Summer’s full heat has descended on northern Italy like a wet, hot towel. I can hear the clanking of plates and glasses can through wide-open windows along with the hum of condizionatori (air conditioners) for those fortunate enough to have them. Many shops have posted signs that read, “Chiuso per ferie” (Closed for vacation)—the proprietors having packed up and long since headed to the seaside.

As I type this at 11 in the morning, the temperature outside pushes the mercury north of 32˚C with more than 50% humidity. The red roof tiles soak up the heat all day. And when you live on the top floor, it can get uncomfortably toasty. “Scatta l’allarme rosso a Bologna. In arrivo tre giorni di caldo torrido” (Red alert in Bologna. Three days of torrid heat on the way), blare the alarmist headlines of Il Resto del Carlino.

As if the heat weren’t enough, a water pipe broke at my in-laws’ house the other day. Luckily, their neighbor, Mauro, had been keeping an eye on the water meters while they are away at the seaside. He had noticed something fishy and alerted Franco (Stefania’s father).

The next morning, Franco came home (about a 90-minute drive) to check out the problem. Sure enough, there was a leak somewhere in a pipe that ran from the street, under Mauro’s driveway and to Franco’s house. Unfortunately, it was determined that the leak was on private property and thus not the city’s concern. Rats. So, out came the shovels to try and isolate the exact spot the water was emanating from.

I happened to stop by on my way back from the dentist’s office in Bologna. I was shocked at what I saw: It looked as if both Mauro’s and Franco’s driveways had taken direct hits from mortar shells. Holes bordered by piles of bricks, dirt and gravel revealed the entrails of the subterranean plumbing system. Plastic PVC pipes crisscrossed one another with pools of water gurgling beneath.

Choruses of curses in Italian and Bolognese greeted my arrival on Mauro’s side of the fence. The men still hadn’t located the source of the leak and were none too happy. However, they were now sure it was Franco’s pipe and not Mauro's. I grabbed a shovel and helped them dig another exploratory hole as Mauro brought around a large umbrella from his back patio to shield us from the sweltering heat. Luciano, another neighbor from across the street, brought over a pneumatic drill to chip through the concrete protecting the pipes. This was going to be fun.

After two hours, I had to leave the men to their own devices and return home as they continued their attempts to find the source of the leak. Eventually, they ended up isolating Franco's pipe and exposed its beginning and end points so that a plumber could come by later and replace the whole segement. The pipe itself is not expensive; it is just a long flexible plastic tube that runs inside a larger PVC pipe. The problem was in finding where the pipe ran—it seemed like nobody ever thought about making schematic drawings in the likely eventuality that a pipe would one day spring a leak. The cieliegina (cherry) on the top of this torta (cake) is that Franco will probably have to fight the water company over a bill that is sure to be quite steep, not to mention the plumber’s charge. But on the upside, the labor was free.

Zurich interlude

To escape this chaos, I decided to accompany Stefania on a two-day business trip to Zurich, Switzerland. It couldn’t possibly be any hotter up north than in Italy, I reasoned. 

We loaded up the Opel Astra station wagon at O-dark-thirty for the six-hour journey to the land of chocolate. For the trip up, we would be sticking to the A1 Autostrada through Milan, Lake Como and across the Swiss border to Lugano.

To be sure, we hit Milan at rush hour. Furthermore, the benzinai (service station operators) were on strike everywhere but the Autostrada—which we realized after already having completed a few laps around Como searching for cheaper diesel fuel.

The turmoil that is the Italian driving experience—three lanes of trucks illegally passing each other in the right and center lanes while BMWs race past you at 200km/h on the left, flashing their lights—serves as an interesting counterpoint to the relative calm and lack of traffic which will prevail on the Swiss side. (The speed limit on the Autostrada in Italy is 130km/h while in Switzerland it is a pedestrian 100.)

Switzerland is not a part of the European Union so we had to pass through customs. On the Italian side of the border enforcement was noticeably lax: A customs officer—who hadn’t shaved for three days—smoked a cigarette and waved cars on through with nary a glance while trucks were split off from the herd of travelers for a cursory inspection.

Radio stations from the French-speaking cantons near Lausanne could be tuned in along with Italian and German programming. Next, we made a pit stop at an Autogrill near Madrano in one of the last Italian-speaking towns before entering the canton of Uri on the north side of the 17km-long Gotthard Tunnel. From there, we proceded on the E35/E41 highway that snaked in between the jagged peaks along Lake Lucerne and Lake Zuger that were shrouded in mist on this morning. The scene reminded me of Colorado minus the bark beetle infestation.

We approached Zurich from the south side of the lake that bears the same name. The sun made an appearance from behind a rain cloud. Stefania drove while I pored over directions that I had printed out from Googlemaps: "Go past Birmensdorferstrasse then turn left on Seebahnstrasse. Go straight until Hohlstrasse. From there, turn right and proceed directly to our hotel on Stauffacherstrasse." Not as fancy as a GPS navigator, but it works quite well.

If you hadn’t noticed already, Zurich—the financial capital of Switzerland—is in the German speaking area of the country. Actually, the Swiss speak Schweizerdeutsch, a Swiss German variant of the language. Additionally, in the canton of Zurich, most people use the local dialect, Züritüütsch or Zurich German. I speak neither. Fortunately, most people understand English or French so we encountered no problems.

We were staying at the Hotel Greulich— a blue, modernist building with an Asian-minimalist interior and a Catalan chef. It is located in the Kreiss 4 neighborhood of the city that seems to be undergoing gentrification, by the looks of all the construction going on.

Zurich is a city of almost 400,000 residents with origins dating back to Roman times. It is undoubtedly the cleanest urban center of its size that I have ever seen. As I walked its leafy, wide avenues toward the historic Old Town, I didn’t recall seeing one piece of trash or graffiti. Street sweepers, that resembled miniature Zamboni machines, patrolled the sidewalks; men with fluorescent vests tested the water in the fountains; people of all ages rode to work on bicycles through the early morning drizzle.

In general, the people of Zurich seem much more reserved than in Italy: They form neat lines waiting for the trams; they gesture less when speaking; pedestrians wait for lights to change at the crosswalk even when there are no cars in sight; and dress is more business conservative, especially near the financial center.

The Old Town along the River Limmat is beautiful. Timbered buildings adorned with colorful Swiss flags line narrow, twisting cobblestoned streets. Every church seems to have a bell tower with a clock. Modern chain stores, such as Starbucks, are tucked discretely among high-end boutiques that sell Chanel, Rolex and Cartier.

While Stefania worked, I played. Wandering through the entire center of town taking pictures, I tried to resist the temptation to take money from an ATM and feast at one of the abundant cafés lining the city streets. (I was only in town for one day and didn’t want to take out over 100 Swiss francs—the minimum withdrawal—just for a beer and a sandwich.)

Well, my resistance held from 8 a.m. until about 4 p.m. when I cracked and went back to the hotel for a couple of beers and a snack before Stefania got back from meeting with clients at around six. Besides, it would be a long drive back to the heat of Italy that same night.

On the way home, we stopped for dinner at an Autogrill near Lugano that had a full buffet. I loaded up my tray like John Belushi in the food fight scene from Animal House, then spent the rest of the money I had withdrawn on chocolate. But it was a small price to pay for a wonderful little side trip to Switzerland.