Happy Accident

Since planning of this trip happened so late in the game, most of the towns where I actually wanted us to stay were out of hotel options. So we ended up in surrounding towns, and in every case, we were delighted upon visiting the "first choice" town to find it much lacking compared to where we were actually staying. The first of these "accidents" landed us in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, perhaps the prettiest, little town we visited. Isle-sur-la-Sorgue was our home base for two nights in the Vaucluse region of Provence. The town is adorable, built atop canals for it's 13th century, flour mill industry that later added textile and paper mills. Once hosting over 70 waterwheels, today, there are only a few left.

Isle-sur-la-Sorgue's main canal on Market Day - lots of picnicking

Isle-sur-la-Sorgue's claim to tourist fame is it's antique stores and weekly, antique market. From Monday-Saturday, numerous antique stores inhabit stores on the canal. Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is said to have the best antiques selection outside of the fabulous, antique markets in Paris. On Sunday, the market takes over the entire town, with antiques on one side of the main canal, and the rest of town holding the more typical, market wares. And by "rest of the town," I mean the entire town becomes a market. We were enthralled...and hot. Thankfully, with Isle as our home base, we could head back to our hotel for breaks. Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is also where we figured out the best way to lunch in France is a picnic of market foods picked up in the morning and a pretty, shady lunch spot to enjoy it by noon. We typically found some type of soft, but pasteurized, cheese (the cheese sellers were excellent about pointing us to pasteurized cheeses that I could eat), fruit (cherries were our favorite pick), a baguette, and some type of sausage. And of course, a couple of light pastries.

Charming, tiny Gordes

We also headed over to explore the hilltop village of Gordes. Filled with buildings of stacked stone, the little village sounded like a wonderful visit. And it was, for an hour or so. We walked into town, took in the two or three streets that make up the village, and headed "home" to our small, but still vibrant, town. Gordes was a quiet visit with a couple of cafes, while Isle-sur-la-Sorgue has a river to walk along, ducks to watch as they surf the river currents, numerous cafes and restaurants and shops, and enough people to feel vibrant without feeling overcrowded.

Love, love, love French stores - how beautiful is this display!

One of my favorite antique store finds

Me, enjoying the antique market in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue...and
carrying around our lunch baguette

French Grand Canyon

Leaving the Cote d'Azur to make our way to Provence, we took the scenic route through Le Grand Canyon du Verdon, considered to be Europe's prettiest canyon at 15 miles long and almost half a mile deep. At the bottom, a river the color of jade winds throughout. Before reaching the canyon we had a fun stop by turning in at a sign indicating a cheese seller. Driving down an increasingly rutted, dirt road about half a mile, we finally reached a run down farm with animals everywhere - dogs were everywhere, cows, goats, and rabbits behind fences, and a movie worthy farmer selling large amounts of cheese to a couple of men. Nathan managed to get across to the farmer that he'd like some goat cheese, and off we trundled into the cheese room, where it was clear to me that I would not be eating any of the cheese we bought (but Nathan said it tasted fabulous). Our farmer was so sure that we understood his language that he kept up a rapid fire speech the entire time of our visit, little of which we actually understood. I really wish I'd taken the camera out of the car and asked the farmer for a picture. I'm pretty sure it would have been one of our more treasured trip photos.

To unwind from the excitement of the cheese farm, we slowly drove along the rim of the canyon, stopping off at the scenic viewpoints to gaze at the river below. One stop was along the Pont d'Artuby, the highest bridge in Europe. I had no idea France had such wonders as a Grand Canyon and a highest bridge. My mental picture of France is made up of the famous structures in Paris, goat cheese, baguettes and croissants, and stripy shirts and berets. Sadly, I never saw anyone wearing a stripy shirt, but there were quite a few berets.

At the end of the canyon is a most beautiful lake, Lac du Ste Croix, with a glowing, green color. We'd read that there were kayaks and paddle boats to rent here, but had already discussed continuing on to our destination, the village of Moustiers Ste Marie for a wander, then on to Aix-en-Provence. That was until we reached the lake and saw that we could paddle a ways up into the canyon. The colors were too inviting, and we needed to absorb a bit of nature. Our one hour paddle up into the canyon was, for me, a trip highlight. The area is absolutely stunning, and I wished we were able to do a full, canyon rafting trip. Unfortunately, there is whitewater in the canyon, so the rafting trips were out for me right now.

We took another break in the village of Moustiers Ste Marie and found ourselves surprised yet again. The village is set among mountain peaks with waterfalls and a stream running through the middle of town, a chapel set high up into the cliffs (a 30 minute, steep walk uphill that we did not do), and flower covered shops selling the town's claim to fame, faience pottery, a delicate, pretty style. Intending to do just a quick walk thru town (much like our intention to just drive by Lac du Ste Croix), we slowed down and enjoyed the quiet atmosphere...and ate crepes.

And finally, we reached Aix-en-Provence, a bustling, yet charming, town filled with university students. We happened onto a small restaurant with a set menu, Ze Bistro, and this meal is now one of Nathan's all time favorites. With only ten or so tables, we were fortunate that they could fit us in on a Friday evening. If you're in Aix-en-Provence and looking for a great meal, Ze Bistro is our recommendation. By good fortune, Aix-en-Provence's amazing market was the following day, so we had the morning to explore it before checking out of our hotel and continuing on our trip through Provence. This was our first market of the trip and marked the start of seeking out towns having their daily markets. The French markets are so different from our Italian ones, which I do enjoy...but, quite frankly, the French markets are far classier.  With our markets in Italy, generally I wade through and past dozens of tacky stands to find that one gem. In France, it's hard to pass up a single stall. Aix-en-Provence combined a large food market, filled with sausages, cheeses, and spices, with an antique market (oh, how I love vintage, French linens!), and then the ubiquitous stalls selling straw, market bags, beautiful pottery, interesting jewelry, and provencal fabrics. Needless to say, we spent a little more time than planned in the market, and by the time we finished, both of us had feet too tired to do anymore exploring of the town. Time to hit the road again.

Missing Prince Albert While in the Can

We are back home for the next two months...sort of. Weekend car trips will still happen, but long trips via airplane are finished. I have two months to accomplish a LONG list of goals, one of which is to finish posting about our France/Switzerland Grand Adventure. When I left off, we were still in Italy, making our way over to Provence. First stop: the Cote d'Azur. We decided that we'd be getting a lot of beach time in this summer, so the Cote d'Azur was more of a stopping point and checkmark on the bucket list rather than a huge exploration. Our destination was Antibes, which seemed to be a bit of a poor cousin to it's chic neighbors.

But before reaching Antibes, we stopped at the cliff top village of Eze, mainly due to guidebooks hawking it's appeal. We did not take into account that we live in a country which specializes in hill towns and cliff top villages. Eze-le-Village was certainly cute enough, but completely overrun with people. We (quite fortunately) found parking with only a 10 minute wait, and made our way up the steep path. One large appeal to Eze is the Fragonard shop. Since we were not going to Grasse, where the Fragonard Perfumerie is actually located, a chance to visit the shop and stock up on their beautiful scents was quite a treat. In Grasse, the majority of the world's perfumes are created, and Fragonard is one of the old school perfumeries. A highlight to Grasse is the chance to create your own perfume scent, and in hindsight, we probably should have carved out time to do this. Since we didn't, we instead spent a long time in the Fragonard shop smelling their personal scent lines and each picking up a bottle. There, Nathan found out that Prince Albert of Monaco was dining at the fancy hotel in town, meaning the town had lots of extra security around. For those who do not follow Monaco's royal family, the House of Grimaldi, Prince Albert is the country's ruler and is the son of Grace Kelly.

This old outhouse is not the "can" I used.

We headed uphill into the town proper, explored the picturesque, stone streets, ignored the shops filled with overpriced, tourist bait, and headed back downhill to enjoy our first meal in France - yummy salads. This may sound like an odd choice, but Neapolitan restaurants don't really do roughage. Your salad will be either lettuce or rucola, a couple of tomatoes, and a bottle of olive oil set on the table. So our joy at huge, veggie and cheese filled, tasty salads did not dim for our entire French sojourn. Following lunch, I headed off for my bathroom break before getting back on the road to Antibes, and when I met back up with Nathan on the small street heading out of town, he greeted me with this statement, "You missed seeing Prince Albert because you were in the can." [Any youngish readers will just have to google this to find the irony.]. Prince Albert and his entourage/security had driven past, and I missed it! My one chance to see a royal, evaporated. I got over it quickly.

In Antibes, we checked into our hotel, and headed into town for a little walking tour (our own, not guided). The town has a very nice pedestrian area, but really, not a whole lot appealed to us. I think our favorite part of the afternoon was the surprise of finding a beautiful, public beach (meaning no pay entry - most common in these parts) to just sit and enjoy the ancient city walls lining the clean, sandy beach and wading in the clear waters. Antibes does have a highly regarded Picasso Museum, which we skipped. You may remember from my first post about this trip that one of our big pleasures was releasing ourselves from feeling "obligated" to see every museum, church, and tourist site and instead, just enjoying the communities we were joining for such a short time. Antibes, for us, was a nice enough stop, but nothing awe inspiring...which worked out since our vacation ended up getting better and better each day.

Final Air Travel

One last trip has us in Sicily. The water is so clear and refreshing. We are set up in a quiet cove with beach chairs and this view.

Classy Portofino

This vacation was fraught with planning struggles, from what the vacation would actually be to Nathan having work conflicts up until the day before we were due to leave. We actually couldn't book our hotels until two days prior to departure, and even then, it was done with crossed fingers. Having finally figured out that we would be driving our own car to Provence with a stop along the Italian Riviera, we had planned to go to Cinque Terre, a beautiful, region consisting of five (cinque) villages along the coast. However, Cinque Terre experienced devastating landslides last year, and one of the main attractions, a coastal hike that links the five villages, is not yet fully opened.

Portofino Harbor

We decided, for now, to hot-foot it up to Provence with just a quick, easy, one night stop. As you may remember from the photos we uploaded while on vacation, we ended up in beautiful, Santa Margherita Ligure. I'd hoped for Portofino, mainly because it makes all the glossy mags as THE place to be. Leaving Santa Margherita Ligure on our first full day of vacay, we headed north on the two lane, coastal road to at least see Portofino. I cannot even imagine how horrific that road must be in the summer since as it turns out, there is one way in, one way out. But with almost no cars on the road on a beautiful, Thursday morning, we were able to enjoy the bright, green-blue water and colorful buildings along the way. Landing in Portofino and parking in the lone car garage, much to our surprise, we found Portofino to be incredibly SMALL! In fact, there seemed to be more space given over to the parking garage and parking lots (lots for people with mysterious, "I belong here" stickers rather than for people such as us) than for actual shops and restaurants. Now admittedly, the one block pedestrian zone is quite adorable, and the harbor even more so. Adorable and tiny. There is a lovely walk that circles the harbor, and lining that walk, my favorite thing about Portofino:

Never let it be said that Portofino is not a classy town, because if neon pink meerkats topping a columns aren't classy, then I don't know what is.

Travel Pause

As you've gathered, we've spent the last few weeks getting in our travel before the time for car trips only begins (next week!). We have one last (and short) trip up our sleeves, but for all intents and purposes, we'll spend the rest of the summer at home or taking weekend trips to nearby beaches...or the mountains to escape the heat which roared in and has knocked me and Crazy Dog for a loop. No longer is he Crazy Dog, but rather, Lazy Dog. Here in Italy, there is no such thing as central heat and A/C. Most Americans manage to negotiate into their leases some electric, wall units. These are much quieter and more efficient (in cooling, not in money!) than what you may be imagining...those horrid, window units that seem to be so popular in America. The units we have provide both heat and A/C and are mounted up near the ceiling.  A tube goes through the wall to the outside of the house, where it either drips the condensation onto the terrace or is piped into exterior drainage pipes. These work fairly well, so Scully and I spend as much of our day as possible in our living room, where I keep one unit running. Scully has taken to lying directly underneath the air flow for maximum cooling. He gets his summer haircut this week. We'll take pictures because I've never seen a more ridiculous looking dog than a shorn Scully dog.

Now that our travels are over, I'm excited to go through our photos and share some highlights from the recent trips. We spent two weeks driving through Provence and Switzerland, and it was a most relaxing vacation. I'd lobbied hard for either a cruise (turns out cruise lines don't like pregnant women to be aboard) or a "sit on the beach at a resort" vacation. I lost, thankfully, because we ended up with a very relaxing, meandering vacation. As Nathan pointed out to friends recently, living in Naples and having near constant access to Roman ruins, beautiful cathedrals, artwork, and so on, has the result of lessening our desire when traveling to "see the sights." Naturally, Provence is quite proud of their Roman ruins, and these are talked up in the guidebooks as must sees. Since we can stand on our Roof Terrace and see a Roman castle, we have no qualms about skipping the nearest "must see" Roman ruin or "don't miss" cathedral when we travel. Instead, we can focus on the actual towns and villages, the lifestyle, and just enjoying the area through walking and driving and visiting the various, outdoor markets rather than hurrying from one sight to the next.

Very shortly after our return from the big vacation, I headed off to Istanbul with a friend. We had four full days in that beautiful city, so I'll be posting about that trip as well. Today, I begin the organizing, labeling, and editing of the hundreds of photos we've taken over the last month of travels. Eek! And in typing this, I just realized that I still have a few photos from Barcelona to finish up on, as well as share them here. Just to slow the photo process down even more, I'm using new photo editing software. While I have fallen far short of my goal in digital photo organization, I have managed to keep photos well organized on the computer. The real goal, though, is to create photo books for each large vacation, as well as yearly photo books. I love photo albums. I look back through photo albums. I put them on easels for display. Before the advent of digital photography, I was religious about placing all my glossy photos into albums and labeling each photo, with the unhappy result of now having thick, space waster albums that would cover shelves and shelves if I actually ever had the space for them. I am now pretty religious about labeling photos from vacations, mainly due to the fact that we went on a wonderful trip to Germany in 2006, took loads of great photos, loaded them onto the computer, and that was the end. I now look back at the file and have no memory of where a photo was taken. Thus, I'm big on photo organization.

Before we moved to Italy, I was fed up with the overwhelming amount of photos still in boxes, despite my obsession with getting them into albums. I was determined to not move overseas with such a large, looming project on my shoulder, and thankfully, I happened onto GoPhoto, who scanned in hundreds of my photos and put them on DVDs for me. There are several companies who do this type of service, and I know people who purchase high quality scanners and scan their own photos. For me, the time involved in doing it myself was far too significant vs GoPhoto's prices. They gave me personal attention, emailed me throughout the entire process, even called me after shipping the photos and DVDs back to me to make sure I was happy. In under two weeks (I think it was closer to a one week turn around), I had in my hands DVDs of our old wedding photos, bunches of those fabulous black and white, old family photos that seem to fill shoeboxes in most people's homes, and tons of other miscellaneous photos that had piled up. So, so happy! (As an FYI, I am not receiving any benefits for mentioning GoPhoto; in fact, unless they have an awesome PR team who monitors the web for any mention of their name, they won't even know about this plug. I'm just sharing my personal experience.). I have an OCD dream of one long shelf, holding beautiful, thin-spined photo books with all our pictures. And a nightmare of losing all our photos - for me, they are quite literally, the most valuable thing I own...perhaps because my memory is just so darn bad! So, on to reliving vacation through the photo organization and then sharing our trips with you...

All In a Day

In one day, we sailed the Bosphorus Strait to the Black Sea, ate lunch in Asia, and had dinner overlooking the Sea of Marmara. Istanbul is wonderful.

Switzerland

The view from our hotel room is okay, I guess (!).

Travel Can Remain Surprising

Annecy, France:  One of our top travel surprises ever! In driving from Provence to the Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland, we looked at a map, picked the halfway point of Annecy, checked a guidebook to see if it looked like a decent lunch stop, and plugged the town into the GPS. I could not believe how impossibly beautiful it was, set on the shores of a clear, alpine lake and with a river running through town. Annecy was utterly delightful and filled with eye candy at every turn.

Sent from my iPhone

Provence Finale

Our final day in Provence was my favorite. After sleeping in, we stepped out our hotel front door and directly into the Wednesday market. While smaller than the others we've visited, the market was still a nice, morning stroll, and we still managed to find a few unique items. After collecting our standard lunch fare and picnicking by the town's river, off we went for a drive along the Cote du Rhone wine trail. We visited cute villages and several wineries, lucking into a fantastic, vineyard tour at our final stop, Domaine du Mourchon. The proprietor spent almost three hours with our group of 16 or so, explaining all sorts of viticulture aspects, then providing tastings of each of his wines. Nathan learned all he'd been hoping to learn about the Cote du Rhone wines.

Tomorrow means lunch in lakeside Annecy, then on to Switzerland, where the forecast is for rain and cold.

The Rhythm of Provence

Our days have taken on a relaxed rhythm of sleeping in just a little, heading out to a Provençal market in the mornings (and finding coffee and a croissant), enjoying the market while hunting down a baguette, cheese, sausage, fruit, and cookies, and finding a shady, pretty picnic spot to rest our aching feet and enjoy our market spoils. For the afternoon, we spend some time enjoying a couple of new towns and driving through the countryside, then return to that night's hotel to relax by the pool before dinner. We are enjoying the slower pace...and the food!
This photo is of our picnic spot today - a beautiful, turquoise, clear river in the town of Vaison-la-Romaine.

Just a Photo

Pretty L'isle-sur-la-Sorgue, our home for the next couple of nights.

Paddling Around

Today we drove along France's Grand Canyon (du Verdon), and at the end of it all, we rented a paddleboat to go up the canyon a short ways. While seeing the canyon and river from above was spectacular, I preferred the peacefulness of being on the water and enjoying the limestone cliffs up close, complete with a waterfall and mountain goat sighting.

Yep, Pretty as we Thought

Before getting on the road to France we checked out the port again. Postcard perfect. Then we drove 5 kilometers along a windy, coastal road to Portofino, mainly because just the name calls up visions of Hollywood glamour. A quick stroll through town gave us the highlights of this small, pretty village with a mega-yacht filled harbor. No pics to post now of Portofino - domani, domani. And I'm using "domani" in the classic, Italian tradition to mean much later or never.

Back at the Castle

We are on the road and stopped for the night in the gorgeous, seaside town of Santa Margherita Ligure. Arriving after dark, we could only guess at how pretty the town is based on our lovely walk along the harbor to dinner. We love being in "the nord," where we get a change of pace food wise...and where we can actually speak and understand Italian. Tonight, dinner on the Italian Riviera and sleeping in a converted castle; tomorrow, French Riviera, here we come.

Photo Class on the Amalfi Coast

A few weeks ago, I took a trip to Sorrento that was also a photography class taught by Renee Williams and with Beth Moskal assisting her (to all my D.C. friends, Beth is moving to D.C. in a few weeks and will be setting up her photography business - she's fabulous, so keep her in mind for your family photos - click on her name here to reach her website!). Nathan and I upgraded our camera soon after moving to Italy, and we both love to take photos of our travels. I have a part time job just sorting, editing, and labeling all the photos we take...and boy am I behind right now! Below are a few of my favorites from the trip...

And just for fun...in case you can't make out the words on the blue part...this is a Titti Dispenser - and only 1euro, too!

Finally, A Town Loony

Oops - I only today realized that I hadn't finished up my Lake Como series. We had one final day on the lake, which we'd thought we'd spend going to the town of Verona. Then we realized it was almost two hours away, so instead, we slept in. Then, feeling like we needed to actually make use of one last day but with me hobbling from our hike the day before, we elected to visit the lake town of Aregno - mainly because the ferry ride was almost an hour. I was quite excited to be doing something that involved sitting down for an entire hour. The appeal in Aregno was a cable car up, up, up to the hill top town of Pigra. After getting off the ferry and rushing to the cable car (because it only runs on the half hour), we found that it was closed until 2pm, a fact I later remembered reading and actually writing down on my "Things to Do on Lake Como" list. I blame the pain in my calves for pushing out all other rational thought. A nice, little lunch in Aregno's small piazza occupied our time before we headed back to the terrifying cable car. We lurched our way up the first few yards, making all of us in the cable car rethink the decision to be in it.

But after a little ride with phenomenal views, we reached Pigra. Absolutely nothing going on there. Nothing at all. With one major exception. This guy kept rollerblading around town blowing some sort of toy horn contraption. We were delighted to dub him the Town Loony. I still long for one of the best TV shows ever, "Gilmore Girls," so we often have names for people who seem to be right out of Stars Hollow. Pigra's Town Loony is one such character. We're pretty sure we found his house as well, but sadly, I did not get a good photo. It was decorated with all kinds of animal skulls and signs about dinosaurs...and I almost forgot about the odd, ghost figure hung up by a noose.

Pigra itself seemed to have lots of artsy type residents as many of the yards had sculptures and such hanging about. Other than that, there was a nice trail (that I think may have actually been a cowpath) that wandered thru some woods on top of the mountain and opened up to one, nice viewpoint. But really, the best activity in Pigra is sitting on this bench overlooking the lake vista while listening to the off-key horn of Town Loony. And that completed our wonderful, relaxing getaway on Lake Como, surely one of the most beautiful spots in Italy.

Varenna Morning, Star Wars Afternoon

Colorful, beautiful, Varenna

Our favorite day on Lake Como, in part due to a full day of blue skies, we spent mostly in the village of Varenna. Lovely, lovely Varenna. We both agreed that this charming village was our favorite. Where Bellagio makes no apologies for catering to tourists and Menaggio seems to do so under duress, Varenna fills the gap in between perfectly with a charming mix of small town, local life along with some lovely cafes and a small number of artsy shops. Add to this a short, pretty boardwalk that curves the coastline from the ferry landing around a small point to a movie set worthy, colorful collage of buildings, plus a couple of villas open to the public, a large piazza, and some hikes in the hills and you've got a near perfect town. We started with a stroll along the waterfront, taking in the lake on a brilliant day and stopping every few feet for yet another photo, then we made our way along narrow, neighborhood alleys and up into the pretty piazza. There, we found a map of town which showed a loop road going up to a castle in the hamlet of Vezio. Somewhere, either the map or a road sign, we noticed the castle was only a 15 minute walk. Taking into consideration the disaster of our Greece hike added to my recent tendency to become out of breath by doing something as strenuous as walking to the bathroom, we decided that 30 minutes was a reasonable assumption for us.

View from Villa Monastero

Fifteen minutes later, we had just barely turned off the flat road and onto the pedestrian path sloping up. The path headed up with slight curves, cutting off most of the switchbacks that the smart people (with cars) use. We headed up, up, up. And then up some more. Until our path ended at the road, and we had no idea which way to go. Thankfully, we found a nice lady working in her yard to point us toward the castello, and at our next crossroads, ran into yet another friendly local out for a stroll. And so we headed up some more. Until we reached a sign pointing us off the road we'd joined and onto yet another pedestrian path that headed down. This path was quite easy and led us past a pretty waterfall where we relaxed by practicing our photography skills in attempting to take photos where the water looks all soft and cloud-like and glowy. After this little rest, it was up again, but this time, helpful signs told us just how close we were, and we quickly landed in the tiny, hilltop village of Vezio.

Due to exhaustion, I had no desire to wander the few streets of Vezio, so instead, we headed straight for the castle, and for some reason, after almost two hours of hiking, didn't go in. It was a classic example of the phrase "It's the journey, not the destination." From the castle, which probably had stunning views of the entire lake, but I don't really know, there were two paths back down to Varenna. One was clearly marked Varenna and ferries with an arrow. The other looked a little sketchier, said it went in the "direction" of Varenna, but also was supposed to go by a waterfall. We picked that one. I regretted it at the no turning back point, which was after about 10 minutes of carefully picking my way down a little maintained, narrow path of rocks with a steep drop off the side. Thankfully, this ended soon, and we found ourselves in a bucolic scene of olive groves, sloping path, and expansive lake views. Back in Varenna, we settled into a lakefront Creperie for a delicious lunch and even more delicious, dessert crepes. My reward for a much more challenging hike than we'd planned.

Cafe in Paradise

With the afternoon passing a little too quickly, we found ourselves in a bit of a time crunch trying to grab a ferry down to the town of Lenno, where we hoped to visit the Villa Barbianello. Anyone recognize the villa? It was used for scenes in both Star Wars: Episode 2 Attack of the Clones and Casino Royale. I'd read that the walk to the villa is along a nice, 1 km path, but the best approach is via water taxi. As we arrived in Lenno, we realized that we had very little time to actually reach the villa, tour it, then make our way back to the ferry for the last ferry out of town. We made it to the every 30 minute, water taxi with about one minute to spare and found ourselves on a nice boat ride around the small peninsula, giving us a stunning view of the Villa. As we arrived, we found the last tour of the day had already started and while the lady selling entrance tickets offered to call to see if we could run up and join it, we waved her off. Unfortunately. I had not read about the interior of the villa until we were strolling the small garden area and reading the brochure we got at the entrance. The interior sounded fascinating, full of items collected by the previous owner in his very adventurous life of travel. But since I could barely walk at this point due to sore calves from our morning hike, I couldn't work up too much regret. We walked around the gardens, which were nothing fancy after seeing Villa Carlotta the day before, and headed back to the ferry to return to Bellagio and enjoy a fabulous dinner before turning in early after our active day.

Towns and Villas

Our first day on Lake Como dawned grey and misty, but by the time we caught our ferry over to Menaggio, blue skies were appearing! Menaggio was a sleepy town with a lovely, waterfront walk, complete with restaurant filled piazza. My favorite meal of our entire trip was here with one of the most delicious pastas I've ever eaten, followed up with a stop at a different restaurant for warm chocolate cake and gelato. With some time to kill before our ferry out of town, we decided to take a walk up past the town. Menaggio seems to have the most complete description of hill walks, with a fancy little map and board posted right at the ferry landing. We went up narrow alleys and stairs, saw some beautiful views looking down the lake, then headed back down to the ferry landing to get over to Villa Carlotta.

Lake Como is lined with elegant villas and gardens, some public, most private. Villa Carlotta has some of the most beautiful gardens and has somehow managed to swing their very own ferry landing, despite their being one to the north in Cadenabbia and to the south in Tremezzo, both only a short walk away. (We were quite thankful for the immediate access though when our blue skies turned to heavy downpour just at the end of our visit). The villa itself was built in 1745, but is named and known for it's owner 100 years later, Duchess Carlotta (Charlotte), who was given the villa as a wedding present from her mother. Those were the good ole days. The gardens have become famous for it's profusion of rhododendron (not blooming during our visit) and azaleas (blooming strong), and pathways wind and dip between stands of flowering trees and shrubs to viewpoints of the lake. I was especially enchanted with the names found in the garden, such as the Rhododendron Forest, the Theatre of Greenery, and Fern Valley. Thankfully, the rain held off until we were past Fern Valley and nearing the exit. With rain showing no sign of letting up, we headed back to Bellagio for a little riposo (rest) before dinner and called it an early night.

Heaven on Earth

"The precise location of heaven on earth has never been established, but it may very well be right here."

Herb Caen, writing about Lake Como

I could not agree more. We just spent a long weekend in that beautiful place, and I could not believe just how quickly we relaxed. Our trip up there was more challenging than expected. While not far from the Milan airport in distance, the travel is a literal journey of planes, trains, and automobiles. Our flight landed in Milan just before 6pm. After a 25 minute wait for the "every 7 minute" shuttle bus to Terminal 1, we then caught an express train to the town of Saronno. There, we switched to another train to the town of Como. We reached the lake, but not our final destination of Bellagio, a lake town about halfway up. Our original plan involved a ferry from Como to the town of Bellagio, but upon arrival in Como, we discovered we'd missed the last ferry by about 20 minutes. We headed back to the bus station to see if there were any buses, and found the bus ticket counter closed. Actually, as we walked up to the counter, the ticket man closed his shades. We were that close to success. Upon asking a couple of locals, we were informed that we'd have to take a taxi (for the more than an hour drive!). But the bus schedule listed one final bus going to Bellagio. Problem was that we had no tickets. A quirk of Italy is that one cannot buy tickets on the transportation one is taking. Tickets are sold at transportation offices or sometimes at newsstands and tabacco shops. Don't get me started on the logic of having transportation running at times when all places to buy tickets for said transportation are closed. We threw ourselves on the mercy of the bus driver, and he waved us aboard. The night became dark and stormy as we wove our way along a lakeside drive that must surely be stunning by daylight. After about 40 minutes, with only one other passenger left on board, the driver pulled up to the side of the road in a dark town, flipped on all the bus lights, and told us to go into the bar to buy tickets. We were clearly not the first tourists to have messed up the ticketing process.

Bellagio, like most of the other lake towns, is built on a rather steep hill. I'd picked our hotel with one thought in mind: proximity to the ferry landing. We wanted to visit the other lake towns on the convenient (usually) ferry system, and I did not want to be huffing and puffing my way up and down cobblestone pathways several times a day just for hotel stops. Our hotel room itself left a great deal to be desired, but we were less than a five minute walk to the passenger ferry and had an incredible view of the lake. Our hotel was like much of Italy, full of faded grandeur and glory. But in super chic Bellagio, even faded glory comes with a hefty price tag. In the middle of the lake is a trio of the most visited (touristed) towns, Bellagio, Varenna, and Menaggio. Bellagio is probably the most touristy, teeming with jewelry and expensive clothing shops. The town also offers the widest variety of restaurants and seems to have the most going on it, while still remaining a small town. We spent our first morning walking around Bellagio, visiting those jewelry shops and scoring a handmade silver spoon made out of an antique hairpin coming from the traditional headdresses of Bellagio costumes. When my niece was born, my sister's mother-in-law gave her a gift of a silver spoon with a little note saying, "Every child should be born with a silver spoon." The idea has captivated me ever since because every child should be born with love and opportunity surrounding him or her, and I love this idea manifested into an actual silver spoon...so we jumped at the chance of giving our Baby Girl a silver spoon with a story behind it.

We also had to spend the morning taking care of a little chore, and an embarrassing one at that. First, I would like to point out that while I am not some huge, adventure traveler, I've been traveling pretty regularly for about 20 years now. I haven't seen and done it all, and every trip still gets me excited, but traveling is no longer a novelty. I know what clothes to bring, what shoes are going to work for me, and I keep a stocked toiletry kit on hand. Over the years, I might have forgotten a sweater, a rain jacket, or a charging cord, but never something really important...until now. As I unpacked, I found, to my horror, that I'd not packed a single pair of underwear for this four night trip. Not a one. In small town Italy, one may not just run to the corner WalMart or even something like a CVS, so I had an important goal for our first morning. Thankfully, we quickly lucked onto a small shop of intimates - these stores are stocked with boxes behind a counter. You don't just flip through some racks of clothes and pick out what you need; instead, you ask for your desired item, color, style, and size. I looked up on google translate the word for "panty," and strode confidently into the store to ask the little old lady behind the counter for such a thing. Her little old husband came shuffling over and, after asking if I wanted naturale or nero (black), pulled out a pair of pantyhose. I said no, no, no and most likely began rolling my eyes around the store wildly before noticing a box behind the counter with a picture of underwear on it. I gave up on speaking and just began pointing. The little old lady asked my measurement while the little old man began pulling pair after pair out of boxes in a variety of natural, black, and white colors. In desperation, I grabbed the closest pair and tried to do a quick, yet discreet, hold up to the body measurement and just ended up buying those. They worked out, and thankfully, we found another store later in the day where I could supplement my initial purchase with a little less embarrassment. And for anyone else who finds themselves in the same predicament in Italy, what you want to buy are "slip." When the lady in the second store asked me if I wanted "slip" (pronounced "sleep"), I thought she was speaking English to me and asking if I wanted pajamas.

You should also know that Bellagio, the hotel of the same name in Las Vegas, does not resemble the town in the slightest. However, if you've seen the Chihuly glass ceiling sculpture in the hotel, and compare it to the actual gardens that grace the villas lining the lakefront, then the sculpture name, Fiori di Como - Flowers of Como, is absolutely perfect. That sculpture is a breathtaking translation of the actual beauty found on Lake Como, which we finally began to explore with sunny skies appearing and a successful hunt for undergarments behind us.

New Year's Eve Flashback

There is nothing like posting a New Year's Eve video in April, right? I tried to do this way back in January. It was my first attempt at uploading a video to YouTube, and things did not go well. After hours of waiting for the upload to complete, I finally gave up and went to bed...and pretty much forgot I'd ever even tried to show you all our phenomenal New Year's Eve here in Naples! Four months later, I thought to check and found the video all waiting for me on my YouTube channel. The link is below. Last time I tried to link to a video (not my own), you Americans could not open it. So I don't know if this will work out for you either. If so, then great - you can see why Naples is one of THE BEST places to ever spend a New Year's Eve. If not, then imagine this: We are on top of a small mountain (created by a volcanic eruption in the 1500s) with a 200 degree or so view that includes Arco Felice, Pozzuoli, Naples, the Sorrentine Peninsula, Capri (but it's dark, so you can't really see it or make out their fireworks unless you know exactly where to look), Lucrino, Baia, Capo Miseno, Bacoli, Monte di Procida, the islands of Procida and Ischia, and Monterusciello. Fireworks bursting at every single point as the camera pans around. Quantity over quality, baby. These aren't the best shows in the world, but since every one and his brother are shooting them off their balconies, from their yards, and from piazzas, the sheer volume IS the show. You'll hear a friend's voice in the background, and through my clever cinematic skills (aka sheer, dumb luck) the video ends just as he says, "Only in Naples." True that.

Buona Pasqua a Tutti!

I love this photo of our kitchen during the food prep. How Italian does this look!

Happy Easter, Y'all! As you might imagine, Easter is a big deal in Italy. Good Friday is a day where many towns, especially in the south, have processions carrying religious figures or floats (we attended one, which I'll post about in a few days). Today, of course, is Easter, but Italians take the holiday one step further with La Pasquetta - Little Easter - the Monday after Easter. A long weekend of festas. We had prepared for no celebrations at all - no chocolate, no special food for dinner, no plans to visit friends, no Easter baskets. Just church and home. But the beauty of Italy is that sometimes, all you have to do is drive down a short road to come up with a feast.

With our church folks asking us what we had planned for Easter, and our one word response of "sofa" as the reply, I think we both started feeling a bit inferior in our planning. Nothing says "Christ is Risen" like a whole bunch of food, after all. Nathan decided to stop on the way home and pick up some mussels from a roadside stand. A few more yards down the road, we passed a stand selling bread. That was my cue to call for a stop, and when I hopped out to make our purchase, we hit jackpot with some beans and roasted artichokes as well. Thankfully, we had friends riding home from church with us because it's near impossible to get our roadside food purchase amounts down to fit a two person family. In this case, we'd ended up with 2 kilos of mussels, a kilo of beans, five roasted artichokes, and two loaves of bread. All for under 15euros. We were able to share the spoils with our friends and eliminate half the food going into our trash bin. Back at home, Nathan worked his kitchen magic, cooking the mussels in a sauce of butter, thyme, white wine, shallots, and fresh lemon juice, throwing some pasta in a pot and cooking up a quick sauce of sage from our recently planted herb garden in some melted butter, and sauteing the beans. Our planned lunch of soup out of can instead became a feast fit for an elaborate dinner. A Buona Pasqua indeed.