The western Mediterranean countries Part 1: The Italian Lakes
Thursday, September 8 — We booked back to back trips with Trafalgar so we would only have one flight to Europe and back. We originally scheduled the Madrid to Rome trip first and the Italian Lakes second planning on traveling by train from Rome to Milan and Baveno. The Italian Lakes tour we booked failed to attract enough customers and was canceled so Trafalgar had to flip the order of our tours. This resulted in us starting off in Milan rather than Madrid.
A check of the traffic conditions showed no problems so we left the house at 10:30 a.m. giving ourselves ample time to get to the airport. I-75 was at a near standstill and after half an hour we still weren’t out of Cincinnati. We took the first exit we could reach and took side streets and the Clay Wade Bailey bridge before rejoining I-75 in Kentucky. Once at the airport we found no line at the American check-in counter and were through security in under two minutes. We arrived at our gate to catch flight 3620 to JFK 45 minutes before boarding.
Mostly overcast skies as our ERJ-145 made its way to New York. We had a good but hazy view of Manhattan before touching down in Queens where we had to wait for our gate to become available. Our arrival gate at JFK was in Terminal 8 Concourse B all the way at the end; naturally our next flight left from Concourse A all the way at the end. Gate 2 overlooked the Manhattan skyline 12 miles away with the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center very easy to pick out.
American 198 was a 767-300 bound for Milan. Our 6:15 p.m. departure was at the popular time for the red eye flights to Europe. It felt like an eternity until our turn to take off came. We had a good view of Long Island as we took off. The ride was a bit bumpy. Our seats had extra legroom but were right behind a bulkhead so we had no underseat storage. We grabbed as much sleep as we could on the eastbound flight.
This was Lynne’s first ever visit to the Big Apple.
Friday, September 9 — We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise over France and breathtaking views of the mountains as we made our way to Italy. Bright sunshine as we descended to Milan. Malpensa Airport had good signage for directions. Passport control had long lines but they moved quickly and we were processed in no time at all. We met our tour director, Romeo, but just missed the 8:30 departure for Baveno so we hung out with our fellow travelers until 11:00.
The ride to Baveno took us through several tunnels and into the mountains. (The A26 motorway we took is called “Autostrada dei Trafori”, or “highway of the tunnels”.) Our hotel had been switched from the Simplon to the Dino. Both are owned by the same company and we didn’t mind the change because the Dino was right on Lake Maggiore while the Simplon was a block inland. We enjoyed a brief siesta before venturing out for gelato and a trip to the pharmacy for some items missed while packing.
In the evening our full group assembled for a drive to see the next door town of Stresa and back giving Romeo a chance to introduce us to Italian culture and conventions. The bus returned us to the Dino and we walked a few blocks to the Lido Beach Club for al fresco dining featuring southern Italian dishes for our welcome dinner. The restaurant staff initially stood firm against supplying Parmesan Cheese because our meal was centered around Mozzarella but eventually gave in and also supplied salt and pepper.
Saturday, September 10 — After breakfast at the hotel we walked through the garden to the tour boat for the Borromean Islands. The islands are named for the Borromeo family who started as merchants and bankers and still control a fair piece of Italy’s GDP. Our boat took us past Isola dei Pescatori (Fisherman’s Island, the only one inhabited year-round) and Malghera, a small rocky islet, before circling Isola Bella for a view of the palace and gardens. We toured the palace on Bella which was built in the 1600’s and features Lombard paintings and Flemish tapestries. The Borromean family was in residence while we visited so some areas were closed. Extensive grottos beneath the palace were used in hot weather in bygone days. The terraced gardens featured white peacocks and lots of blooms. We took the boat back to Baveno and just had time for gelato before heading out for the afternoon.
The bus headed toward Lake Como passing a Lindt plant on the way. Our group took a boat tour of the lake around the town of Como. Each villa taken individually would have been grand but we found the cumulative effect less so. Amongst others we saw Sophia Loren’s, George Clooney’s and one owned by the King of Saudi Arabia. We felt over-saturated by the time the boat took us back to the dock.
Once on shore we ate lunch at the Caffe Duomo on the square in front of the church. Romeo had given us coupons for gelato so we did some window shopping and made our way back down to the lakeshore to redeem them. Como was very hot and crowded with little shade and few places to sit. We were happy to return to Lake Maggiore.
Got back to the hotel around 18:30. As we were leaving the hotel we ran into Mary, another member of our group, and asked her to join us for dinner. We walked all the way across the street from the hotel and had pizza at il Portico Pizzeria.
Sunday, September 11 — After breakfast at the hotel we checked out and headed back through Stresa for a drive around Lake Maggiore. In Arona we stopped to see the statue of San Carlo Borromeo. Built in the 1600’s, the statue is 23 meters tall with bronze panels over an iron framework and was studied by Bartholdi when he planned the Statue of Liberty.
We stopped at the hilltop town of Bergamo to walk the narrow medieval streets. Our coach had an adventure along the way. Veterans of the Alpini, Italian mountain troops, were holding a parade which blocked our route. The local police mistakenly waved us and a few cars through a gap in the parade; their cohorts a block up the street yelled at our driver but sent us on our way. We were the only bus that managed to sneak through.
It was hot and crowded in Bergamo and the cobblestone streets made walking a chore. We found a shaded table at the Caffetteria Corsarola for lunch and did a bit of shopping. Danilo managed to navigate the narrow city gate and switchbacks to pick us up and head out to Sirmione. Our hotel, the Hotel du Parc, was on the peninsula that juts out into Lake Garda but a bit more than a mile from the old town out at the tip. Lynne opted to go to the hotel and check us in while Jim went to see the town. It was like Bergamo on steroids, packed with people. This was the last weekend of summer in Italy with schools starting up the next day. We ate dinner back at the hotel sharing a table with Rod and Glenys from Brisbane.
Monday, September 12 — Verona this morning. Our coach couldn’t enter the old section of town so we disembarked by the Ponte della Vittoria bridge and walked across the Adige River. Although school was back in session, the tourist contingent was out in force and the sun was scorching. Our guide walked us through the Porta Borsari (the old Roman gate) and showed us where the Romans had reused the stones from old tombs when they extended the city’s walls. The Roman gate was heavily decorated to impress visitors entering the city but was plain on the side seen when leaving. Verona has a business built around Romeo and Juliet. We saw Juliet’s balcony (built early in the 20th century for tourists, in a house where Juliet, who may not have even existed, certainly never resided). The corridor leading to the balcony is covered with graffiti from couples expressing eternal devotion. It’s scrubbed completely clean every year for the next batch of star-crossed lovers.
On the way through Verona one of our travelling companions took a fall and hurt her knee. She and her husband were taken to a hospital for x-rays. At the Roman Arena we had our group photo taken twice – Romeo missed the first photo as he was arranging the ambulance and hospital visit, so we called the photographer back for a reshoot. The Arena di Verona was built in the first century and is still in use. We ate lunch on the square outside the arena at La Costra in Bra, wandered the streets a bit and patronized a gelato stand.
Back in Sirmione we had an hour to cool off at the hotel before heading out the peninsula for a boat ride. We were expecting a sightseeing boat like at Lake Como but found our party split across two speedboats. The tip of the peninsula is actually an island with a pair of bridges at the castle connecting it to the mainland. We circled the island with our captain pointing out the villa which used to belong to Maria Callas, the ruins of a Roman villa at the island’s tip and sulphur bubbles offshore marking the location of hot springs 20 meters below the lakes’s surface. We passed beneath the bridges to the castle then set off for a high speed ride across Lake Garda with the boats crisscrossing. A bumpy ride and not what our group was expecting.
The boats dropped us off in Lazise where we had time for a gelato before the bus picked us up and took us to Bardolino. Crowds were much lighter, the town was very clean and the heat of the day finally abated a bit but not enough. We ate dinner and watched the sun set from the Cafè Italia on the lakefront followed by a bit of shopping. Lynne picked up a souvenir fan, practical and pretty. Everyone was happy with Bardolino and the bus had a party atmosphere (complete with lots of disco music) as we made our way back around the lake. We drove past Gardaland in the dark and couldn’t see anything other than the sign. As we neared our hotel, Romeo put on a Barry White tune (Love’s Theme) and announced the Love Boat was now docking at Puerto Vallerta. It bacame a standing routine with a different Mexican port each night. We got back to the hotel after 9:00 exhausted.
Tuesday, September 13 — On the road this morning for the 90 minute drive to Marostica. The town is famous for its biannual chess game played with live pieces on the town square. The game is held the fourth week of September. The square was already blocked off so temporary bleachers and lights could be erected.
Marostica is surrounded by a wall which climbs the hillside above the town. The wall dates back to the 1370’s. The town square, or piazza Castello, gets its name from the Castello Inferiore at the base of the wall. The Castello Superiore sits atop the hill. One look at the 600+ steps on the stairway along the wall convinced us to take our pictures from the lower castle.
It was market day in Marostica; after a light lunch at Cafe Dienne we browsed the street market, bought a couple of apples and took pictures of the castle high on the hill above the town. While waiting for the bus we were accosted by beggars and gypsies.
Next stop was Bassano del Grappa to see the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge). Originally built in 1569, the bridge has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. The bridge is a symbol for the Alpini and they were responsible for rebuilding it after World War II so it is also called the Ponte degli Alpini.
The town is also famous for producing grappa with a distillery and bar right at one end of the bridge. The scorching weather was still with us. Hard liquor didn’t sound like a good match with the heat. Instead we retaliated with gelato at one end othe bridge and drinks at the other end at the Bassanina Wine Bar before heading back to the bus. Spain has its Sangria; Italy beats the heat with spritzers.
Romeo promised us a hidden treasure and we made a photo stop at Borghetto sul Mincio. The little town is found on most lists of Italy’s most beautiful villages, built around a dam on the Mincio River that powered mills built over the river. The mills now house shops and restaurants. The Mincio is the main outlet for Lake Garda and a tributary of the Po River.
Dinner followed at the Corte Marzago, a bed and breakfast on a working vineyard. The B&B is in a former nunnery. We were the odd ones out at dinner and had a table to ourselves but still had a good time, especially since our table started off with wine for four. We discovered another couple had lived in Cincinnati several years before and enjoyed comparing notes. The building was very hot so we adjourned to the yard where there was a breeze. There was also a puppy who apparently had a goal to receive a tummy rub from everyone and probably succeeded.
Wednesday, September 14 — Excursion to the Dolomites today. The bus made its way north into the mountains and we soon found ourselves in a valley between near-vertical walls. This part of Italy had been in the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I so many mountains had the ruins of old Austrian forts as well as monasteries and churches. Place names took on a decided German slant. We stopped in Balzano to pick up our local guide. First stop was the pyramids.
The pyramids are the result of erosion. This area was a moraine in the ice age and has a high clay content. As the clay erodes, stones protect some small areas and they end up as spires when the clay around them dissolves. All are fairly short lived and new pyramids will take their place in time.
As our coach made its way up the mountain the architecture took on an Alpine look with villas and vineyards giving way to chalets and hay fields. We stopped at the Ansitz Kematen hotel and restaurant for a view of the Dolomites while enjoying apple strudel and apple juice (this part of Italy being famous for its apples). The property also had a pretty garden and a small chapel popular for weddings. Then it was back down the mountain to Klobenstein for a quick dash to catch the Renon Fenicular, a train that took us back up the mountain with more views of the Dolomites. We disembarked in Oberbozen (Soprabolzano) for a short stroll to the station for the aerial tram (Rittner Seilbahn) and an immediate descent back down to Bolzano.
In Bolzano we went through the cathedral and Dominican Church. The Chapel of St. John in the Dominican Church is renowned for its 14th century frescoes by Giotto. After a walk through the town’s marketplace Lynne’s ankle tear had us leave the guided walk. We settled down at the Cafe Kondetorei Peter for gelato served to look like spaghetti with raspberry rather than tomato sauce. We enjoyed a brief respite from the heat on the mountain but temperatures were back in the 30’s down in the valley. Bolzano is bilingual and also goes by Bozen. It’s another town that looks old but was largely rebuilt following World War II as it is a key transportation point in the Brenner Pass and was heavily bombed. Our group was pretty worn out for the drive back to Sirmione.
After a short rest and chance to freshen up it was back to the bus. A relatively short drive took us to Valeggio sul Mincio. We took a brief stroll through the town square before arriving at the Ristorante Bue d’Oro (the Golden Cow) where the pasta was fantastic. The restaurant was noisy and Limoncello served as an after dinner drink helped contribute. There was a glass floor over an old well inside the restaurant. As night fell the well was illuminated so everyone could see how deep it was (very deep). We got a kick out of watching several of our companions skirt the edge.
Thursday, September 15 — At breakfast we found out Romeo would not be with us this day because of a death in the family. Italian tradition has the funeral within 24 hours so he had to return to Rome suddenly. Danilo drove us to Carpi (giving us some narration on the way about the Po River) to pick up Christina, our local guide for the day.
Our first stop was Modena. The forecast called for a chance of rain in the afternoon but it fell for a good portion of the morning. We didn’t mind as it finally gave us a break from the heat. Lynne and a couple of other women from our group opted to skip the walking tour and spent their time at a cafe. Modena has an extensive area of arcades so the rain wasn’t too much of an issue for the rest of us. Modena’s cathedral was gleaming white on the outside because of its marble facing with most of the stone scavenged from the old Roman town of Mutina. Most Italian churches refer to their bell towers as campanile but Modena’s is called the Ghirlandina. Modena is a town of brick more than stone and the dark interior of the church is in sharp contrast to the bright exterior. When we exited the church we found the rain had stopped. Following the church we walked through the city market and explored some of the side streets on our own.
Our group was reunited when we met up at the city square to catch the bus. Right on cue the rain began to fall hard as we dashed from the arcades to the pick up point. It stopped by the time we reached Acetaia Malpighi for a tour of their balsamic vinegar works. Unlike wine, vinegar is made from cooked juice and the aging is done upstairs in a hot room. Vinegar is moved through five barrels, each made from a different wood, and aged anywhere from 12 to 25 years to produce the highest quality products. Our tour included a tasting of five different varieties.
On our way to Maranello we made a brief stop at Montale Rangone cemetery to visit the grave of Luciano Pavarotti. Pavarotti was born in Modena and died there in 2007. His grave is in the Pavarotti family vault.
Maranello is home to the Ferrari plant and museum. Enzo Ferrari moved the works there fearing the automotive industry in Modena would be attacked during World War II. The museum showcases both production and racing vehicles with one room dedicated to GT cars and another for Formula 1. We spent some time drooling over the street legal vehicles. The museum included a couple of simulators where we watched kids virtually wreck some very expensive rides. When we were leaving we got to see and hear a new car being put through its paces on the test track before being turned over to its new owner. Ferrari has its own hotel by the plant and the rooms don’t have numbers but are named for famous drivers.
We dropped Christina off back in Carpi (she said people always get it mixed up with Capri but it’s about as far from the ocean as you can be in Italy, she just goes along and tells them how nice the beaches are there) then had a long drive back to Sirmione. Although the peninsula isn’t very wide we never did see the lake from our hotel but we had a view of a small harbor from the Mavalà restaurant next door where we finished our last night at Lake Garda with pizza and gelato.
Friday, September 16 — We said Ciao to Sirmione and the lakes and were off to Milan where we had our introduction to Italian city driving. Our local guide first took us through Sforza Castle and gave us an interactive history lesson of Milan with members of our group standing in for various figures (Jim was Napoleon). It was both educational and incredibly fun. Temporary structures were being put up in the castle for Fashion Week. The bus then took us to La Scala Opera House. We toured the museum rooms and were able to watch a few minutes of rehearsal on stage from some of the private boxes.
From Piazza della Scala we walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II to the Piazza del Duomo. The Duomo is the largest church in Italy (St. Peter’s is in Vatican City) and is one of the few Gothic cathedrals in the country. Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in the Milan Cathedral and after six centuries of construction, it was finished at his behest before his coronation. The floor is an intricate design in white, black and red marble.
The piazza was a sea of people. We settled in at a cafe on the square for a light lunch followed by shopping in the Galleria. The Galleria dates back to the middle of the 19th century and is the high-end shopping destination in Milan. We met our group back at the da Vinci statue in the Piazza della Scala where our bus took us to our hotel for the evening, the Starhotels Business Palace. The hotel is in a former factory building with a very industrial look from the outside and luxurious early 20th-century decor inside. We had our farewell dinner at Il Coriandolo Ristorante. Romeo had accidentally written “Sea bus” instead of “Sea bass” on the menu and we all liked it so much we kept using the phrase all evening.
Saturday, September 17 — Our departure time for the airport was 6:10. In true Italian fashion we left a little later than that. Romeo had the hotel make us up some boxed breakfasts for our trip to Malpensa. On the way there Danilo had to pick up a few people from another hotel. After negotiating a one-lane alley with a right angle turn on the way there he discovered a bus blocking the exit so he had to back us out the way we came in. He was an outstanding driver and this was his pièce de résistance. We had a beautiful view of snowcapped mountains on the 30-mile drive from Milan to the airport. Danilo had spent some time driving along the French and Italian Riviera and gave us some tips before we headed into the terminal.
It took us a few minutes to find Air Europa’s counter but once there we were quickly checked in and off to security which took no time at all. Since we were flying between two Schengen countries it was like taking a domestic rather than in international flight back in the States. We were processed so quickly gate information wasn’t posted yet for our flight so we found some seats, grabbed some coffee and watched the world go by. Once the boards updated we headed over to our gate arriving 45 minutes before boarding was supposed to begin. Boarding was an interesting experience for us. Air Europa is a Spanish airline so flight announcements were made in Spanish and sometimes repeated in heavily accented English and Italian. We now have much more empathy for non-English speakers who have to fly U.S. airlines. Eventually we made our way aboard and found ourselves in row 4. Flight 1066 was a 737-800, nice and new. Our seats were right behind first class but without a bulkhead and our flight to Madrid was scheduled for two hours of flying time.
Milestones and highlights:
Lynne and Jim’s first trip to Italy. Lynne’s first time in New York City.
States and countries we visited:
Kentucky, New York, Italy.
Capital cities we visited:
None.
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