It's Italy Again but It's Springtime

Tues 4/10- Fri 4/13/18 I still had in mind a visit to Varenna so we set out to first visit Dongo, site of Mussolini's capture and execution, and the plan was then to take the ferry from Menaggio to Varenna. The weather was pleasant though the forecast was for showers later and off we went to Dongo which is a bit further north on the lakeshore. There is a WWII museum in Dongo dedicated to the events surrounding the Mussolini capture that I wanted to visit though Dick was less than enthusiastic. The drive up the lakeside was beautiful with the distant Dolomites with their snow visible for the first time in a few days and we arrived in Dongo without incident and somewhat accidentally pulled into a parking lot that turned out to be the site of the museum. The museum was a strange little place of multiple small rooms separated by heavy drapes with each room with some sort of audio visual display. This part of north Italy was a very active partisan position and it's not someth...

4/9/18 It's a gloomy, gray day with continuous drizzle but we can't spend the day at home so we decided to drive along Lake Lugano to check out a different lake. Despite the fog and mist, the lake is another beautiful lake and the drive along the shore was nice and we saw a nice waterfall on the way. Lake Lugano Lake Lugano Photo taken from car because there was no place to stop On the way home we stopped for a piadina (an Italian flatbread sandwich) for lunch and by the time we were arriving back at the apartment, the rain had stopped and there was some sunshine trying to poke through the clouds so we drove down to Lake Como to take a walk along the lake. Pretty view over Lake Como Unique church steeple We also stopped to take a look at Lake Como's only island. Lake Como's only island We came home to make a dinner of pasta with the remaining guanciale and porcini's accompanied by Dick's special garlic toast.

4/8/18 Another cloudy, hazy day that obscured the snowy peaks of the Dolomites but pleasant despite the haze so we went to visit Villa Carlotta, a beautiful villa built in the late 1600's. The house contains a variety of art including some modern art by Giovanni Frangi that does some really strange modern art, both paintings and sculptures. I thought the sculptures on exhibit in the house were an elementary school students project and the ones in the garden were equally underwhelming. "Sculptures" by Frangi Outdoor "sculpture" Sculpture by a student of Canova The garden of the villa is absolutely gigantic with paths that go far up onto the hill behind the house and all the way down to the level of the lake. View of entry from top level of house View of Bellagio across the lake, taken from the house We spent a couple or so hours at the villa, primarily in the garden. It's beautiful despite that many of the plants haven...

4/7/18 Today we drove a narrow winding road to get to the town of Pigra in the mountains where there is a funicular that goes down to the town of Argegno at lake level. About half way down Argegno from the funicular It was a cloudy, hazy day so we couldn't see the Dolomites and it was a bit of the way down the mountain before we could even see the lake. Ideally, we would find a ferry to take us to some other town along the lake but we had a rather late start (because we were lazy getting up) and weren't able to find anything that would get us back to the funicular before it closed. We wandered around the town of Argegno, another town where all the roads perpendicular to the lake go very much vertically. River in Argegno on its way to Lake Como We drove back up into the mountains to the Swiss border then turned back and had a late lunch at a restaurant near the border. We had some different sorts of pastas than we have had before. I had one called "pizz...

A gorgeous day to visit Lake Como. We took a ridiculously circuitous route to get to the town of Menaggio where we were to take a boat to Varenna. Big disappointment was in store when there was ABSOLUTELY zero parking available (becoming a really annoying issue) so we continued along the lake to the town of Cadenabbia where there is a ferry terminal and a PARKING PLACE!! AND there was a ferry arriving. We quickly got our parking paid, ran to get a ticket and I really didn't care WHERE it was going as long as I had a boat ride on Lake Como before the anticipated weather change tomorrow. It turned out that it was going to Bellagio, a really elegant town on a long peninsula that protrudes into the lake. Bellagio from a distance Bellagio with snow capped Dolomites All the streets in Bellagio that are perpendicular to the shore involve long stircases More Bellagio t's quite touristy and wouldn't have been my first choice but the views from the lake were spe...

4/5/18 All packed and ready to go but we wanted to hit the farmer's market in Alba one last time even though we weren't going to buy anything that we had to haul with us. It's just fun wandering through the market and seeing what is there. Eels....ugly looking things Selling artichokes is easier if you trim them so nicely The drive to Dizzasco, our new place near Lake Como was just slightly complicated by a wrong turn and then not being able to find the place without stopping twice to ask for help. Our lodging is a 2 story house on the property of the owners plant nursery. There are two bedrooms and a bath downstairs and a kitchen and living-dining area upstairs so we're again in a place with lots of room to spread out. View from bedroom Living area Bathroom Bedroom Second bedroom being used to store cushions for outdoor furniture Kitchen/dining area We arrived around 3 so we had little time for anything other than the grocer...

4/4/18 Another gloomy drizzly day but we had yet to go to Barolo. There is a wine museum, a corkscrew museum and a tasting room there so there was plenty do do out of the rain. Or so one would think. Barolo castle. Actually, it's called Castello Falletti Castle Gate The enoteca (tasting room) is closed on Wednesday's (and yes, today IS a Wednesday.) The wine museum turned out to be the strangest museum we have ever visited. It was very dark, the signs telling you which way to go are confusing, and the exhibits were both uninformative AND uninteresting. They were almost cartoonish and also interactive in that there were handles to turn to provide more uninteresting and uninformative information. The corkscrew museum was more straightforward....corkscrews through history and at the end we were able to taste some Barolo's, the oldest that we tasted was 44 years old and sold for $500/bottle. We bought a case of it, of course....haha! Small sampling of ...

4/3/18 We woke to a gloomy drizzly day that progressed to a gloomy rainy day but, undaunted, we set out to go to the west of Alba to some small villages and also to the town of Bra, famous for a sausage that (as we later found out) is unavailable anywhere else. We stopped in the village of Cornegliano then passed though some other uninteresting places on the way to Bra. Gate to Cornegliano Medieval tower on hill behind church Cornegliano Church We were struck by the difference in the landscape. Despite still being in a region famous for its red wines, the land was much flatter and with large fields of non grape growing agriculture. Bra is a fairly large town and after walking around a bit in the main piazza and surrounding streets, we found a spot for lunch. It was a small rustic restaurant/bar with book shelves lining one wall and on a table on the way to the restroom was a giant book entitled (in Italian) "A Day at El Bulli" and another was an Alain Ducas...