Beautiful Day in Cinque Terre

We got into the town of Manarola, the second of the five villages of Cinque Terre, after changing trains from the fast train from Milan to the local train that stops at all of the villages. These five villages are small seaside fishing and farming communities with small boats going out to fish the local waters and vineyards and orchards terraced up the hillsides. Each has a road that reaches a parking lot some distance above town, but no cars get down into the villages. While historically the residents survived on fishing and agriculture, tourism is now the main business and the whole area has been made a national park to preserve it as it is. We reserved rooms in a 12 room hotel that Patty and I had stayed at before right on the harbor in Manarola.

A Day Over Lago Maggiore

We slept in late and had a great breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast, we drove around the south end of the lake and up to the town of Stresa, where we took a cable car from the lakeside, at an elevation of about 500 feet, to the top of Mount Mottaroni at 4,500 feet. The views over the Lake District were spectacular and since the top of the lake is in Switzerland, the Swiss Alps are looming just to the north.

After the gondola ride, we took our time driving south along the west side of the lake, through little towns, and stopping for espresso and gelato on the way. The Sunday evening traffic leaving the lake was bumper to bumper and crawled until we got past the south end of the lake and heading back north against the flow heading home to Milan at the end of the weekend.

Back at the hotel, we had dinner at the hotel, overlooking the lake.

Lago Maggiore

We got up, packed up and headed out of our Venice apartment and got the Vaparetto to the train station.  We got the 8:50 train to Milan, where we, after some consternation, finally located the Hertz car rental several blocks from the train station, and got the car and head north the lake district and Lago Maggiore.

Patty’s company owns a sunglass company, “Electric Visual” and one of their manufacturers has his factory near here and also has a sailboat on Lago Maggiore.  He gave us directions to the marina by text message as we drove from Milan. We found the marina and Davide, the owner of the factory hosted us for lunch then out to his sailboat.

We sailed close hauled across the lake, and around several small islands with mansions on them, one of which is still occupied by the same family that turned down Columbus’ entreaty to finance a westward voyage to India.

After a great sail, we got back to the dock about 8:00 p.m. and drove to our little hotel (which has been in operation since 1865) on the shore of the lake.  We had a late dinner in the restaurant and were ready for bed.

Touring Venice, Murano and Burano

On Friday morning we got up, had coffee and rolls at a little shop a few steps from the front of the apartment and headed over for the Vaparetto stop to head out for the day.  We first went to the train station to buy tickets for Saturday’s trip to Milan, and then got back on the Vaparetto and took it down the Grand Canal to the Rialto bridge.  We got off there and went over that famous bridge to the open markets on the other side.  Shopping was done and trinkets were acquired.

After the minor buying frenzy, we got back on and took the Vaparetto out to the island of Murano, famous for its glass making.  There, we found a grocery store (the “COOP”) and bought wine, bread, cheese, ham, shrimp, strawberries, cups and knives and found a spot for our picnic lunch.  The spot we found was right in front of a famous restaurant (Anthony Bourdain ate there is one of his television programs) and we had eaten there when taken there by a business associate of Patty’s on our last trip to Venice.  This time, we ate our picnic lunch on the base of an old town well and looked at the expensive dishes being brought out to the patrons on the plaza tables.

After wandering around Murano, we got back on the Vaparetto and took it out to Burano, famous for its lace and beautiful pastel buildings.

Heading back to the island of Venice, we got off of the Vaparetto on the opposite side of the island from our apartment and walked across, finding a little restaurant in a square for dinner.

After dinner, we found a great little shop selling very nice Murano glass and bought some very nice glass platters; one for Jim and Georgette to give as a gift and one for us as Patty’s birthday present.

We were glad to make it back to the apartment after a very long day and with rain starting to come down.

Made it too Venice

With a minor missed flight from Rome to Venice but got one 3 hours later. Jim and Georgette got the keys to the apartment and it is very nice. We had a nice dinner at a local trattoria.

Off to Northern Italy

Patty and I are boarding an Alitalia flight from LAX to Rome, where connect to a flight on to Venice. There we meet our friends Jim and Georgette Hicks and pick up they keys to an apartment we have rented for a couple of days.