Milan

The drive from Varenna to Milan was mostly uneventful, although we did see the one and only accident while travelling, a bicyclist and car.  Not good, the guy was moving but looked to be in rough shape as the paramedics tended to him on the side of Lake Como.  I certainly hope it was precautionary.

We arrived in Milan at the Hotel Ritter and ran into a bump.   The hotel was in an area of town that required a special permit to drive through, Corso Garibaldi.  It was only a 5Euro fee but I had to go get the pass at a local Tabacchi and then have the hotel validate it.  Yea, we basically paid for unloading the car but the hotel indicated cameras in the city center would charge the rental agency, and then us, a 95 Euro fee so I wasn't going to argue it.  We then took the car and turned it into the rental agency, which was near the train station.  We rented from Auto Europe and they were pretty efficient allowing us to skip the line when we returned the car, barely inpecting it.  

We stopped for lunch on the way back to the hotel at Trattoria del Corso and enjoyed some gnocchi.  But we saw the La bomba di guido, yes the guido bomb, on the dessert menu and that put a stake in the ground. We expected a short afternoon and then dinner near the hotel as we prepped to leave for home, this place looked as good as any around. 

 

We headed back to the hotel for a little risposo and then made our way to the last tourist spot of the trip, the Duomo.  We'd visited Milan's iconic cathedral before, a church so big that when it was completed the entire city's population could seek shelter inside, yet never climbed the stairs to the roof.  I had to get up top, I didn't want to leave the country without walking the roof.  Kathie, on the other hand, had come to grips with her lack of comfort of heights so I was on my own while she scouted a end of trip video location.  (More later)

The duomo is under near constant repair, the weather and pollution really are tough on the intricate marble spires which cover the gothic treasure.  On the left side of the church is the sale point for tickets to the roof, for 9Euro I climbed the stairs to get a view unlike any other.

 

 

A short video from the roof:

After spending about an hour walking the roof I went down to meet Kathie.  She had a spot picked out on the square for an appertivo and our video, supplies which were bought in Bellagio.  So we got a couple glasses of prosecco and after much note taking and filmed this short recap of our trip.

After the video, shot in one take I must say, we enjoyed a couple more glasses of prosecco while the rain poured from the sky.  It did allow me to sneak out onto the piazza and take a nice shot of the duomo without the huge crowds out front:

 

 The rain let up, the manager of the bar discounted our drinks to the bottle rate saving us about 15 Euro, and we headed back to the hotel to change and begin packing for the morning's flight.  But wait, the guido bomb!!!!

So we headed out after some packing back down to Trattoria del Corso and eagerly awaited our final meal in Italy.  I ordered spaghetti carbonara, a dish we eat at home regularly and something I thought was more of a novelty than it truly is.  After seeing the dish on many menus I decided today was the day, let me tell you ragazzi this dish did not disappoint.  It was served in a bowl made of parmigiano and then topped with a fried egg which was cut and allowed to slightly drip into the pasta to enrich it even further.  So good, so very good.

 

 

The guido bomb was delicious as well, ice cream inside a chocolate ball and then drizzed with warm chocolate to melt it.  

 

This meal is so much more inline with American ideals than those we had in Sicilia, yet as tasty as it was I'd rather be in Sciacca with some sarde a beccafico.  

We flew home in the morning, and I'll be writing a final list of learnings soon.  There are lots of helpful tidbits I hope to summarize.

We had such a tremendous time on this trip, something we will both treasure for the rest of our lives.  I hope you got a feel for some of the places we enjoyed as well as getting a little inspired to go on your own adventure.  Life is too short to have regrets my friends, go and see the world, it is beautiful.

Ciao a tutti!

Varenna & Bellagio

We spent another full day in Varenna, catching a morning ferry to Bellagio  We actually bought the northern lake area ticket, allowing passage to multiple towns, although we only used it back and forth between Belllagio.

 

Bellagio was a cool little lakeside town, the San Giacomo church was super interesting.  Made with dark stone and a very simple flooring it was beautifully ornate inside with gold mosiacs.

 

We walked around town and found a very cool shop that made and sold items made from the wood of olive trees, the Luigi Tacchi shop.  Lake Como is the farthest north that olive trees grow, using the thermo-flywheel effect of the lake to provide enough warmth for their growth.  Anyway, the shop was super, we bought a couple gifts and things for the house.

The town was quaint and cute, just a little too crowded.  We did find a couple quiet streets and got some materials for a project Kathie was working on, more to come later on that one.

 

We had lunch at the pizzeria above, and of course found some gelato as well, before heading back on the ferry to Varenna.

Varenna and some lake shots.

 

 

We enjoyed a quiet final evening in Varenna enjoying a meal at the hotel and gathering our things for the trip to Milan.

Lake Como is magical.

Vezio Castle and the Fiumlatte

Our second full day in Varenna saw us head up the hill to the Castello di Vezio after breakfast.  It was a hot day again and the morning is the time to make the trek up the hill.  From our hotel we had a head start from those starting in the street below so we had that going for us as well.  Not that it was a race mind you, but we might as well start 1/4 of the way up the hill.  

We encountered the gentleman you see in the picture weedeating the trail; he was not happy about the hazy view and told us tomorrow would be a better day.

 

 

It was a nice 30 minute hike up the hill, we consistently were a solid 25% longer on every hike in Italy than the signage indicated, and we arrived at the entrance promptly at 10am, not realizing that was the opening time for the biglietteria (tix office).  We purchased tix and a two espresso, we just couldn't get enough and the hotel had a self service machine instead of a true espresso.  We then headed up to the castle, noting the multiple bird cages they had on site.  The castle has regular falconry demonstrations, unbeknownst to us (wish the hotel would have told us), however they were in the afternoon and not on Mondays, which was when we visited.  Alas the castle, while small and decorated with the worst suit of armor I've ever seen, had some remarkable views.  That was after I climbed the last set of stairs and pulled the rock and rope to open the door to the top of the tower.  Kathie and I wagered that the other couples we saw walk into the tower didn't make it onto the roof due to the closed door.  

 

 

 

After taking a wrong turn looking for what we thought was a waterfall on the way back down the hill we ran into a real nice couple.  They were American, Hawaiian is my bet, and they told us where we went wrong and described the trail to the Fiumelatte, the shortest river in Italy.  It measures only 250m from the inside of a cave and runs down the side of the hill into Lake Como.  We hiked down to the hotel and then over to the source of the Fiumelatte, 

 

Unfortunately I couldn't find a good spot to get in for a swim, didn't need to get hurt this close to the end of the trip anyway, although I used the nearby fountain diverted from the river to cool off and enjoy some tasty mountain water.  

We headed back to the hotel for riposo after the nice morning of hiking, enjoying lunchmeat and formagio purchased at the macelleria the day before for a late lunch.  

After a lazy afternoon we headed out to Varenna and what some call the most romantic restaurant on Lake Como, Ristorante Vecchia Varenna.  As we sat right on edge of the lake the storm that had been brewing all day finally cut loose.  We watched from the nice patio room, protected by large plastic windows, as the storm marched across the lake and we dined on local white wine and risotto with lake fish as a primi piatti.  I had the most delicious rabbit with olives and capers over humus, Kathie had lake fish wrapped in bacon.  Mine was far better, usually that is not the case.

After a lovely meal we set off, just after 10, looking for gelato.  It was a Monday night and the first 2 shops we found were closed, but then we ran into a gelateria with the window still open.  I paused for a moment and the sweet lady inside stopped mopping and asked if I wanted some gelato.  My answer was a big smile and a double pistacchio please. 

Another lovely day in Italy.

Varenna-Lake Como

From the Stelvio Pass we continued west on SS38 into Bormio for lunch and gelato at a little cafeteria, saving some cash.  Eleven Euro for the two of us then a couple more for gelato, as if we'd skip gelato.  From Bormio we continued west to Lake Como and the quaint town of Varenna.  The town is a small village perched on a little outcrop of mountain.  We ventured to our hotel, the Albergo Eremo Gaudio and the view of Varenna and Lake Como was real pretty.

 

 

Our hotel was built right on the side of the mountain, in multiple buildings up the side of the hill.  The parking, reception and restaurant, and we beleive a few rooms, we on the lowest level.  To reach our room, the Bellagio, and many others further up the hill, we had to ride two different elevators.  It was quite odd, the lowest elevator had a key, as did the building above.  The elevators were windowed with views of the lake, but in the afternoon those glass elevators heated up like a sauna in mid July.  They were hot, make you sweat just standing there, but our first two days of the visit had a bit of a heatwave come through the lake area.

The view from the balcony of our room, the lowest level full lake view room, was lovely:

Here's the hotel and our room from the lake:

We walked down to town and the along the lake, but Saturday night was just too crowded.  Lots of tourists, which of course we are, and we've pointedly  realized that environment is not what we're looking for on our vacation.   After 6 weeks in the country we think of ourselves almost as locals.  Funny huh, but true.  I'd much rather find where the locals eat, however it was late and the pizza smelled good at the Albergo del Sole Pizzeria so we grabbed the only available table and ordered a liter of house white wine.  The pizzas were good, we were thirsty and the wine was going down good, until I cut my finger on the decanter.  I pointed out the chip in the handle to the waitress as I ordered our next 1/2 liter of wine, she apologized and brought a band-aid.  It was just a scratch but at this point I had to put on the band-aid.  Our discussion was lively, talking about redoing the house, and it was warm, so yes, we rounded out the night with another 1/2 liter of the house white, a nice 2 liter evening.  The waitress brought the bill and they didn't charge us for the final 1/2 liter, not much better than free wine!

Our next morning was lazy, breakfast and just napping, relaxing was high on our list of needs for the trip.  We headed out around noon for a walk to 

Villa Monastero, located down the hill.  It was a nice walk around the grounds, the villa has about 1km of lakefront, and the estate was beautiful.  It was built recently, about four hundred years ago.  I really liked the bathroom, check this thing out, nice deep tub and a great backdrop:

The lake was beautiful from the gardens:

 

 

We headed down to the lakefront in town to grab some food, a little pizza and such.  It was very hot and the place had sundaes with gelato, naturally we enjoyed them.

 

 

We stopped at a macelleria on the way back to the room, picking up some salame, proscuitto and formaggio, as well as some crackers, for an evening snack and lunch the following day.  We then headed to the hotel for some relaxing and to watch the sunset.

 

Another wonderful day in Italy.

Alpe di Siusi--aka paradise

We headed north from Vicenza into the Alps, a place that we'd never visited.  As a young Private in the Army I was cautious with our beater Alfa Romeo, literally paid $500 for it from a PCSing E-5, and sold it for that same amount when we left.  In retrospect it probably would have made a mountain trek, but newly married, with an infant, in a foreign land and little money kept us away from the big mountains.  

Anyway we ventured north to Bolzano and stopped off for a visit to see Otzi, the mummified iceman that lived over 5000 years ago.  We were a bit confused that we took a wrong turn when we entered the town as all the road signs, and even the salespeople and museum workers later corroborated, were first in German then Italian.  We were still in Italy, however the proximity to Austria and the history of this region as a part of Austria years ago has lead to German being the first language; we didn't necessarily like that.  However, Otzi is one of the most awesome finds in modern history, removed from the ice in the Alps just about 100 meters from Austria inside South Tyrol, Italy back in 1991.  We were actually stationed in Vicenza at the time of the discovery and I remember it well, however he wasn't put on display until many years later, a full facility needed built in Bolzano not to mention the dispute of which country should "own" the Iceman.  But Kathie was digging around on the web and found Rick Steves' info about him and we were hooked.  

Unfortunately no pictures are allowed in the museum, which houses all kinds of aritifacts found with Otzi including his axe, bow, bearskin hat, shoes, etc.  It was really interesting to view all these items as well as the mummy himself.  Otzi is kept in a ice box with a small observation window, maybe 2 foot square, that you can see him through.  We waited in line about 30 minutes outside, just enough time to grab a gelato and spill it on my shirt, but inside there was little wait and plenty to see.  We actually went through the line to see the mummy twice, out of courtesy to not stand in front of the window too long, it was really cool.  A little morbid, but to see and understand that this guy, who was murdered somewhere betweeen 3350 - 3100 BC, was frozen and mummified for eternity is a powerful thing to experience.  His discovery re-wrote the Copper Age, realizing it was a full 1000 years before scientists had previously believed, its just remarkable.  I'd highly recommend visiting Otzi if you have the chance.

We didn't spend any further time in Bolzano as we were heading into the Alps and we like to get to our destination well before dark, its hard enough driving over here let alone in the dark on a mountain.  So we loaded up from the parking garage, Bolzano has several near the center of town that make a visit very easy, and we headed to Alpe di Siusi to see the Dolomites, one of the most attractive mountain ranges in the world.

We arrived at our hotel, the Steger-Dellai, and were immediately in awe.  I knew this was going to be a winner when I booked it, however like much of this trip the hotel overdelivered.  Immaculate, new and with a German run efficiency that we weren't ready for just knocked our socks off.  Breakfast and dinner included, a spa downstairs that was hard to leave, and cool clean mountain air that was quite refreshing after the steamy Italy we've experienced the last two weeks.  

After a brief tour and getting settled into the room we decided it was the perfect time for little spa action before dinner.  Let's just say we've never experienced a spa in Europe and as we were checking out the different options, saltwater spa, steam room, sauna, laconicum, cold room, etc. I noticed a woman changing, without any clothes on.  I said something quietly to Kathie, she thought maybe we were in the woman's side but just then a guy came out of the shower butt naked.  Yep, I'm talking pretty much everybody down there was only wearing a towel, and that came off when hitting the rooms or the showers!  Now let's get a couple things straight, these weren't college dorms, the people were much closer to 60 than 25 and that makes quite a difference when a naked person enters your viewing area.  So then the next step is how do the shy Americans proceed?  On this day we held ourselves close to the vest, keeping our bathing suits on and limiting our time in the spa.  Let's just say that after a good hike the following day this American lived by the saying "When in Rome do as the Romans do."

We spent the next three days hiking, enjoying some awesome meals, admiring the absolutely stunning landscape and revelling in the spa (Kathie enjoyed a full on treatment special of facial, aloe wrap, massage, mani & pedi-----I did enjoy a great massage) and the hospitality of the  "Swiss Missess and Swiss Mister".

We had our first celebrity encounter on the trip in Compatsch, the little gathering of shops and information point in the large meadow.  As I was trying to get money out of an empty Bancomat (ATM) Kathie heard a familiar voice.  The guy and his companion started to walk away when she turned and told me she thought it was Rick Steves, you know the European travel guru.  Heck I didn't know so I called out "Hey Rick."  Sure enough he turned around and we walked over and chatted with him.  Kathie was super excited introducing herself and me, we then complimented him on his writings and told him we've used quite a bit of it for our 6.5 week Italian adventure.  That perked his interest so he asked a little about the trip.  We told him about starting in Palermo and working our way north, next venturing to Lake Como.  He was in Alpe di Suisi working on his newest book and asked us what we thought of the area and what we'd done so far.  We were headed out for day 3 of hiking at the time and told him of some of the area we'd seen, he was genuinely interested as well as complimentary toward the area and the ski lift accessibility.  We enjoyed our couple minutes talking, he commented how some of the folks he was leading on the tour (who were out hiking at the time) were from Cincinnati as well.  If there is anybody in the world who has a better job than that guy I'd like to meet them.  

Alpe di Siusi is the largest Alpine meadow and hosts lots of skiers in the winter, however in the summer the place is choked full of hikers and using the lifts to get up some of the more difficult areas, to continue your hike, is such a great way to get around.  Plus there is a bus through the area and the road is basically shutdown all day except for locals or by special pass, so traffic is limited.  If you like day hiking I cannot recommend a better place to go, the food is good, the views are spectacular, the ease of movement is wonderful.  I think a week could be spent exploring and hiking the meadow and the Dolomites in just this area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much of the meadow is farmed, hiking through grazing cattle was an everyday occurence. What was really funny was the bells the cows wore, nothing like that in my 3 years of dairy farming.  The bells were audible a long way from the cows, sitting on the rock in the picture below I could hear cow bells coming from cattle grazing near the restaurant in the picture.

 

While Kathie headed back after lunch to get her treatments, we enjoyed some outstanding dumplings and Prosecco at the building just above the orange mark on the rock in the below picture, I continued my hike up to Piano Sassio, 3000m elevation, and took in the view.  This place is just amazing.

 

 

 

I have far too many pictures that fail to capture the magnificent beauty of this place so I'll just end them here.  

I will add a few shots of some of our wonderful Northern Italy cuisine, good stuff I tell you:

Our menu from the Hotel Steger one of the nights:

 

And seriously, do you really need this much silverware:

 

Suckling pig and ribs

 

Cordon bleu

 

Spinach dumplings with cheese

 

Witches' pasta

 

Mountian pine dumplings

 

My first ever ostrich was phenomenal.

 

Some of the deserts:

 

My favorite lady and my desert:

 

 

If you venture to Italy and enjoy hiking, and then relaxing in a health spa to refresh your legs, well the Hotel Steger-Dellai is the place for you.  As long as you aren't too worried about high speed wifi, it wasn't very good at all in the hotel.  But the staff, especially Lubo who left our last night to prepare for seminary school in Slovakia, was tremendous.  While the Germanic scheduling of dinner, 6:30-9:00 (no joke in Rome we didn't leave our room until 9:30 to go find a restaraunt), and the prominence of the German language, which frankly is harsh and gruff sounding compared to Italian, did surprise us and "pressure" us a little. "You vant da weinkart?"----seriously WTF does that mean.....oh, "Would you like the wine menu?" We had a great time in Alpe di Siusi, I'm sure you'd love it.

Auf wiedersehen........see, Arrivederci is so much better.