Italy - Day 3 - Bellagio

I'm sitting inside our room this morning with the balcony doors wide open, the sunshine and birdsong streaming through, thinking I know exactly why Mr. Clooney paid all that money for his Laglio villa.  What a place.  It is so truly beautiful, with scenery to match the weather, that if I were to stop typing for a second I'm sure I would slip back into my recurring daydream where I found the pot of gold under that rainbow the other day and we're about to close on our own lakeside villa where we will drink wine and grow roses.

The flowers here are another spectacular part of the background.  Large, fragrant roses grow everywhere and it seems that dashes of colour fill every sun-soaked spot.  Perhaps it was a little redundant, then, to spend Monday morning wandering around a garden?  After breakfast we took off on foot towards the Villa Melzi, located on the other side of the peninsula.  Stopping only to lose my bank card in one of the local machines (we quickly got it back), we hoofed it across town taking in the quiet street scenes.

The Villa Melzi was built in the early 1800's by one of Napoleon's best pals.  As he tended to do with most of his friends, Napoloeon made the Duc Melzi d'Eril of Lodi the vice-president of the Cisalpine Republic, which governed northern Italy.  The Duc built himself a nice lakeside villa and put in a splendid set of gardens.  After getting past the guard ducks, we wandered past fish ponds with Japanese maples hanging over them and vast stands of azaleas, of which only the purple ones were still in bloom.  Apparently we missed the blooming of the rest by a week or so.  Closer to the house was another pond and fountain, this one covered in water lillies and backed by gorgeous stands of calla lillies.  Given that, the blue sky and the magnificent views across the lake, it was almost too much to take in at once.

We walked around the gardens, through the bamboo forest, under a stunning dogwood and into a small out-building that housed some of the Duc's mementos, including a set of posters showing all the Napoleonic royalty, set up almost as if they were from a trading card set.  I've got the Prince of Westphalia!  I'll trade you two Cisalpine Presidents for him!

It was a nice relaxing start to the day and we dragged it out as long as we could.  Eventually, after another round of sunscreen, we made it back to the town centre, where we had a cold drink and a gelato.  Lunch was a slice of fantastic prosciutto pizza in the hand while we wandered some more of the side streets of Bellagio.  Fiona found herself a new sun hat and I found myself hectored by the same old shopowner into buying a new hat as well.  She simply would not let me leave with my current hat, claiming such a warm hat would have ill-effects on my health.

Properly hatted, we made our way back to the marina to board a water taxi.  Fiona had arranged for a two-hour private tour of the lake.  Our guide was Luca, the third generation of his family to be touring the lake in the swanky Venetian-style cigarette boats, resplendent with polished wood and comfortable leather.

Luca opened a bottle of prosecco for us and took us around the various arms of the lake, regaling us with stories about the villas and the people who owned them, as well as with interesting facts about the lake.  We swung around the point of the peninsula and past our hotel, and then went across the lake to see Varenna, which had had some problems with landslides over the past few years.  Fiona got a great shot of the city, as well as of some tightly packed smaller houses, which turned out to be mausoleums, or, as Luca put it, "the last villa you ever enter".  The houses of Varenna were all brightly coloured so that the fishermen could see their homes in bad weather, although it was debated whether or not is was really meant for alcohol induced fogs.

While we thought we were touring in style, we came across another boat who could also lay claim to that.  It was a brightly painted car, with a patio umbrella sticking out of the middle, put-putting across the lake.  Quite cool.

From Varenna we went across the lake again to the sunnier, Como side.  There were magnificent churches and fabulous villas, some with 'No George' signs on the outside to warn the tourists that their villa was not Mr. Clooney's.  We saw Richard Branson's villa, which you can rent for the cool sum of $160,000 a week, and the villa where they shot some scenes from Casino Royale and Star Wars.  All the houses were beautiful and the stories about their owners interesting.

Sadly the tour did come to an end, and after getting some advice from Luca about Venice (and a contact for a boat tour there) we trouped back up to our hotel room.  Minutes later we were back out at the pool, taking a refreshing dip to wash away all the sunshine, sweat and sunscreen.  Properly energized we set out for dinner in town, at a restaurant recommended by Giovanna in our hotel.  Aces to her, because it was excellent.  We had a great starter of beef carpaccio and shared a lasagna pasta course.  I had a nice pork dish with a balsamic reduction sauce that was to die for.  Our tiramisu dessert came out with a little candle on top, a nice touch to celebrate my birthday.  We enjoyed all this while sitting outside, under an awning.  It will be a hard dinner to top.

Back at the hotel we caught up with Skype and some blogging while enjoying a drink on the balcony.  As the sky darkened and cleared, stars started appearing in the sky, just as I had been remarking that I felt bad for the people here due to the fact that the permanent haze must mean that they never see a great starscape.  I guess the man upstairs must have sent me a birthday present as well.

Interesting note as I sit here typing this morning, the bed is shaking back and forth a little.  Fiona's said the same about the balcony.  It must be a little earthquake.  I have to say that is the first time I've ever experienced that.

Don't worry, Mom, it was just a gentle sway, nothing major.

Italy - Day 2 - Bellagio

Our first full day in Italy dawned bright and beautiful with a lovely calmness out over the lake.  We both took some pictures from out on our balcony, but it's really hard to encapsulate it all when the smell of the roses and the abundance of pleasant birdsong is missing.  The pictures are still pretty to look at, though.

We eventually made it down to the restaurant for breakfast, which was a decent buffet including all the possible favourites from any and all nationalities that were visiting the hotel.  I write that, but then think there was a lack of pancakes and maple syrup for the Canadians.  With our bellies full we set off towards the centre of town, which in our case is around the corner and down a hill.  We didn't really have a plan, other than we needed to stop somewhere to buy sunscreen.  The giant ball of hydrogen-helium in the sky was intent on turning us a nice shade of crimson and we had to put up an adequate defence.  

Bellagio town centre is a nice warren of intertwining roads, all twisting and intersecting around a main passageway.  This would look, upon first glance, to be a pedestrian only thoroughfare, but cars and trucks seemed intent on making their way through the masses, making it necessary to duck into shops and stalls to avoid getting your toes run over.  Luckily a lot of the shops were quirky and quaint, and not the ridiculous tourist traps that you would expect in places this heavily trafficked by outsiders.  We did make a few purchases including an intriguing bowl made of plexiglass with wheat, flowers and grasses in between the layers.  We did find our sunscreen, which was good because the sun was getting  hot.  

After traversing the town we decided to head for the Punta Spartivento, the very tip of the peninsula on which Bellagio is located.  The name is indicative of what the point does, which is split the wind which comes from the north, sending some of it down George Clooney's way on the Como arm of the lake and the rest to the lucky inhabitants of Lecco on the other arm.  We got some good shots and pushed on back towards town to try and round up some lunch.

We found a nice restaurant right on the waterfront by the ferry terminal.  That sounds a little industrial until you take into account the fact that the Lake Como ferries are more like super-sized pleasure boats. We had a nice fresh lunch.  We shared our first, likely of very many, plate of prosciutto e melone, with some deliciously ripe melon and melt-in-your-mouth prosciutto.  Fiona then had her first spaghetti a la bolognese of the trip, a far cry from the decrepit "spag-bol"s they prepare in Scotland.  I had a nice tagliatelli with lake whitefish, which was quite tasty but odd in that the whitefish was ground and cooked to look almost like ground turkey.  We washed it all down with a bottle of the local Lombardy white.  We're doing quite well with the local wines -  two for two as it stands.  This was nice and crisp and refreshing, although a little too reminiscent of when we were younger and just married, drinking wines that tasted more like apple juice than anything grown-ups would choose.

After lunch we looked a list of about a half dozen local villas that we could tour and decided instead to march back to our hotel and spend a quality afternoon at the hotel pool.  The weather, as I've said already, was glorious and we soaked it up like the poor sun-deprived people that we were.  There is something about repeated dips in a crystal clear pool, followed by mojitos and sunshine that is just really good for the soul.  Someone should write a medical paper on that.

Dinner was at the hotel again, and for people who normally shun a fixed menu like it was poison, we chose it again.  Fiona had fresh pasta with a bacon, onion and tomato sauce, followed by a lovely piece of veal.  I had pasta with scampi followed by the veal as well.  A shared bowl of mixed gelatos went down extremely well at the end.

We spent the last few waking hours of the day marvelling at some pictures we took.  The ones that we really enjoyed were a few we took just before dinner.  About an hour before it started to rain.  There was a little thunder and lightning, but nothing more than a steady rain that worked its way from the northern to the southern end of the lake.  We thought it would help us get some better pictures by clearing the humidity based haze that hangs over the area.  While it eventually did that, it also did something even more spectacular.  Right outside our balcony, over the small marina in the bay, it hung a full, end-to-end rainbow.  It was so amazing.  I don't think I've ever seen both ends of a rainbow so clearly before.  On one end, by some houses we've been admiring, it doubled up and gave two clear bands of colour.  We stood and stared out at the spectacle for a good half an hour before it started to fade.  Fiona got some photos that I think do it justice, although they have the added feature of making it look like there was an entirely different weather pattern inside the rainbow.  It's these types of things I'll remember way more than any list of villas or museums or monuments.  It's these types of things that really make great vacation memories.

Italy – Day 1 – Aberdeen to Bellagio

The second of our three European Grand Tours – Southern France, Italy & Spain – started off in a well-organized fashion.  We had less trouble packing than we thought, considering we were going away for three weeks.  Neither of our bags were overweight and it somehow seemed less stressful getting everything together.  Perhaps all the travel we have done over the last four years left us with something more than great memories and clutch of fantastic photos.

            We didn’t even get stressed when we got to Aberdeen airport and saw a line up of about 300 people for security.  The queue snaked outside the security area and almost outside the airport door.  Considering that we had never seen more than 10-20 people in line, this came as quite a shock.  The little sign above the security area still helpfully blinked a message stating it would be only 4-8 minutes.  We figured the line would take about 30-40 minutes to work its way through.  This wouldn’t be a problem for anyone at any normal airport where people know to allocate sufficient time for security, but people come to Aberdeen airport expecting to breeze right through in 5 minutes or less, so a bunch of people got really antsy about missing their flights.  This led to queue-jumping, and if there is one thing British people will stand up for, it is the sanctity of the queue. 

            For us it all worked out with minimal drama, we made it on board our flight just as they were announcing last call.  We took a quick, painless hop to Heathrow, had a nice bite to eat and then boarded our flight to Milan.  Although it was about a half hour late taking off, it too was relatively painless and the cloudless skies gave us nice views as we came in to the city.  Milan Linate airport was smaller than we imagined, with only a 30 second bus ride from plane to terminal and an imminently manageable luggage pickup – we were the first bags on the carousel!  So in a matter of minutes we were at the car rental agency picking up the keys to our Hyundai.  A quick change of clothes later to accommodate the increase in temperature and we were on the motorways of Milan, snaking through the city and heading north towards Lake Como.

            I always worry a little bit about driving in a foreign country.  First there is the rental car – you always get something with a super loose clutch and there is nothing more embarrassing than stalling out twice in front of the car rental people.  But in this case the car was fine and I have yet to stall it out.  And going back to a manual after more than a year of driving an automatic really was no problem.  Secondly, there is the fact that you have no idea where you are going and signage isn’t always overly helpful.  But I’ve got the Tom-Tom, loaded up with all new maps, and Fiona to interpret it’s instructions.  She’s probably a more important navigational tool than all those satelites and computers.  We made it through Milan without one wrong turn and without having to cut any of the local drivers off.  Next, there are the foreign drivers to deal with.  Having driven through Italy before I was already comfortable with the maxim that the rules of the road are really more like suggestions and that the only thing to concentrate on are the things in front of you – everyone else can worry about the sides and rear.  Lastly, there are the roads.  Last time we were here we stuck mostly to the autostrada, big open highways with perfect pavement and excellent driving conditions.  This time we took a few smaller highways and a ridiculously narrow stretch between Lecco and Bellagio where there were barely two car widths between the sheer wall of limestone on one side and the lakeside barrier on the other.  Oncoming traffic rarely slowed down and was often cutting corners, so I would find myself in the unique situation of both consciously thinking about which side of the road I was supposed to be on and questioning my decision everytime I saw an oncoming car.  It was a wee bit harrowing, but thankfully was only a 20 km stretch of our journey.

            We arrived at our hotel and booked into our room, a second floor room with a balcony overlooking the lake.  The views were spectacular, even with the humidity induced haze that seems to hang over the whole area.  You could still clearly see the little villages on the other side, and every so often the sun would burst through and hit selected patches of the mountain, turning the dolomite this wonderful orangey-red colour.  I think we sat out on the balcony and stared for quite some time.

            We eventually went downstairs for dinner and had a great little Italian meal.  Fiona had a nice pasta dish with leeks and carrots and a delicate little cream sauce and I had terrine made from the local lake whitefish.  Fiona’s main course beef was perfectly done and worked well with the local Lombardy wine we tried.  My curried chicken was a less perfect match but was so deliciously tender that it didn’t matter.

            After dinner we came back up to the room and did a little bit of planning before going to bed.  It had been a long day and we were quite tired.  The bed was large and comfortable and we knew that the morning sun and chorus of birdsong that appears everywhere you go here would be waking us up early the next morning.  Plus, given the beauty of our location we were excited about the opportunity to get out and explore.

One More Visitor

We’re off to Oman soon, as I’m sure most of our regular readers already know.  It’s going to be a quick transition.  We’re expected on the ground for August 4^th, right in the middle of Ramadan and the hot Omani summer.  We’ve started to get a few things done to prepare for the move, but are far from finished.

            One of the things that worries us most is that with a quick move we won’t be able to say goodbye to family and friends.  While we acknowledge that we are not going to Mars, just to Oman, we also know that it will be much more difficult to see the important people in our lives, both because of the time difference and the vagaries of living in the Middle East.  So we were quite glad when Roger and Cathy showed up for one last visit last week.

            After letting them get acclimated for half a day we bundled them into a train and down the Scottish coast for a trip to Edinburgh.  Cathy took pictures for the full three hour trip, but who can blame her with the amazing scenery you get between Aberdeen and the capital.  After disembarking at Haymarket we walked a few blocks to our place for the weekend – The Chester Residences.  Fiona had booked us a two bedroom suite and it turned out to be an absolute cracker!  I think it was far and away the best hotel we had ever stayed in during our time in Scotland, and we have had the privilege of quite a few weekends away.  What makes the Chester Residences so great is not just that the apartments are fabulous – well furnished and incredibly comfortable – or the location – smack dab in the heart of all you want to see in Edinburgh – but the staff.  They were amazing.  They seemed to respond to needs and wants before you could vocalize them.  They were incredibly friendly and would stay and chat about whatever you wanted.  They knew about the city and made great recommendations, including a Tiki Bar for lunch on Monday that had fabulous pork sandwiches. 

When we arrived our room was not entirely ready and the ushered us into the lounge for a drink.  We had a couple of cocktails while we waited and watched two local football teams – Hibernian and Hearts – duel it out on the big screen for the Scottish Cup.  It was interesting because everyone seemed to have a rooting interest in the game.  In the end Hearts won in convincing fashion which seemed to leave most people happy.  Football finals would play another part in our weekend, with the Champions League finals between Chelsea and Bayern Munich on Saturday night.  We came back from our dinner out and again found ourselves in the lounge watching football.  It was an exciting game, decided on penalties, but different from the Hibs-Hearts match in that most people, except with those that had been to the bookies before, didn’t really care who won.

            Lest you think we spent all our time watching sport, I’ll fill you in on the details of the rest of our trip.  In honour of our 10 year anniversary the day before, I had booked us in to one of Edinburgh’s finest restaurants – the Witchery.  Loyal blog readers will know we spent an afternoon in the Witchery before, filling ourselves with soup after a cold, miserable day visiting the castle.  No such need this time around.  The weather was more than brilliant all weekend, in fact, probably a better stretch of weather than any we had during our 4 year stay.  We had brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies for our entire stay.

            The restaurant was a hit, with its funky décor and fabulous menu.  We had a great evening, and for an additional touch of home the maitre d’ was an Edmontonian who had been living in Scotland for the last few years.  We got completely caught up on our Edmonton Oilers gossip.

            The next day we went to Edinburgh Castle.  They were setting up the stands for the Royal Tattoo which will take place in August.  We’re a little bit sad that we never got to take in this piece of Scottish culture.  We both love a good pipe and drum band, and this is the ultimate venue for that. 

            We spent the morning and early afternoon exploring the castle, stopping only for brief but tasty lunch inside one of the tearooms.  We marveled again at the beauty of the War Memorial, and enjoyed talking to Queen Margaret in the great hall, although I, likely encouraged by the thought I was talking to (pretend) royalty, exposed my ignorance of Scottish history a little too much.  I had the names of the kings right, but simply had to have my timelines corrected by about three hundred years.  With all the hustle and bustle of the growing hordes of tourists, we took great pleasure in seeing a fox curled up in a sunny patch of grass below St. Margaret’s Chapel.  Sleeping peacefully in an area roped off from people, it clearly had found the best way to deal with the excess of sunshine.

            We ended our trip with an afternoon tea at the swanky Balmoral hotel.  It was a proper high tea, with several dozen flavours available, champagne, scones and cucumber sandwiches.  I’d never done anything like that before and it was an experience I would definitely recommend.

            Early the next morning I tramped around Edinburgh to get a few stamps and signatures from the Canadian Consul before heading back to work in Aberdeen.  Roger, Cathy and Fiona stayed in town, doing some more shopping and the girls also got pedicures.  They came home on the evening train.

            The rest of the week seemed to fly by.  Fiona and Roger went golfing, Roger and Cathy climbed Benachie and they all went to the Strathisla distillery for  a tour and wee dram.  We even managed to squeeze in one last visit to the Marcliffe for dinner, although it seemed we were all feeling the effects of a busy week.  We both spent the last evening packing, Roger and Cathy for their return to Canada and Fiona and I for our three week trip through Italy – our last big hurrah before the move to Oman.

            We’ll be blogging the trip as per usual, but at the end of it we’ll be calling it quits on The Scottish Trip.  Never fear, loyal readers, we’ll pick up the threads again and start keeping you up to date using a new blog: Gone to Oman.  Sorry for the lack of a catchy title, The Three Muscateers and Horse with No Name were both taken.  Catch us later on: gonetooman.blogspot.com.

Madrid

I was fortunate to fit in one more AWA trip before we leave Scotland for the sunny climes of Oman, the destination ... Madrid!  It was my first time to mainland Spain and I was really looking forward to it. We had a great group of 14 women going along.  With a not too early start to the day, we were all checked in and on our way at 9:30.  Our flight was slightly delayed in Aberdeen due to a luggage buggy that broke down directly behind our plane.  They told us that they solved the problem by taking the wheels off and carting it away.  We arrived in Madrid and were taken to our hotel through the busy streets of the city.  They were especially busy because many of them were closed for the celebration of Real Madrid's win of the national championship that was to take place later that day.  Unfortunately, at the time of our ride, there were no handsome footballers to gape at.  We made it to our hotel and were really impressed by the beautiful decor of the lobby.  Unfortunately, they had not reserved twin rooms for us and suggested that we could share double beds, that was not an option so they scrambled to find us twin rooms.  We ended up having to wait a little while for 4 of the rooms and so they offered us a complimentary drink in the bar.

Our rooms turned out to be absolutely lovely so they were worth the wait.  A portion of our group had arranged for a tapas tour so they rushed off to meet up with their guide.  The rest of us went out to explore  the city a bit and ended up doing our own tapas tour.  We went to several different tapas bars and had delicious food and wonderful wines and sangria.  We had our own built in guide in Irene as she was familiar with Madrid.  We had a wonderful evening and ended up back in the bar of our hotel for a nightcap.  I had a baileys that ended up costing me 15 euros!  That was almost what our evening out cost me.

Friday dawned and we were supposed to be going on a bike tour but since it was raining we decided to cancel that and use the hop on hop off bus instead.  We took the bus and stayed on for the entire ride to get an overview of the old part of the city.  We got some good ideas about which sights we would like to go back and visit.  We were quite cold after getting off the bus so Belinda, Susan and I stopped in a little cafe and had something warm to drink and shared a plate of churros and chocolate.  It is apparently a favourite breakfast of the Spanish.  I could see why, it was so good.  I have never been a fan of the churros that they sell at markets with the cinnamon sugar, but when dipped in hot, thick chocolate they are quite spectacular. The rest of the afternoon we spent wandering the streets, shopping and having lunch in the sunshine that showed up.  We headed back to the hotel to drop off our purchases and relax a little bit.  We met up with Irene again and explored some more.  We went past an amazing building that was decorated using a beige coloured plaster.  Apparently it was reminiscent of Gaudi, whose work is in Barcelona.  Then we stumbled upon a fantastic food market that had a great rooftop bar where we stopped for a drink and photo opportunity with some pigs!  We then went on a search for a little shop that only sold espadrilles, a style of shoe made from cotton and rope.  It was a wonderful little shop that has been run by the same family for four generations.  A couple of us found a pair or two that we liked and went on our way.  We went back to one of the tapas bars we had found the night before and stopped in for a bite to eat and a nice glass of Rioja.  As we were imbibing a huge thunderstorm raged outside with buckets of water flowing in the streets.  We hadn't quite adopted the European custom of eating late at night so we went back to the food market and bought some items to have a picnic back at the hotel. We had some delightful eats and headed to bed relatively early.

We had bought tickets for the Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofia for Saturday morning.  It was a short walk from our hotel and luckily the line was relatively short when we arrived.  I had wanted to go to this museum specifically for the Picasso's.  His Guernica painting was in this museum so I got to see that which was pretty spectacular.  It was really huge - almost 8 meters by 4 meters, quite an impressive sight!  There was a lot of modern art in the museum, some which made us scratch our heads and wonder how anyone could think that it was art.  But I guess art is subjective, right?  We also saw some works by Salvador Dali, really interesting and some slightly disturbing. All in all, an enjoyable museum.  On the way back to our hotel we stopped by a great shop full of all sorts of souvenirs and gifts so, of course, there was a fair bit of shopping done.

After dropping our purchases back at the hotel we were out the door and back on the hop on, hop off bus to see if we could find a market that we had spied while on the bus the day before.  We found it, and hopped off the bus.  Our stomachs were rumbling and there was a great big grill beside the market, selling all sorts of grilled meats.  I shared a mixed plate with Vicki and we really enjoyed the ribs, chicken, and chorizo.  After our meat heavy lunch we strolled around the market which unfortunately was a bit lacking in interest.  We were close to the Palacio Real so we went there to take some photos, our attention was diverted when we got there by a handful of photographers taking pictures of someone who turned out to be the tennis player Jo Wilfried Tsonga!  Next to the Palace was the Catedral Sta Maria La Real Almudena, it was a beautiful cathedral, with very high, bright, colourful painted ceilings.  A pit stop for churros and chocolate again fortified us for a bit more shopping on our way back to the hotel.  We rested for a couple of hours and met up again for our group dinner.  We gave our lovely organisers, Belinda and Susan, a gift of appreciation and caught some taxis to our dinner venue.  We were booked into the Corral de la Moreria for dinner and a show.  The food was fantastic and was followed by a flamenco dance performance.  The dancing was really impressive, the dancers feet moved so quickly and the accompanying music and singing was great!  Irene convinced a couple of us to join her for a drink before heading back to the hotel.  Irene had a list of must visit places that her father had given her so we went to the last place on her list.  It was a restaurant on the top floor of a pretty run down building, it was ok but would probably be better on a sunny day when you could sit on the balcony.  We headed in the direction of our hotel and happened upon a bustling bar and had a couple of really yummy mojitos before going back to the hotel.

The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast before going our separate ways to fill up some time before catching the bus to the airport.  I decided since I hadn't taken many pictures, I would do a bit of walking and picture taking.  After I was all walked out, I sat across from the hotel at a little cafe and wrote my postcards.  Irene and Vicki found me sitting in the sun and joined me.  It was a nice spot to sit and take in the bustle of the city.  While we were sitting there, a antique car parade drove by with the owners all dressed up in period costume. Later, across the street there was a clock chiming 12:00 and the doors above the clock opened up and five mannequins danced to the music that played.

It was a great trip to Madrid and a little sad because it will be my last trip with this great bunch of ladies!