Blogs from Piedmont, Italy, Europe - page 8

The past few days have been a whirlwind! On Tuesday I went to Verona for the day, it was only about an hour and a half train ride from Venice. Verona is beautiful. From the train station it looks very run down, but the city center is a mix of the old and the new. There were many high end shops in the walkways and nice restaraunts with outdoor seating areas looking into a park that was in the center. There is an old arena, which is known as a mini colosseum. We went to see the tomb of Juliet, there was just an empty stone coffin. There is a fresco museum in the same area, and all the frescos are very beautiful and were from the church that housed Juliet's tomb. Her house is in ... read more

Geo: 45.8846, 8.53298Mom nature is back to her cooperative self. We again had a beautiful day. High about seventy or so with a few scattered clouds. Thanks Mom.We were able to visit the sort of sights today that were not possible on Lake Como. There are at least three small islands in Lake Maggiore. We visited two by ferry says Bird (HP thinks otherwise you would assume we swam). We do not know if the Romans used the islands, but one would doubt it as they did not need a defensive position. We do know they were in use at least by the ninth century.On the islands we see the typical small passage ways. These 4-5 acre islands have 50-60 permanent residents on each. The support is only tourism. All businesses are either luxury hotels, restaurants ... read more

DAY 12 - Monday Monday morning, John went to school with the students. Desserts. Not really a lot of new ground being broken, but interesting none the less. John left about halfway through, mostly because he couldn't deal with watching his students being such disrespectful, childish jerks. All of the shenanigans, all of the acting out. Too much, so back to the hotel to spend the day relaxing. Marleah was still not doing well, cramps and just feeling bad, so we didn't do much of anything until it was time to get dinner. One of the chefs at Barilla works at a Sardinian restaurant and invited the students to check it out so a group of us went. A couple from Denver who've taken lots of classes at Cook Street and 4 others joined us. The ... read more

Our annual holiday this year took us to Italy. We have visited most of the big cities in Italy and wanted to head off into the countryside this time and give a wide berth to large cities. We were looking for mountains and cooler weather after sweating our way through a hot summer. We flew into Milan and drove straight out in our rented car. As usual, we got an upgrade, a much better car than we ordered. We stayed three nights in Turin. The hotel wasn’t great, but it was adequate. Didn’t really matter, we don’t spend much time in our hotel rooms. Turin itself is full of monuments of a grander time, not very attractive somehow, not a crowded city, not much traffic. We didn’t use the public transport, we walked everywhere. We engage ... read more

Western Italy Milan Interesting place to drive around. The city is spread out with farming in between residential precincts or suburbs. No known campgrounds. Big city. Looked like ABC. Another Bustling Centro. Camping is not encouraged and two possible places in the city that we thought we might camp at no longer allow camping. Another possibility for an overnight camp was on some agricultural museum and research set up which was on a farm not far from Milan CBD. We declined that one and went on to Pavia. Centosa (Monastery ) di Pavia We camped out amongst some rice paddies near Pavia – just south of Milan. Adjacent to the rice paddies is a large and significant Monastery. Building took from 1396 to 1620 for the Carthusian Order. No photography is allowed inside the generously proportioned ... read more