Nick's highlights of Italy

Amazing!


Rare is the opportunity to spend a solid month with ones nearest and dearest, so I'm feeling really lucky. It was the kind of once-in-a-lifetime experience, I guess. Fortunately, we quite like one another and enjoy being together, so that helps.


My highlights were visiting Montecassino and Assisi. Not simply because they are iconic monastic sights, but they are beautiful in themselves and glorious places to go.
Lake Como was perfection - mountains, lakes, pretty villages, friendly people - and would be hard to beat anywhere.


Driving across Europe was rather fun. Drivers are respectful in France, neat and orderly in Switzerland, and mad as snakes in Italy! The country where white lines are nearly guidelines, speed limits are suggestions, and most vehicles seem to have bumps and scratches! They don't so much travel, they kind of pour themselves down the road like good olive oil, following the path of least resistance, speeding along good naturedly. I did all the driving in Italy, so I am relieved to have returned my family in one piece.


So now I'm hankering to return. We didn't waste a minute whilst we were there, and will continue to live the experience.


Thank you to my wonderful family for a great time.


Nick

Jude's Highlights of Italy

I thought Italy was awesome and beautiful.  It had good food but not good drinks, except for the hot milk with cocoa sprinkled on.   The food I liked best was pizza and gnocchi and I ate lots of it.  The puddings looked nice and it mostly was nice.  Italy has the best ice cream in all the countries on earth.  Ice cream is called gelato in the Italian language.

The first house we stayed in was my favourite because it was the nicest.  It was in Verona and we had to go up in a lift or lots of stairs.  My two second favourite houses were in Rome and near Lake Como.  I liked going out in Verona and the to the local supermarket which was called Pam.  In lake Como I liked playing on the beaches and climbing on rocks.  I had fun playing in the dead ruins (Herculaneum) and it was very sunny.  The weather before when we went up the volcano was very misty and rainy and cold.

I might come back to Italy some day because it is awesome and fun.

Jude

Swiss Coke ~ 10 April

Today we drove across Italy, Switzerland and France. I needed to pee at least 4 times and I bought a Swiss coke zero which looks quite cool next my Italian Coke. My brothers owe me 40p between them because for some reason they thought the French flag was either RWB or WRB but of course they were certain it was that way, although I told them that I was pretty sure it was BWR but they didn't believe me. When we got to Switzerland everyone wondered, except me, why the Swiss cars sometimes had CH on them and on the border it said 'welcome to Switzerland CH' and of course even though I said it was the letters that represent their country like GB is Great Britain, it took quite some convincing and a road map to get them to believe me, but hey ho. As it turns out they use CHF, Swiss francs, in Switzerland instead of euros. We had some nice cake and it was delicious. So it's worth noting if you go to Switzerland that they use Swiss francs. 

After that short story shorter we drove to Metz. Found the hotel, walked round. It was a very nice city but surprisingly my Mum didn't suggest that we should buy a holiday house there? We bought some chips from a burger place and after eventually getting what we wanted to get, somehow there was some confusion, we went back to the hotel. But, interestingly the man in the burger doo-dah thought me and my Dad were German. No clue why??? *I do know why* and besides, if we were German I'm sure we'd speak much better French! So after that toe-tickling tale of terror we watched Iron Man the Third. Which made surprising sense even though it was in French. Some people who don't die try and kill Iron Man who then tries and kills them. After this effortlessly exhausting day we decided to turn in for the night.

|_~1 day later~_| 

Oh joy, I have missed out an 'important' part of our journey so I have to write it here. We went on a boat for 10 mins across the lake at the beginning. 

Also I learned loads more useful French in the 20 hours we spent there, and a lot of that was spent sleeping,  than I had at school??? Which is good because they would give me strange looks if I told what colour hair I had and that I sometimes wear jeans because it gets cold in Britain.

~Zach~

Near crushed experience ~ 9th April

Note that nobody was harmed in the events that follow.

As it was our last full day in Italy :( we had to do something extra special; so, we decided to visit the town of Como itself. Como is the capital city of the surrounding areas which therefore had the lake named after it (Lake Como~Lago Di Como). We walked (quickly) to the bus stop and caught a bus to Como. The bus driver could of warned about the scary corners and lumps in the road. Unfortunately it would have been in Italian. After the ride (no-one was sick surprisingly) we started walking towards "the place that is ahead of us" (quoted by our dad). Later we bought takeaway pizzas and ate them in a square by the side of the lake. Later that night, back in Bellagio, we walked to a fancy 'Ristorante' and ate pizza (yes more pizza!)

Reuben 


P.S my next blog post will be a sum up of our (mostly) brilliant holl and will contain a lot of stats including 'how many pizzas eaten' and 'Aprox how many miles of driving'

Snails on red bull: A sincere concoction of the tales of our travels in Varrena ~ April 8th

So once again the duty of this confounded blog has fallen to me. Oh Joy. But anywho, today we caught the ferry across to Varrena, at least that was when we found the right ferry.

When we did board the correct vessel we sailed REASONABLY slowly, like a snail after drinking 3 litres of red bull, across the Lago Di Como. As it turned out we had the whole boat to ourselves, although I do feel it was a missed opportunity because I'm sure there was lots more fun to be had on a pretty empty boat. I'm pretty sure there must of been some freebies somewhere even if it was just sugar, which might even of sped up the snails but it might just make them need the toilet. But yeah, those are just my deeply respected personal opinions. After we disembarked the ghost ship we started to walk round the town and walked through the narrow streets which the guide book specifically implored would be 'a gentle stroll through trafficless streets so you do not have to worry about cars' Well, what can I say, I think it must have been written in the 17th century before cars were invented or something because it was about as true as the earth is flat. Anyways we stopped at a tourist office and found our way to local castella. We were 'reliably' informed that one route would take us through the woods with lots of rocks to climb. Now, I don't know how similar Italian is to English but... I was expecting a nice wood with LOTS of trees and big rocks to climb. But sadly it turns out I was wrong because I was thinking 'Climb rocks, by invitation, through the woods, absolutely' Because normally there just happens to a big rock there because Obelix* put one there in Asterix and the enormously large rocks of Italy. And you climb them because it's fun. So I feeling quite happy and excited about this but as it turns out the person at the tourist was being quite hyperboletic about this. Because the rocks turned out to just be the many thousand stone steps which we had to climb but it wasn't quite as 'fun' as I was expecting. But anyway after that we saw a castle had lunch stopped at a cafe and had drinks and my parents had piadines and we played on a beach a bit later. And yes we did later go down the other route in case we had got a bit confuzzeled (confused and muddled) just to check but no, sadly there were no big rocks. That was basically our day :)

~Zach~

Bellagio

With the car securely locked away in an underground car park, today we set off on foot to explore Bellagio. Whilst we are actually staying in a hamlet 20 minutes walk above the town, it is a lovely walk down cobbled pathways. The town is obviously set up for tourists, but managed to have a quiet, understated atmosphere about it, and a slightly tumble-down feel to it.
A parallel grid of steep roads, impossible for vehicles, make up an area of shops and eateries. We lunched standing up with slices of pizza, and only sat down for drinks later (wine, of course, for the adults - it was after midday!). Hot in the sunshine, and surprisingly chilly in the shade, we wandered happily around for most of the day.
Finding a lakeside spot for the boys to toss stones, and for daddy to have a short nap, the views are impossibly lovely in every direction. Lake, mountains, boats, villas, botanical gardens and vertiginous lanes, I think we have fallen in love with the place!

Nick

Heading North ~ 6th April

We leave the green hills of Umbria and head back up north for Lake Como.  It is a long drive (around 7 hours) but a very beautiful one.  It helps that the sun has returned, although we can see snow on some of the highest mountains in the distance.  Once north of Umbria the landscape changes from magnificent hills to being rather flat, although still beautiful with plenty of green fields and trees. 

Once we reach Milan we can see the snow topped mountains in the distance and look forward to reaching the lake.  Soon the lake is in view and it is rather splendid with the mountains behind.  The drive around the lake is quite hazardous with very narrow lanes which don't look wide enough for two cars!  We reach Bellagio which is North East of Como and our home for the next few days.  We are greeted by the lovely apartment owners who show us around.  The apartment has lakeside views which really are breathtaking.  It is so beautiful here I know I will be sad to leave it and am already planning our next holiday here!

Diane