Bus it is then from Milan to Como, I assume we can just get our ticket there at the station. I looked at Hotel duLac, it got good reviews on tripadvisor but we're staying at Hotel Silvio, just 80 euros for two. We're trying to budget ourselves.
Weeeeee!!!!!!! 3 days til we leave!
OK, gurl, have a great time, er, even through the bad bits.. and come back and tell us what you feel like telling us.
Don't for example, try to drive between Cinqueterra towns.. I've friends who did and had to back the f/ up, not easy...
Enjoy all of it..
I just remember that you should be well along on your trip by now...
looking forward to hearing about it.
I just got back home last night. Left London Heathrow at 3:50pm Sat. and arrived in Seattle at 5:00pm Sat. Now I'm up because my body clock isn't quite right yet.
I loved Italy......I'll write about it soon. Had a great time in Manarola, one of the 5 towns in the Cinque Terra.
Good that you arrived home safe and that you seem to have had a good time!
Really looking forward to your account!
Thanks Walter. And thanks for all your help with my questions regarding this trip. Planning it was half the fun!
4 days in London---Stayed near Hyde Park but Lancaster tube station was closed for repairs and opened the day we left. All OK though because we used the buses too. Having the huge green parks in such a big city is something I love about London. Our first day we took the big bus tour to get a feel for the city and stopped off to tour the Tower of London. My friend hates to stand in lines and talked me out of seeing the crown jewels. Had fish and chips for dinner with a pint of beer. We met a fella in a pub who was from Scotland. He explained that he could tell who the American women were because they order full pints instead of half pints or white wine. Oh well, I like beer on a hot day and the weather was quite warm. We saw Chicago but I really wanted to see Equus or Les Miserables. maybe next time. The British Museum was spectacular as well as the National Gallery.
Getting into town with luggage was not much of a problem. But coming back through Victoria Station for our flight back home was quite the experience. It was Friday night around 6:30---Rush hour??
From London we flew Easyjet to Paris. We stayed in an apartment near the Montorgueil Pedestrian Market. I loved staying in this area, we had everything we needed one minute away on foot. The London underground is much cleaner than the Paris Metro but Paris is very easy to navigate because there are metro stops everywhere we wanted to go.
I did hear from a lot of people that Paris business owners are not at all friendly with non-french speakers. However, we only ran into this once. Our first night we dropped our luggage off and went to the market place for dinner. The first restaraunt we tried I greeted the girl behind the bar in my terrible french with the American accent and asked if she spoke English. She said yes and seemed friendly enough. I asked for a table for two and she told us to go into the back and seat ourselves. It happens that 3 businessmen walked in behind us, were seated and served water and bread immediately. We sat for 10 minutes with no service. Fine enough because we were a bit chatty but hungry and thirsty from the day of travel. Finally we got up and left and the girl behind the bar started giving us a hard time for not wanting to wait just 5 minutes. The next restaraunt we tried was great. They were so happy to have us, seated us and the meal was fantastic.
Paris taught me the impact that no indoor smoking has on the public. EVERYBODY smokes in Paris
My dream was to visit the Louvre. How amazing and I'm sure I only saw a fraction. I'm not much of a picture taker because I love to just see everything and appreciate things without looking through a camera. But now I'm having trouble remembering some things that we did and its only been two weeks. The Musee D Orsay was my favorite though.
I'm positive I'd love the Musee d Orsay. Did you have a favorite piece or a favorite part of the museum?
The Musee d'Orsay really is great - was treated as insider tip ages ago - until everyone said it was an insider tip: now it's as touristic as many other museums. :wink: .
I've been there online, a piffling substitute, I'm sure.
I love the impressionist paintings the most. My favorite paintings were by Renoir and Degas. Of course I really enjoyed the Van Gogh and Monet's as well.
There was a group of kids aged about 7 and I was so impressed to see how orderly and respectful and fully interested they were. The two adults with them were doing such a good job. They all sat on the floor and were sketching the polar bear statue. It was so cute I just had to sit and watch them for a few minutes.
martybarker wrote:
There was a group of kids aged about 7 and I was so impressed to see how orderly and respectful and fully interested they were. The two adults with them were doing such a good job. They all sat on the floor and were sketching the polar bear statue. It was so cute I just had to sit and watch them for a few minutes.
That seems to be on the curriculum of French primary schools ... :wink:
(I've a couple of children on my own photos as well - though I usually tried to wait until they were gone.)
Yes, this is exactly how I saw it. Look how good those kids are behaving.
OK, I'm ready to delve into my journey to Italy. We flew Ryan air to Bergamo airport near Milan and took a train to Lake Como. We stayed in Bellagio and the ferry ride from Verenna to Bellagio was breathtaking. I knew it would be beautiful but pictures don't do it justice.
Our hotel wasn't in the heart of town like many others were. We actually got lost walking from the ferry to Hotel Silvio. What should have taken 15 minutes took us over an hour. By time we found it we were stressed,thirsty and hungry. We checked in and headed into the town center for dinner. We got a table at a cute little cafe right on the water and ordered a bottle of wine and a light meal. The wine was just what we needed to relieve the stress of getting lost. Our waiter was really nice and was patient with my poor Italian and tried to speak English too. So between the two of us we ordered what we needed.
What was funny though was that my friend left to use the phone and I was perfectly content looking at the scenery and finishing my wine and the waiter came back to chat since I was the only one left at the outdoor portion of the restaraunt. We introduced ourselves to each other and he said to me"Now what?" I said, "I guess I'll take care of the check now" and he said, I get off at 9 but I'm driving to the train station to pick up my friend and would we be back tomorrow. I said we would.
The next day we took a ferry over to Mennagio and then a bus to Lugano, Switzerland and did a little shopping. It was a lovely ride and a beautiful day. When we got back to Mennagio we relaxed at a cafe with glasses of wine. In talking with our waiter there we mentioned that we were taking the ferry back to Bellagio when he said the ferry that just left was the last one! Yikes...no problem though, we took a taxi to the next ferry terminal that had a later ferry to Bellagio
To Be Continued......
After our ferry back to Bellagio we had to walk past cafe #1 to get to other restaraunts in town. When I say town, its not very big at all. I suspect everyone knows each other here. And sure enough our waiter caught us and asked where we were heading. Wouldn't ya know it, his shift ended at 9pm and he found us finishing our dinner and bought us coffee and took us on a short car tour of Bellagio. We figured it was two of us and one of him so it had to be safe enough. It was really nice and he drove us to our hotel and offered to drive us to the Lecco train station the next morning. We didn't want him to go that far out of his way for us so we politely declined the offer. He was very sweet.
I like the fact that we started our trip in big busy cities and ended with quaint Italian towns.
(You know me, I like all of it. Oh, except Ivrea...)
