Blogs from Lake Maggiore, Lombardy, Italy, Europe - page 3

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Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore September 13th 2008

Sitting on our balcony at Hotel Dino this morning; it is overcast and cooler, but a beautiful view across the lake. Cyd is just getting up and ready for breakfast. I have meetings this morning, but only until noon, when it all wraps up here in Baveno. We will take the train back to Milan and check into our hotel (Michelangelo) there before heading out to explore what Milan has to offer. I wanted to see da Vinci's Last Supper, but that may not happen, s you apparently have to reserve a time to visit at least a week in advance. Even then, viewings are limited to 15 minutes, so I am not sure I would have time to figure out if it was really John or Mary Magdellen sitting beside Jesus...? (Note: you might want ... read more
Lake Maggoire this morning

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore July 22nd 2008

This summer the Vaud School for Engineering and Business (better known by its French acronym, HEIG VD) is hosting ten students from San Jose State, ten from CSU Long Beach, and ten from Arizona State. These students are joined by 30 Swiss students. For the next three weeks they will be taking intensive courses in subjects ranging from Bioinformatics to Internet Security. My course, Artificial Societies, doesn't begin until tomorrow, but I interrupted my stay in Italy to shoot up to Lausanne to check on my "kids". They all arrived and were safely tucked away in their dorms. I'm not sure to what extent I should feel responsible for them. There are other professors from San Jose State who are here, and most of the "kids" are graduate students. Still, I felt a pang of guilt ... read more
Le Loft
Les Pleiades
Rude sign

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore July 19th 2008

Verbania is beautiful! Today, we woke up kinda later in the morning (hooray for sleeping in!) to find Parker and Paolo sitting outside at the stone table, eating some cheese and bread and fresh coffee while chatting about something or another. Sooner or later, we four joined them for a wonderful breakfast. We decided that today's plan was to head to a wilderness area 30 minutes away and hike up to the top of a mountain. We wore our most outdoorsy clothes, strapped on some sturdy shoes, and started on the winding drive up. Paolo decided to bring Sam, his dog, along on the journey, which was exciting for all of us. On our way we grabbed some food to take to the top to picnic on. We stopped by a bridge over a river on ... read more
Paolo's dinner

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore July 18th 2008

Hello from Verbania! This is a short blog post. More detail later: Verbania: Meet Paulo Drive to Nursery Drive home Relax Go for run up hill Walk around lakeside / on island Go for dinner on island on lake Eat well Sleep!... read more
Nolan
Ah love

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore June 30th 2008

Sunday 29th June An early start as we said goodbye to Glenn who was off to get his early train to the airport back to the UK. We were pretty much ready to go, and had warned the campsite that we would be leaving at 8.30am BUT when we looked into the carpark it was rammed with cars and there was going to be no chance that we were going to get out. Freddie reckoned we needed at least 10 cars moved, then decided he might be able to do it with 4 cars moved. With a couple of announcements over the tannoy, 3 of them had been moved but the last was not coming, so we tried on some other cars! 2 hours later, and plenty of rides in the campsite buggy, and we managed ... read more
As are Vanessa & Marissa
... and there goes Steven
Vanessa & Adele

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore June 5th 2008

Day One and Two We left sunny California on Sunday, June 1st from the San Francisco airport for Malpensa Airport outside of Milan, Italy. We encountered little problems as we gained one hour on the flight from SFO to Kennedy in New York and overcame a check off item on take off from New York. Bravo, Delta. Our tour bus picked us up at 12:20 pm where we met our TD, Ruth, and our driver Maurizio. Our first stop is in Baveno, Lake Maggiore, about 35 miles from the airport. Our whole clan of seven were pretty beat up from the nearly 15 hours of travel so once we checked in, we took a 1-2 hour nap. After finished our nap we meet for a pre-dinner drink at 6:30pm for a group introduction, program debrief and ... read more
At the SFO Airport
Susan watching our stuff at MXP
The view into Baveno from our room

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore September 10th 2007

The fan belt (la cingue) was broken. and it was repaired at a proper Peugeot dealer, so we feel confident about continuing our journey. We've had to do lots of things we never expected to do - get the phone number of the garage, find out when the car would be ready (cheated on that and got the Tourist Office to phone for us) go on a bus to pick up the car, ask in Italian where to get off (and fail to understand a single word he said in reply), but he stopped the bus about 50 yds from garage. Then we had to pay for and collect the car in Italian: we also asked the word for fan belt - he explained what was wrong by showing us the broken one. Our Italian has ... read more
view from balcony - dutch hotel
willy at top of St Gotthardt pass
Maggiore from hotel room

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore July 23rd 2007

Yesterday we spent four or so really gorgeous hours on the boat. I got some rest in the sun on the absurdly soft towels David has on the large deck of his private sailboat. We stopped under a large rock slide that sticks straight out of the lake. We anchored and swam next to Angela, Eduardo, Otto, and Linda. They are such a beautiful, sweet, intelligent, and entertaining family. After swimming and a picnic of dried aged meat, bread, pomodori secchi and freschi, we sailed. The sun was so hot we all took turns being dragged through the water behind the boat. The wind picked up and the sail filled and my hands were gripping the loop at the end of the rope. I looked up at the mountains forming the hole that I was so ... read more

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore July 16th 2007

After doing nothing but sitting relaxed in hammocks all day, doing laundry, making lunch, I felt a tiny bit more relaxed. David and I have had some good conversations; I let myself cry a little and felt some relief from my sadness. At 7 I left to walk up to Bee to speak with Adolfo, the owner of Chi Ghinn and the chef of the awesome restaurant. My Italian is not so great and it makes me feel a bit like a fool when I think how hard my friends must have to work to understand me. But Adolfo said after two months of solid Italian it won’t be a problem; and how will I encounter such an opportunity? Well assuming I can get all my paperwork finish as soon as humanly possible I can begin ... read more

Europe » Italy » Lombardy » Lake Maggiore June 29th 2007

Lago Maggorie was as classy as we expected. Beautiful palaces and villas surrounding a deep blue lake surrounded by the alps and green hills. We stayed with Luisa and Eduardo in their house that they use as a bed and breakfast. It is a beautiful house with great views of the lake out of all of the windows and a second story deck that overlooks their extensive flower gardens. It was so nice to be in someone's home that they had put together themselves in such a beautiful style. The first day that we arrived they invited us to have dinner with them and their friend Sylvia who is a glass artist that travels all over the world to give workshops or display her art. They all spoke English very well and it was great ... read more
View from upper deck
Macuangua near Switzerland
Michael standing on a glacier




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