Tag: Italy

Lake Como

We are back from 8 days on Lake Como in Italy.  Wow!  We understand why Clooney has a house there.  The views are amazing!  We had a whole floor of a house to ourselves above the town of Menaggio with a beautiful balcony overlooking the ferries travelling to Bellagio and Varenna.  We spent our time overeating and reading, while the boys looked for lizards and bugs outside.

We visited a lot of little towns on the lake.  Pizza seems to be the main dish unless you want seafood.  Of course we stuffed ourselves with ice cream every day.  It’s going to be salads for a week now that we are home.

We hopped over to Switzerland for a day, not realizing that it was a holiday and all shops were closed.  The restaurants were open but it turned out that all we could afford was Burger King.  They even charged extra money if you wanted a ketchup packet.  I had to tell the kids, “Sorry kids, we can’t afford ketchup.”  Must be a valuble commodity over there.

We were able to visit SwissMiniatur which is a little place with all of Switzerland done in miniature (you could have guessed that from the name).  I spent a lot of time filming the lizards climbing over cars and houses.  Dragon movie coming soon.

I think the pictures tell the rest of the story:

Florence, Italy 2012

We just finished a wonderful 5 day trip to Florence.  The weather was a little rainy, but as we spent most of our time in museums, it didn’t matter much.  We were in Florence because Måns had a conference the first few days.  We rented an apartment in the city, so while Måns was at work, the boys and I checked out some museums.

We went to the Galileo science museum.  Best part – it contains 2 fingers, one thumb and a tooth belonging to Galileo.  What kid wouldn’t love that?!
.
Galleria Accademia, where the real statue of Michelangelo’s “David” is kept.  Major security!  We had to go through x-ray machines and metal detectors just to get to the window to pay.  Then I was asked my nationality and had to provide an I.D.  Very strange.  The other museums were not like this.  Anyway, David was very impressive.
.
We all went to the Duomo to look around inside.  It’s the biggest church in Florence.  We also all went to the German Christmas market on Saturday, where they sold roast pig and chianti.  Nice German-Italian mix there.
.
The food was excellent as usual.
.
On the way home, our connecting flight in Zurich was cancelled so SwissAir put us in the Hilton with free dinner and breakfast before our noon flight the next day.  Not bad being stuck in a Hilton in Zurich!  The kids even had their own room (with connecting doors to ours).  They did a great job taking care of themselves and watching German cartoons.

Italy – Puglia – May 2012

We have just returned from a week in the Puglia region of Italy.  It was very beautiful and quite different from the other Italian regions we have visited.  Most of the buildings were white and we were close to the sea.  We stayed on a large property about 15 minutes away from San Vito dei Normanni.  The property used to belong to a shepherd before it was converted into small houses.  We even saw someone herding sheep one day.  They also had many olive trees and even a few lemon trees.  There were donkeys to wake us up in the morning.
We mostly ate orecchiette (local pasta), burrata (heart attack inducing cheese), mozarella and tomatoes.  Most of our meals were outdoors because the weather was so nice.  The boys spent most of their time in the kids’ pool, eating caprese, searching for lizards, and playing on the swing.
One of the best parts of the trip was celebrating Måns’ birthday!  We woke him up with presents and an ice cream cake (that lasted 5 minutes before melting).  Then we spent the afternoon in Lecce and Otranto.  A nice way to ring in a birthday!

Italy October 2011

We have spent the last week on vacation in Italy.  The weather was wonderful and it only rained one day!  We stayed in our own house high up on a mountain.  We met wild boars, goats, donkeys and mysterious monster goat creatures along with a scorpion who came to say hello in our bathroom.

We were by the Mediterranean Sea and took a day to visit Monaco and France which were both just an hour away.  Monaco was very pretty – a small city in the mountain facing the sea.  Lots of yachts, casinos and fountains.  Very pretty, even though our pizza and sodas cost 60 Euros.

Nice was much bigger than I thought.  There was a beautiful beach with smooth rocks and the most tropical blue color we’ve ever seen.  The boys had a great time splashing around there.

It was a great trip and we got in lots of relaxing at the house and by the pool.  Already planning the next trip!