Bellinzona and Bella Figura (Foxtown Shopping)

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Geo: 46.1445, 8.72654

As soon as we woke up, we headed back up to Il Monte and our babies. They'd had a great night with Nonno and Nonna, and had a big sleep followed by a walk and a yummy dinner with their grandparents. As the weather was predicted to turn to more rain and storms in the afternoon, we headed off to see the Bellinzona castles.

Bellinzona is the capital of Ticino (this region of Switzerland), about 45 minutes away from Ronco, and is very proud of its three castles which are UNESCO listed – in medieval times, the castles allowed complete control of the mountain pass from the rich lake lands to central Switzerland. From the bottom castle (the one in the town of Bellinzona), you can see the other two (smaller) castles stretching up the hill, and the walls of the three castles stretching across the valley between high snowcapped mountains. The kids thought it was marvelous – not many people there, lots of room to run, to climb the white and black towers, to walk the promenade on the top of the castle walls as they stretched back into town. It was wonderful.

We then went back into town, where Rita and I bought the makings of a sandwich whilst the kids played in the park (I managed the whole transaction in Italian – very proud of how my Italian is coming on!) We then headed back to Il Monte, to drop Nonno and Nonna off with the boys for a sleep, whilst Georgia, Steven and I went to meet Eurosia to go together to Foxtown, the "DFO" factory outlet shopping centre on the Lugano Lake (on a different Swiss/Italian border near Mendrisio). We'd been years ago, when it was just a tin shed – now, it is comparable to Indooroopilly Shopping Town, with hundreds of big names. Steven was shopping for a suit for Miranda's wedding – I was very restrained and didn't really shop for me (quite honestly, the prices of most stuff was still mindblowingly expensive, although apparently they have big sales once or twice a year). Steven quite liked one suit, but then found it was over $2000 on sale! He was delighted when he found an Armani suit at half price, wool and silk blend, which looks fantastic and was much more reasonable! And Georgia was delighted when we found a pretty dress for her (Daddy “topped up” the money that the tooth fairy had brought her!)

Dinner at Il Monte, with Tino, which was lovely – he is very shy, but a lovely man and very kind to let us invade his hideaway mountain home!

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Comments

[Siobhan Healy]

You'd definitely see the enemy coming!