Eataly

So. We're going back a-ways here, and I'll do my best to keep things in the proper sequence (and to just remember what the heck I've been doing the past few days).

I left off in Desenzano del Garda, at the Villa Rosa hotel. After M&D returned to the room, we went to check out the hotel bar and to watch the Naples/SomeCityInSicily football (soccer) match. The barman was from Napoli, so we had a team to root for, which was kinda nice. Dad called it a night a little bit before Mom and I did, so we got a free drink from the barman when Napoli won :)

Half-way through the previous day, the weather had turned pretty blah. Snow, wind, general cold. That weather followed us for a while, and our first full day on Lake Garda was besmirched with fog and cold. We should have been able to see the Alps ("Alpies" as Dad's been calling them), but basically couldn't the whole time we were there. For our day on Garda, we took the car down a few towns to Sirmione, found on a thin peninsula at the southern base of the lake.

Mom made friends with some birds we found on the way into Sirmione

View down the peninsula

Dad with the sign

You get into the historic center of Sirmione by walking (only people who live there or are staying in hotels on the peninsula may drive) across the drawbridge of this fantastic castle. The whole town is full of winding streets and hills, so we trekked around for a bit before finally wending our way up to the Grottoes of Catullus, some ancient ruins of a Roman villa in Sirmione.

Dad and Mom with the castle

Me, too

Alongside the moat

Catullus was a Roman poet in the 2nd century AD, and historians are pretty certain that the ruins we visited could not have been his (they were built in the first century BC, so well before Catullus' time), but the name has stuck over all these years. There was a little museum describing the archaeological excavations that have taken place on the grounds and in the lake around there, and then we spent a good chunk of time freezing our butts off (or maybe that was just me) wandering around with the cats that live on the grounds. If it weren't for the foggy mess outside, we'd have had some spectacular views of the lake and surrounding mountains, but alas, we missed out. The bits of view that we DID catch in between clouds were incredible. Still worth it.

Cat

Just some ancient ruins. No big.

The grottoes were all based around an olive grove, so there were olive trees hanging out all over the place.

As night started to fall, Mom repeated her expressed interest in seeing the inside of the castle that stands guard at the city gates, so we made our way back down from the peninsula tip and back towards the exit. Dad had no interest in going inside, so we left him at a coffee shop and went to it. BEAUTIFUL. I should really grab the pamphlet that tells me exact dates, but I'm going to strain to remember that it was built in the 11th century with additions made through to the 16th. We got to climb the bell tower for some gorgeous views (the murkiness was less murky at that point, though we were still being speckled with stray rain drops) or the city and the lake stretching out before us. Found Dad at the coffee shop and abandoned our initial plan to head back to Desenzano to go to church (night before the feast day, babies!), and instead stayed for a cup of tea and decided to double back to the church we found in Sirmione earlier in the day. GREAT decision.

"Look, my head fits through the bars!"

Yup, even castles get Christmas lights in Italy

We walked in and these little Italian (obviously I guess) nuns bustled us up to where they were sitting along with a few other ladies, and church-director style (shout out to Mr. Purri!) gave us hymnals and started practicing the songs we would be singing throughout mass. They were chittering away at us, so I finally managed to sneak in the words "no italiano" in the conversation. They all kinda chuckled and spoke slower and leaned over to show us the hymn numbers instead of just repeating them over and over and wondering why these slow, slow people weren't just TURNING to hymn number 143. Mass was wonderful; we nerdy people who love to sing at church were loving every second, and the nunnies didn't seem to mind that we were stumbling over the unfamiliar language while we tried to pick up the tune AND the language pronunciations at the same time. At the end of mass, the nunnies clapped a little bit and said "bravo!" to us, and one of the ladies asked me where we're from. She guessed Germany (everyone seemed to think we were German), and looked pleasantly surprised when I said America. In any case, we had a wonderful time singing with them, and it was a nice way to end Desanzano.

Back to the hotel to look about finding food, and we hit upon a plan: dinner at the Irish pub Mom had passed the night before during her wanderings. So off we went to find The Fiddler of SomethingorOther. Had some great pints of Guinness (the last Guinness that I assume I'll have on tap til I turn 21... doubt I'll be returning to Europe before then...bummerrrrrrrr!) and bruschetta for dinner, and then off to bed.

Wednesday morning we enjoyed our last breakfast at Villa Rosa (NB: they had great breakfasts. If you ever think you might want to go there, make sure there's not a wedding going on. Because Italian weddings are LOUD especially if you're in the hotel room right above the ballroom. But the breakfasts made it almost worthwhile. Think fresh-squeezed OJ, every variation of coffee/cappuccino/hot chocolate known to man, and really, really, really good bread) and then were off towards Venice. Plan for the day was to drive to Verona (en route to Venice), stay there for a while, and then on to the hotel in Venice for sleeps. This plan worked-ish. Emphasis on the ish.

Plan worked in the sense that we DID those things. Failure lay in the fact that we A. didn't have a map of Venice and were totally winging it B. couldn't find parking and C. it was raining (out of our control, but still annoying) as the clouds had been threatening for a few days (they followed us from Desenzano). Points A, B and C led to the obvious: we were at each other's throats. Not so nice for a family vacation (or a 30th anniversary vacation crashed by the daughter, but let's not quibble over terminology). In any event, we didn't kill each other AND we got to see a lot of churches from the car as we drove around in circles trying to figure out where the hell we were. I can't stress enough how awful being lost in an Italian city IN A CAR is. Italian drivers are all crazy (though I'll admit they're exceedingly patient with lost drivers who are blocking up traffic works), and signs are (this is a repeat, but a necessary one) NOT GOOD. You'll be IN an intersection when you see signs explaining the street name, directional signs etc. Ridiculously confusing. Anyway, we finally found a parking spot right next to the Duomo (so we got to see that), and wandered around until we (by "we" I mean "Dad") found the casa de Guilietta! AKA Juliette's house. AKA the famous balcony from Romeo and Juliette. That's right, the Capulets lived in Verona (come on, star crossed lovers in Verona. You remember), and we went to their house. The parking spot that we had chanced upon was a 1 hr spot, so we headed out pretty quickly after seeing the courtyard of her house (of course you've got to pay to go into the house. Who cares? We saw the balcony), and got the hell out. It was a frustrating experience, but we survived. Missed the Arena (3rd largest in Italy after the Coliseum and... another one...), but we didn't kill each other. Mission: success.

St. Xeno's in Verona

One of many Madonna & Child frescoes throughout St. Xeno's

THE BALCONY. I wonder how Romeo managed to climb up...

Trip from Verona to Venice was uneventful: we didn't get lost, and we only made one wrong turn (signs were IN THE INTERSECTION. How are you supposed to read the signs and drive safely when the sign is MID-TURN?) that we knew was wrong as we made it. Arrived safely in Venice (on the mainland, technically in Oriago) at the hotel Villa Dolcetti. GO THERE SOMEDAY. Diego, the guy who owns it, was wonderful. For example: this morning we bashed the French with him. Or, not really BASHED, just acknowledged that the French feel that they are superior in every way to every other country, and how French people refuse to acknowledge inferior spoken French by pretending to not understand. It was fun/funny :) But breakfasts were lovely, and he decorated the cappuccinos before delivering them to the table, so M&D got to admire his artwork while I sipped my teas.

M&D in Villa Dolcetti on the couch outside of our room

In any case, we settled right in for a wait til the local restaurants opened so we could grab some dinner. We went to a pizzeria (pizzerias in Italy are more like restaurants than the American idea of what a pizzeria is) and I had GREAT GREAT GREAT spaghetti. It was a seafood spaghetti, with mussels and clams and squid, but the dish was covered with pizza dough, so it looked kinda like a calzone, but when you cut it open, it was SPAGHETTI DELICIOUSNESS. Dad tasted it and almost gagged, but he's a wimp when it comes to non-fish/shrimp seafood. It was AMAZING. The house red wine was also good :) Our waiter was lovely, and we had tiramisu for dessert (tiramisu with nutella, actually. The waiter recommended it, and it was gooooood). Great dinner.By the time we got back to the hotel, we were about ready to crash. So we did! Straight to bed, with plans for an early morning the next day.

Experienced our first breakfast on Thursday, and then headed for the city. It would have been silly to drive to the islands and pay for parking, so we took the public bus. It was quick, efficient and clean. We arrived in the city and started wandering. It took a while for me to convince Dad that I was serious when I said that I didn't care to look at maps, that I was just going to wander and wander and get lost and enjoy every second of it, but he finally believed me and stopped taking map-check breaks every few minutes. About 2pm an amazing, wonderful, incredible, lovely thing happened: the sun came out. We sat by a cistern in the city for probably a half hour, just basking in the sun when it finally showed its face. Wonderful :)

Tight fit...

Proof that at least Dad and I were in Venice at the same time

Nerd

Basking in sunlight

Just one of the many, many, many, many churches in Venice

We didn't make it to St. Mark's Square (Piazza de San Marco) til evening because we were so busy poking our noses down little alleyways and over cool looking bridges, but it was well-worth it when we finally made it. After some difficulties with Dad's not being allowed to take his backpack into the basilica, we all made it inside to see that BEAUTIFUL building. I SO wish I had pictures to post of the inside, because the whole thing is covered with mosaics. INCREDIBLE. Truly, truly wondrous. The floors are all different geometric patterns, and the walls and ceiling are completely covered with mosaics of various saints and Jesuses and Marys and Baby Jesuses and angels and cherubs and patterns. It was just... breathtaking. That's probably the best word for it. Breathtaking. We wandered around for a while and then peaced out; we were hungry! We found a little place on our way out of the city and grabbed some more pasta, and then had gelato while we wandered around to find the bus back to Oriago. Great day.

St. Mark's (from the side) in the evening

View from the Piazza

Venice at night

M&D on the Rialto Bridge

Friday was Venice, Round 2, but first we wanted to make sure we knew where to go to get to the airport, so we took our little car out for a spin and headed for Marco Polo Airport. Once we had that sorted, it was back into Venice for another day. We had to find a bank to replenish funds, so that was a fun adventure of wandering, looking for an ATM, and then we wandered some more. We ate lunch (side note: Dad was incredibly resourceful the past two days in that he planned ahead and packed us sandwiches for lunch. So we got to nom on sandwiches as soon as we got hungry. Win!) in a park near the Jewish Ghetto (literally, maps say "ghetto"), and we got to hang out with some pigeons that followed us. After lunch, back to wandering.

Venetians hang their laundry out their windows. Mom wishes she could do that.

This little boy was cruising around, chasing the pigeons

Venice is just. Whew. To m way of thinking, the whole city is reflected in St. Mark's Basilica; it's breathtaking. Every alley had some hidden beauty, whether it's in the statues that are everywhere, or the ornate doors, or the faces found over doorways, or the windows, or the bridges... UGH, the BRIDGES are GORGEOUS. They catch you off guard at times with how beautiful they are. And we were SO lucky in that the sun stuck around for Friday, too. From the time we woke up, it was sunny (and warm in the sun!). I wore my SUNGLASSES. THAT sunny. It was great.

So we wandered on, ended up back at St. Mark's around sunset, and headed for the Bridge of Sighs. I left Mom and Dad to it while they did their romantic wander across the bridge, and admired the sunset. Or, that's what I thought I was doing. In fact, they discovered that the bridge that we THOUGHT was the Bridge of Sighs was an imposter. So we went in search of, and found, the real one.

Bridge of Sighs

After their successful finding of the bridge (Dad keeps telling me that I have to watch some movie that features said bridge. He claims he will kidnap me for an evening so that I will be forced to watch it. Apparently, it is baffling to him that I could have not seen it already, and is generally a situation that needs to be rectified. Typically, I can't remember what it's called now, but I'll go along with it), we went back towards the Piazza de San Marco. Reason being that Mom wanted to do the bell tower museum in the basilica, and Dad, well, didn't. So Mom and I went up and admired the mosaics from THIS CLOSE (seriously. You're up on the second floor of the building... can you call it a floor?... where there's a museum dedicated to explaining how the mosaics came to be and how they have been restored, and showing examples of mosaics that have been removed from the walls in certain parts of the building, but you're also totally up close and personal with the mosaics. SO cool), and we were the last ones inside, so the guard was literally shepherding us along, locking the doors behind us as we passed through. Last bit of the museum allowed visitors out onto a balcony overlooking the piazza, so we got to stick our noses out there to see the moon and stars shining over it all. Gorgeous.

We met up with Dad outside the basilica where he was patiently, half-frozen-ly, waiting for us. He told us about how he befriended some pigeons and had them taking peanuts out of his hand and, eventually, his lips. Pigeon kisserrrrrrrrrrr!

We headed for dinner and gelato, and I bought a beautiful, soft pair of grey leather cashmere lined gloves that I'm slightly obsessed with. They're SWEET. Seriously. Back to the hotel to shower, pack and sleep.

Today has been all travels. We were up early and got to chat with Diego over our last breakfast, and then headed for the hills. Trip to the airport went smoothly (having practiced it yesterday), and we had some delicious Pret sandwiches in the Heathrow airport for lunch (flew from Marco Polo in Venice to Heathrow in London to Philly). Now I'm sitting in my business class seat to Philadelphia and loving itttttt. I upgraded before I left home. As Mom put it, it was a very expensive toothbrush (I got a little travel pack(so did M&D) with socks, pen, toothbrush, ear plugs, etc in it). BUT I had a reclining seat, and noise-cancelling headphones, and wine with dinner, so it was worthwhile (you'll notice that now I'm home).

Uncle Tom played the knight in shining armor, rescuing us from the clutches of the dastardly Philadelphia Airport. Home safe and sound :)

At this point, it would be appropriate to include some sort of closing paragraph, summarization of my feelings thing. I just don't have it in me though. So, instead, here's to Venice. And Strasborg. And Baveno. And Desanzano. And Stresa. And Zurich. And Sirmione. And, above all, here's to London. Cheers.

From Zurich down to Garda

We arrived in Zurich and were thanking our lucky stars that we didn't book trains with only 9 minutes in between arrival/departure because we would've missed train #2. There was a Christmas market going on in the train station, so we wandered around for a while checking out the various booths and then got some yummy, spicy hot dog/sausage things to nom on until our train to Milan arrived.

Hanging in the train station

Swarovski Crystal-decorated Christmas tree in the station

We quickly realized that Zurich is German-speaking Switzerland, not French-speaking.

The train from Zurich to Milan was only a few minutes late (everything was screwy because of the snow), and the scenery was BEAUTIFUL. We were traveling through the Gotthard Pass in the Alps, so we were surrounded by these incredible views the entire trip. According to Dad, they've just finished blasting a hole in the mountain that's going to be a tunnel eventually, once they get the track laid. So trains going through the pass will soon be a thing of the past. Pretty cool that we got to do it before the tunnel opens :)

View from the train



Incredible

We arrived in Milan safely, and Phase Two began: Find Rental Car. We had to take a bus from the train station to get to the airport where we would pick up the car, which wasn't too bad. Then we had to find the Hertz counter inside the airport. Slightly trickier, but we managed. Grabbed some airport grub, just in case we took longer than anticipated to get to Stresa, and then went out to hunt down our car in the parking garage. Again, we managed with some difficulty, but still managed.

Next, Phase Three: drive to Baveno. More like "Phase Three: The Stooges." Though in our defense, Italian road signs are NOT well lit, and we were driving in the dark at this point. Long story short, it took us somewhere in the realm of three hours to make a 60 mile drive. On superhighways. Our constant refrain was, "Well, if we get lost AGAIN, we can just follow signs back to the airport and try, try again!" That alternated with, "Thank GOODNESS we ate, or we would be MISERABLE." In any event, we made it in one piece and without stress levels being too outrageous.

Our hotel was called Hotel Splendid, and splendid it was.




Splendid... Hotel Splendid




Every bathroom needs its own mosaic swan, and this was ours.

Mom and I went out for a late-night wander around the hotel grounds when we first arrived. The place is right on the water of Lake Maggiore in Baveno, so we were checking out the lake and the beach and the various docks that we encountered. Finally wandered back to play with the buttons in our hotel room and head to bed.

Next day we all slept til 11ish. This was on account of A. our exhaustion and B. the fact that we had a metal, mechanized shutter to cover the sliding door that led out to our balcony. Sweet, right? Anyway, this shutter basically blocked out all vestiges of light and let us sleep as long as we wanted to. We were awakened by a small child's screams. As Dad put it, "who let the crumb-grubbers in?" Eleven o'clock was plenty of sleep though, and we got off to a leaisurely start.

Initial plan was to take a ferry around the Borromean Islands that are right off of Stresa (town next to Baveno), but we nixed that and decided to just wander along the promenade by the water. Good decision, it turns out, because it started snowing and got very cold and windy. It was a great walk though.

View we woke up to (once the iron curtain was lifted)



Mom and Dad with the Alps in Stresa, Italy



The Alps over Lake Maggiore

Mermaid in the Alps!?

Cool tree + Cool Street Lamp + Cool Place = Cool Picture



When I'm rich, I'm buying this house for M&D and fixing it up so they can have a bungalow on the beach in Italy



Another view, but without the excellent red berries

I was there, too

Memorial to the victims of 9/11/01

I was obsessed with those trees

We had a great wander along the water and then headed back into town for mass at 6. It was difficult to say the mass parts in english when they were being said in Italian, but it was calming, being in church. After mass we headed to a bar/pub/restaurant place for some dinner. We went at my request, basically because they served Guinness. And a damn good pint of Guinness it was; well-poured. We hung out for a while and had a nice exchange as we were leaving with some of the men who had been there all night with us. They thought we were British (I'm pretty sure because they assumed ignorant Americans wouldn't be TRYING so hard to speak Italian), but we had a nice chat with them and further butchered their language, I'm sure, but they seemed to appreciate our efforts (side note: Dad's been GREAT with his Italian. Mom and I kinda keep to the side, but he's right out there, chit chatting away. True, he's had some moments of "Fr-italian," but on the whole, excellent effort has been made).

Back to the hotel for bed. Woke up early and I went to the hotel's gym for an early morning work out. Normally they charge for use of the gym and health club, but because it's the dead of winter and half of Baveno is closed down for the season anyway (seriously, at least half of the hotels are closed, windows boarded up and looking sketchy, but it's just bc it's winter. They all open up again in May for the start of tourist season), they made it fo' FREE.

Anyway, had a GREAT workout, and floated in the jacuzzi for a while, and hung out in the steam room, and the sauna, and jammed to the Spanish version of "Hotel California" that was playing, and basically loved every second. There was this room that looked like it had sand on the floor, and lounge chairs, and I went in to vegetate for a while only to discover that the sand was bath salts! So I scrubbed my feetses for a while. So good. And then when I was finished, I took a shower in one of those incredible ones with the foot-diameter shower heads that rains on you, and had horizontal jets that shot at you while you sing in the shower. Best part? I HAD IT ALL TO MYSELF (not just the shower. We're talking the shower, the workout room AND the whole health club, so the jacuzzi and sauna and steam room. When I'm rich, after I buy M&D that house in Stresa, I'm going to build a steam room into my house. It was THAT good) Glorious. GLORIOUS. Finally went back upstairs, 50 minutes later than I had told M&D to expect me, and got myself together to leave.

Snow on palm trees!?!?

Clampett-style, we lugged our baggage downstairs and headed for the hills. Stopped for breakfast at a restaurant we had found the day before, and ended up eating lunch instead. I had this amazing risotto with lake fish that was served in a hollowed-out gourd, and Mom had a sweet cheese platter, and Dad had a Meat&Cheese salad. Yum! It was snowing the whole morning, and continued to do so after we left the restaurant and started our drive to Lake Garda.

Restaurant for breakfast/lunch and a view up the hill in Stresa



He wanted to say goodbye to us

 Made it here (Desenzano del Garda) safely, and checked in to the Hotel Villa Rosa without too much fuss. I was going through blog-withdrawal (really just internet withdrawal), so I just paid for some internets to get these babies posted. Because apparently Wi-Fi is never free in Europe, unless you're staying at a youth hostel. Mom and Dad both went for walks around town while I vegged out in here, and I think I may swap them out and go for a wander myself! Tomorrow: Garda.