Aix les Bains, France

What a whirlwind of a vacation but it's been very interesting and fun! John & I were talking tonight how that there are definitely things we'd do different but it's been quite an experience.

Attempting to learn enough of two languages to get along has been 'challenging' to say the least....
When we left Comogli on Monday morning, we thought we left in plenty of time to get to Genova, which is only about 20-30 minutes away by car. We didn't, however, bank on Monday morning traffic which was at a standstill quite a bit of the time. Our train left at 9:21 and we arrived at Avis at 9:00. At 9:05 we grabbed a taxi and asked the cab driver how far - and he informed us 15 minutes. John began to twitch, to put it mildly, and we were in for the run of our lives. We arrived at the train station about 2 minutes before the train left and began running through the station. We actually made our train - I couldn't believe it. We were both hunched over gasping for breath as the train took off. The main problem was that if we missed this train, we'd miss our connection and wouldn't get to France til close to midnight instead of about 6:00 p.m.

From there on our travels were uneventful, thank the Lord.The first thing I did when we got into France was BREATHE. Everything was so open and just beautiful that I could hardly stand myself. It looked exactly like the tour de France pictures you see when you watch. Just these rolling, green, lush hills and then in the distance snow-capped peaks of some huge mountains. It was amazing. The city of Aix les Bains was very very cute - strange and stressful traffic but our hotel was this huge old building in the middle of town.

The first thing we learned was that this beautiful hotel had no a/c, but did have a fan so we were heartened. After a great dinner we headed back to be greeted by an incredibly stifling room with no airflow even with the fan on. It was a long evening.....John took Ambien so he was happier than me.
Stage 9 of the Tour! We decided to catch the stage a little over halfway in a little town called Albertville. It was a great place! We met a great family that we had lunch with and hung out with them for the remainder. The riders came through on a down-hill and they FLEW. It was something. You do wait around for about 4 hours but there are great "parades" that come through while you're waiting and they throw goodies and food to you. ;>)
That evening was probably even worse for the heat in our hotel. We did find out that two of the Tour teams were staying in our hotel - Cofidis and Sky and we saw some of them at breakfast! Of course, both John & I were exhausted from being out in the sun all day but there was this really bad bad thumping away til midnight right next door to us, so that coupled with the heat meant that we didn't get much sleep.....even Lance Armstrong commented on Twitter that it was "possibly the hottest night's sleep I've ever had."

Because of our location in Aix les Bains we were actually able to catch the beginning of Stage 10. We're both soooo glad that we did because it was incredible! Of course, you do wait around for HOURS but we got right up next to the start so we were able to see the main riders (jersey riders) up close and personal! It was amazing! Here are a few photos - you can pick out Lance in the last one! I stood up on the railing at the very front and got some great shots!
From there we headed to Geneva - only about an hour or so, and our hotel here has a/c, thank God. We both fell asleep immediately for almost 2 hours......

Tomorrow is a day in Geneva and then we head to London to visit Amy and Karl. We are ready to come home - it's been great but we're missing everyone.....

THE Hike

The hike that was recommended by a few friends is one that covers about 4 little towns in the Cinque Terre region. Since we're staying outside of this area, we took a train to get there and so the day began.....

We decided to start from the "end" and go the opposite direction, which really doesn't matter too much because you have to take a train either way to get back. This hike is basically split into 4 sections and you can pull out at any town and quit. From the "beginning" the first section is written to be about 20 minutes long and takes you to the next little town. This is very flat. The next section is slightly hillier, and so on. We started at the other end thinking that it would be less hot at the beginning since we were starting late in the morning, and also because we were fresher.
Very good move.

The first two of our sections were extremely challenging with more steep climbs and descents than I've done in a VERY long time. Brutal. We took 3 water bottles and downed them in the first section. Luckily this section lasted about 1.5 hours. Here's a sample of what we climbed:
We came to the town of Vernazza and ate lunch, took a break, and refilled the water. From there we started section 2 - almost as brutal as the first but not quite as long. We decided to combine that section with section 3 which was about 45 minutes. We came to the town Camiglia and had gelato and John took a dip in the ocean.

All in all the hike was incredible. The views were well worth the drenching sweat and gasping our last to get there. We were pretty tired but very happy at the end.

Awesome day!

Thank God for Comogli!

So things weren't looking t0o swell for the Weber family over here in Italy, and we left Como in really low spirits. The drive towards Genoa was crazy, as usual, but I'm becoming quite the Italian driver while I'm here and so it wasn't too bad. :>)

Arriving in Comogli, which is actually outside of Cinque Terre we were met by some wonderful views of the Gulf of Genoa - part of the Mediterranean Sea. Our hotel is FANTASTIC and we couldn't be more excited than if you'd given us winning lottery tickets. The place is beautiful with absolutely stunning views of the Gulf. We have a pool and the beach is WAY down below us because everything in this area is on a cliff! We were totally spent and after lunch decided to just veg for the afternoon at the pool. Well worth it - the pool was even salt water! Notice the little sea kayaks at the bottom - we're thinking about this....Check out the picture of John - you can actually look into the pool from the lobby.....
Tomorrow we catch a train to Maggiore to do the 5 hour hike across the different little towns on a cliff path. We're very excited! More updates then......

Como

Leaving Verona was a little bittersweet but we'd heard such wonderful things about the Lake Como area that we were pretty excited to go. The lake itself is just beautiful, surrounded on all sides by these wonderfully lush mountains with more species of trees than I have ever seen in one place. I couldn't even begin to count how many there are!

We stayed at Hotel Larius in Como. That morning I had looked back in my guidebook about the town of Como and one of the first things I saw was, "Not the best place to stay as is an industrial town." That didn't really make us feel a lot better about where we were staying, and to be honest, it was quite accurate. There's nothing attractive about the town and the place where we stayed made me think of some very questionable neighborhoods in NYC. We even asked the manager if it was safe to walk around. Apparently it was.

The first thing we decided to do was to turn in our car and save some money by training it from Como to the Cinque Terre, so we headed to Avis. Come to find out we'd rented the car for 5 days and, although they told John he could turn it in whenever, the fee was incredible. However, we were still saving about 400 E by doing this so we did it.

We found out that Como has a beach so we paid 19E to go and lay on it. The first thing you notice is that it's not really a "beach" like ours - more of gravel and it was roped off from the water, which was really dirty and uninviting anyway. But it was a place to lay out and relax, away from the massive crowd of people up from us in the small pool. John finally got too hot and went to get in. When he came back he said that everyone was wearing swim caps that was in the water.....we found out later that this is not necessarily required but highly suggested to keep an eye on people in the water. Interesting.

The next day we took a ferry boat ride (about 2.5 hours) over the Lake and that was really wonderful. We took it all the way down to Belaggio (pronounced Beh-LAH-joe) and walked around and had lunch. Very cute little town on the hillside! We decided to head back on the fast boat which is a hydro-planing boat that took about 45 minutes with stops along the way. It was a really fun afternoon.


This is a great shot because of the hair!! :>)

John was having some trouble reserving us tickets online for the train the next day so we decided to walk the 20+ minutes to the train station and get them that evening. After walking there and standing in a very slow moving line for about 20 minutes, we found out that the trains were all striking the next day. I thought John was going to have an aneurysm. Of course Avis had already shut down for the evening so there was no way to see if a car was even available for us the next day to head to the Cinque Terre and we really didn't like Como enough to want to stay there another night.

Not much to be done about it though, so we headed to bed. I didn't mention this earlier but from midnight to 6 a.m. the a/c shuts down in the hotel. We found that out the first night after both of us waking around 3 a.m. burning SLAP up. John called the front desk and the guy thought something was wrong with the whole system. Thankfully he had a fan which we took. By the next morning it was working fine. When we mentioned this to the manager wondering what had happened she informed us that they have to do it because the noise from the a/c unit is too loud for the neighborhood. Lovely, right? So armed with Ambien (John) and the fan, we fell asleep.

Thankfully we got a car from Avis first thing the next day and we headed out ASAP.

Verona

Our train trip to Verona was quick and easy thanks to sitting first class. The town/city of Verona is really wonderful and less crowded than anywhere we'd been so far so we immediately loved it. Our hotel - Hotel Bologna - was right next to Arena de Verona and we could literally take about 50 steps and be in the square.
The first amazing thing to take in was the Arena de Verona which was a Roman building and still houses operas all summer long and throughout the year. When we started walking around it we noticed these huge Egyptian pieces roped off outside of the building. As we got closer we realized it was actually the set pieces of the opera Aida which was playing the day after we left. They were using cranes to move the set in. What's really cool is that they pretty much alternate operas every day or every other day, so they have to move entire sets in and out like this very fast. Here's a shot:
We spent the afternoon roaming around the city and doing a little shopping and touring Castleveccio. Here is a view from the top of the castle of the city. Beautiful, huh??

Of course I had to go to Juliet's house and see the balcony and statue which was great!
Since we were in Verona for only one day we wanted to see and do as much as possible. We really toyed with the idea of coming back on the 8th of July to see the Aida but we would've had to eat the cost of our 2nd night hotel in Como, plus train cost, plus ticket costs, plus a new hotel. So sadly enough we opted out. Here's something else that's cool - since the theatre is totally open they don't begin the operas til 9:15 p.m. because it's too hot for the singers to have to sing and dress up! So we wouldn't have gotten out of the opera til almost 1 a.m. anyway. Crazy!

We loved Verona and would've liked to have spent more time there. Here's a shot of me and a couple of these great mimers/actors in Verona who dress up or act crazy for a little cash.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Couldn't resist....and I'm sure I'll add more as we go.....

A wonderful salad from Siena - most salads here in Italy are NOT good....

My awesome purse that was actually MADE in Florence. Am too scared to take it anywhere with me right now so it's safely waiting in John's suitcase. :>)


This is my kind of meal - well, part of a meal. They have wonderful fresh fruit and I eat it pretty much constantly. The food here is some of the best I've ever eaten but I can't handle the heaviness for every meal - or every day for that matter.

Need I say more??? :>)

Venice Day 2

My husband is a genius. Our second morning in Venice had us in a 'real' room with a/c that worked. And we think this was the room we were originally supposed to be in, so there you have it!
The rain stopped and the weather turned sunny again and we were met in the B&B Lobby by Alessandra, the manager & sister of our chef. She was a 'friend' immediately and we headed out to meet Sebastiano in the marketplace. We did our shopping for the items that we'd need and that was actually a lot of fun. They have items that we don't have in the U.S. - one is a huge artichoke. They only use the bottom part of it and it's about 5" diameter across the bottom. Their tomatoes here are incredible and most of you know that I don't eat tomatoes. That is, until I came to Italy! They have numerous kinds and they're all fresh, which obviously is the key.
John was right up under Sebastiano having the time of his life! We arrived at the apartment that we were using for the lesson and began. I wasn't real excited about the prospect of putting this all together but after Sebastiano asked if I wanted to deal with egg whites and I kinda smiled and said, "That's okay..." he realized that I was there to take pictures for the most part, and he & John did the work! The meal was about 3 courses and took about 3 hours or more to prepare. John ate it all up and I hit it off really well with Alessandra because we both were singers and loved classical music! So I took pictures and we chose different cd's to play while they were working and had a great time.
One of the photos you'll see I actually did help some and that was alright - nothing too weird or confusing!
At the end we were given certificates of completion and we were given our aprons to keep. John was ecstatic over the entire event and I must say it was a blast.
Afterwards we decided to walk around Venice and "get lost" as per instructed by many people. I love this city - it's a maze but small. Crowded but nothing crazy and there are shops everywhere and fascinating sights all along the way. We ran into a lady in a piazza that was dressed in 17th century costumes and she was advertising a concert that evening in San Marco's Square. It was a chamber orchestra with singers. John & I immediately perked up at this and bought 2 tickets.

After all the wanderings we realized we had just enough time to eat, grab a Gondola ride, and hit the concert. The Gondola ride was a blast! It cost a small fortune but well worth it. The concert was in a small church right across from St. Mark's Cathedral and the acoustics were extremely live. The chamber group was absolutely stellar - the cellist is probably one of the best I've heard and the violins and viola (and cello) were so tight that it was a pleasure to watch. The first singer was a soprano and as soon as she opened her mouth John & I started smiling! She was really quite wonderful. They had a tenor, as well, who did some incredible arias. We weren't as crazy about his "style" more than anything but he was solid as a rock. We had an amazing evening and we were sad to leave.

We were smart enough to catch the water bus back to the train station instead of trying to haul all our luggage over three thousand stairs again..... :>)