elvis and squeezable catsup bottles.

But I get ahead of myself…

Switzerland (especially Ticino where there is significant Italian influence) has this wonderful habit of calling for a holiday anytime Jesus or Mary did something remotely cool.  So, May 28th was Ascension Day.  And, I guess that flying up to the heavens to hang out with God after having come back from the dead is way up there on the list of “remotely cool.”  So, in commemoration of Jesus’ ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound (really, really tall buildings), the country hung out the “do not disturb sign.”  And, since that day was a Thursday, why go in on Friday? (that is my own logic – not Swiss logic)  So, I made it a long weekend.

How I came up with surfing is as simple as three little words: The Endless Summer 2.  (ok, four words).  I was feeling rather homesick for frosty L.A. waves, and opened up my completely legitimate .avi copy of Endless Summer 2 to a completely random location.  And here the boys were surfing some very nice waves with Pierre (or some other French sounding name)… in France… WAIT!!  France borders an ocean?  And it has waves?  Hmm.

This sparked a flurry of Yahoo activity (no, I do not use Google), and I quickly found that Biarritz was the hub of surfdom in Europe, and that there were even surf camps!  Now, I have for some time wanted to go to surf camp to concentrate on my very BAD surfing and hopefully go from the status of hopeless newb to potential beginner.  This looked like the perfect opportunity.

Through my searching I found a little place called “Lagoondy.”  The price was right, it was pretty much all-inclusive, and they specifically posted on their website that “vegetarians were welcome” which, in France, is not always the case… unless you count “being welcome” as being course number 3 in a 12 course dinner.  I began having visions of myself sitting next to the fire leaning against my longboard while roasting a veggie dog and saying “Le dude” to my French compatriots as we rehashed the days le waves magnifique.  This was going to be amazing.

By this time, I am pretty much busting at the seams.  My wife was planning to go off to a Yoga retreat in the mountains of Massachusetts, and I was feeling a bit sorry for myself for having to spend three weeks in the apartment alone.  So, the thought of breaking up her absence with a surf camp was absolutely brilliant.

My excitement hit a bit of a snag when I came to the airline.  Lugano is somewhat in the boonies, and my initial search had me looking at airfare that cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a kidney. 

Well, like any dog worth his salt and hanging onto a tasty bone I was not letting go that easy.  I spent the next four hours searching every discount airline, train, bus, rental car agency and pony express that might get me within 50 kilometers of Biarritz.  Eventually I hit pay dirt… I could fly round trip to Santander, Spain (for you Americans reading, Spain is the country just below France) for the low price of 70 Euro (about 100 dollars)!! 

Of course, Santander was about three hours by bus to Biarritz. 

No problem!  Book ‘em Danno!

Well, three hours to Irun, Spain.  From there I would take a train to Biarritz. 

Really, still no problem - a bus, a train, no worries.

Well, I actually needed to walk from Irun, Spain to Hendaye France to catch the train.  Oh, and my plane actually flew out of a remote airport outside of Milan that made me leave six hours before my flight.

Uhh.  No problem?

Well, not entirely “no problem.”  The airline tends to fly at odd hours.  So, I would have to spend the night in Santander in order to catch the bus the next morning.  Oh, and I would have to spend the night in Milan on the way back, too.

Hmmm. This might be a problem.

As a recap the round trip was going to be something like this:  Train. Bus. Plane. Bus. Hotel. (Breathe) Bus. Walk. Train. (Surf) Train. Taxi. Bus. Bus. Plane. Walk. Hotel. (Collapse) Bus. Train.

And to add to the excitement, I was spanning four countries and three languages (none of which I speak) and had to find departure depots and hotels, none of which I had ever visited, on a reasonably tight timeline. 

Ok, so there were just a few potential problems, but hey, this is surf camp in France.  I was about to earn some serious cool medals and gloating rights, so hey what’s 48 hours of travel jugglery over a 5 day period?

I mean, seriously, what possibly could go wrong?