$18 and 27 minutes and we're in Switzerland!

On Monday, in a surprise move, the Sumners decided to go to Switzerland.  Lugano (a beautiful lake town) is just a few kilometers away from Como.  It looks and feels similar.  They speak Italian, eat Italian food, drive Italian cars, and sell Italian-made goods.  BUT!  They use francs instead of euros and they have tons of German beers.

It was a lovely day, and we spent a good deal of it walking along the lido, drinking beer.

Yep.  Beautiful.

I think the highlight of the day - besides, "OMG we went to Switzerland" - was during lunch.  I'm a big people watcher, and there was a table of three behind Joe's shoulder that I had my eye on.  This little garden gnome - hardly the size of a troll doll - ate a whole pizza by herself.  I am not kidding.  And the pizza was about a 10-incher.

She is my hero.

It's our last night in Italy - we head back to New York tomorrow and home to Denver on Wednesday.  It's been an amazing trip.  My Italian has gotten better.  My waistline has gotten bigger.  My love for ancient architecture and beautiful duomos, stronger.

A few notes, however.  Northern Italians are not as warm and open as Southern Italians.  They're not rude or aloof, they're just not quite as, um, welcoming.  I can kinda see why.  Venice is sinking and cannot possibly support the massive influx of tourists every year.  It's a love/hate relationship between the Venetians and the tourists.  Bellagio is tiny, but crammed with gawkers, pointing and elbowing their way into shop doorways and ferry lines.  I mean, Rome was/is crowded, but the city itself is spread out, as are the sights.  These smaller northern towns are finite in their city centers, and their tiny streets were not meant for large jostling crowds.  Also, things don't always run on time, and no one really seems to care that you're now late.  They don't mean to be mean about it, it just happens.  And in America, we have a certain expectation that if we yell loud enough we'll get our way.  In Italy, if you yell, they yell back and then the conversation is over - you are SOL.  Again, they don't mean to be mean about it, that's just what happens.

We (I) got fairly stressed out a couple of times - mostly because rude/ugly Americans were insisting on getting their way, and the Italians were having none of it...who can blame them.  Once Joe pulled me back from the ledge, I realized I was on vacation, and I shouldn't really worry if everything doesn't go right.  Nothing is perfect, and most things work themselves out in the end anyway.  And when they do work out, it's because an Italian genuinely cares that you fall in love with his/her country, culture, and people.  And we have!

We'll be back, but we'll do it differently.  We'll stay in low key places and do more day trips, hopefully contributing less to the problem that we ourselves create.

Thanks for traveling with us!  Ciao!

It's a twofer!

It was so late last night, and we were so tired from our day on the lake, I was asleep before I got around to dragging out my laptop.

So yesterday we bought an all day pass on the lake via the steamers.  It's a hop on/hop off system, and we thought that would be a fun way to see all the lake and get several stops in on the way.  Note to travelers: Como is a huge lake...giant!  And the steamers, while totally relaxing, are slow...and they stop EVERYWHERE.  It took almost three hours to get from Como (at the bottom of one part of the lake) to Bellagio (somewhere mid-lake).  Here's a map of the lake:

It's a long, long way on a slow steamer.

We wanted to have lunch in Varenna (two stops past Bellagio) and then spend some time there.  Unfortunately, three hours + up (and the same back) left us little time to do anything but eat lunch.  And, granted, the lunch was good, but it was glacially slow - perfect for an Italian afternoon, but not when your time is cut short because you're at the whim of a ferry schedule.  

So here's the lesson learned...choose your ship wisely (there are slow steamers and fast hydrofoils), and build in time for a long, slow lunch.  Because we'd missed buying the tickets for the fast boats, we were stuck with the steamer...as I said, we got back really late.

Having said all this, the lake is lovely.  We did some house hunting...

We think George Clooney's house is the one behind the Cyprus trees.  Hey, neighbor!

And this is how you do it...

And all the little towns...

Today, we were a little wiser (a little).  We had a 3pm tour of Villa Balbianello - the most beautiful villa on the lake, and a jewel in Italy's national museum crown.  You can only get there by a taxi boat (the ferries don't go directly there).  Our tour operator suggested that we go to Bellagio early, have a nice lunch, then hire a taxi boat to take us over to the Villa.  Sounds like a good plan.  We got up early and caught the first fast boat from Como to Bellagio.  Once there, we tried to book a taxi to take us over, and figure out how to get there and back in time to catch the last ferry back to Como.  Drama.  We decided to make it a bit easier:  Since Balbianello is in Lenno, we could go there, have lunch, wander around and then take a taxi boat, or walk to the villa...instead of stressing about getting out of Bellagio on time.  Drama.  

So we spent an hour in Bellagio.  It is beautiful.

We bought a ticket on a ferry and were finally in Lenno and relaxing.  We found the taxi boat guy and got that squared away...time for a nice lunch - with a view.

On to Villa Balbianello

You know you recognize it...it's one of the most photographed sites in northern Italy.  It's in Casino Royale, one of the Star Wars movies (Two, I think), and A Month by the Lake.

The site has been a monastery, a church, a residence, an abandoned home, and is now a national treasure.  I can't show you pics of the inside (a no-no), but here are some nice ones from the outside and on the grounds.  As you can see, the weather was fabulous today, as well.

It's sort of the Hearst Castle of Como.

This is Lizzardo DiBalbianello.  He waited with us until our tour started.

We got back to Lenno after the tour and relaxed with another lovely beverage while waiting for our fast boat home.  Turns out even fast boats are late - about 25 minutes late.  Drama.

All in all, Lake Como is a lovely place.  It's villages are picturesque.  The shopping is great.  The food and drink with a view is wonderful.  Next time, though, we'll stay in one of the smaller ports mid-lake and take better advantage of the fast boats.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Italy, and we haven't quite decided what to do?  Explore Como?  Explore another village on the lake?  Go to Switzerland?  Who knows!?  

Como is lovely, but I'm sooooooo disappointed and frankly embarrassed

First - the train ride from Venice was quick and easy.  Again, the train system in Italy (and most of Europe) is so great!  Since it's Friday, the crowds were a little pushier, but still not as bad as it probably was in the summer.  We said goodbye to Venice and began the last leg of our trip - Como.  A five minute taxi ride from the train station put us right at the front door of our hotel and directly across from the boat dock for Como on Lake Como.  This is the view from our balcony (Gratzie, Roberto!!!):

So pretty - you can even see the fall colors firing up!

We walked around for a bit getting our bearings, and then decided to go to the restaurant at the hotel: The Embarcadero.   Tons of good reviews.  The patio overlooks the piazza to the west and the lake to the north.  It was a beautiful evening, and I soon doffed my shawl in favor of the evening air.

A lovely evening...

Our waiter was a delight and loved that we tried our best to speak Italian - even helping us along - he was very funny and sweet.  And we were having a lovely time until this ASS HAT at the next table felt the need to throw a hissy fit because he had a voucher for the restaurant (which he did not have with him) and demanded his three course meal and bottle of wine.  He berated several of the waiters, fussed profusely that the wine he ordered did not have a year on it, bitched that "no one else had ever asked him for a voucher on his trip," and groused to his wife to "take notes: 'the Embarcardero is a piece of shit.'"  

If you know anything about me, you know that I was purple from holding my breath and absolutely in knots from resisting the urge to backhand the everlovin' shit out of this fucktard.  Whilst scurrying waiters did their best to appease this ass wipe, their boss tried his utmost to explain that he must have a voucher to exchange for payment to his company.  Butthead continued to harass the innocents but finally managed to order some dinner.  I heard him ask his cellophane wife, "What the hell is sea bream, anyway...it'd better be good."

He had on a shirt that read "Moby's"  an island pub.  I really wanted to ask if, in fact, he was Moby, because he certainly was a dick.

I noticed that even with all his bullshit bullying, he managed to drink every bit of his wine, slurp down all of his minestrone ("We're in Italy...oooo...minestrone...oooo that's different"), and eat all of his motherfucking sea bream.  

At one point he reached over to his stepford wife, grabbed her shoulder and said, "Can you honestly say that meeting me wasn't the best thing in your life?  I have never thought that you weren't trying your absolute best."  A minute later he said, "Yeah, I've got to watch it, or I'll become the ugly American."  Hey shit stain...you are way past ugly American.  Ugly American is a dot to you.  Yep.  I was seething.  Poor Joe was stretching out his biceps knowing that he might have to defend my kicking the last bit of shit out of this bastard.

I sooooo wanted to apologize to all the waiters for this behavior.  I sooooo wanted to rescue his wife from her bad decision-making.  Fortunately for this worm scum, this fucking worthless waste of space, this human piece of garbage, I finished my delicious dessert and we left before I made a spectacle of myself.

Note to all (and Joe and I are included in this):  Yes, America is a great country, but it's not the only country.  Yes, Americans are loud and proud, but we must choose when to exhibit our innate behavior - say, at a Raiders football game, a NASCAR event, or Saturday night at Hooters.  One of the things I love most about travel is that you get to see what other cultures are like...this evening's exhibition - brought to you by a total snot swipe - was disrespectful and disingenuous to the American culture.  I was ashamed and embarrassed by some cocksplat, and I hope that he wakes up tomorrow, naked, in a back alley with an ass pumped full of minestrone and a bread stick shoved up his nose.

Sigh.  Okay, rant over.  Tomorrow will be a lazy day - unless of course I see that fucking moron on the street somewhere...then my next post may be from jail.