Italy - Lake Como

 Well, it really was this pretty.  The city of Como is on the southern tip of the  upside down "Y" shaped lake nestled in the middle of steep mountains.  The "place to go" though is said to be a little village called Bellagio which you can reach by slow ferry, fast ferry, sea-plane, or for the daring, by car.  My original plan was to go to Bellagio by ferry but the thing turned out to be really expensive and would have cost us about 60euro just to come and go and even then,  we would have to wait for another ferry. 

Cassio is a good driver.  I always feel confident beside him on the road.  After the drive to Bellagio, I know he is an excellent driver and was very happy it was him and not me at the wheel on a VERY narrow and twisty, steep, 2-way road that sometimes felt it was too small for just one car to pass.  Only confident and cautious drivers should take this route.  Other than that, we got to see a lot more and "live" more like the locals by driving this road.  It was not peak season, thank God, so there wasn't much traffic on the road or in the town.  We did do the tourist thing though and take a one hour ferry ride around the lake from Bellagio.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I am a water person though and Cassio wasn't sure what the big "whup" was.  I invite you to check it out for yourselves.  Beautiful scenery from everywhere, water or land.

fyi, be sure to check our other posts.  We have been so busy travelling that we haven't posted in a few days and today we posted a total of four different places.  LOOK!

Italy - Turin - Go Big or Go Home

The word for Turin, (or Torino, as the Italians call it), is BIG.  Everything in this town seems supersized.  Enormous piazzas, grand buildings, tall, tall covered walkways, everywhere and everything seemed so b i g.  It was not the typical European town with an ancient centre full of tiny, winding and labyrinthine streets.  No, this city was built and designed on a large scale and mainly in a grid.  Very impressive architecture.

This is a second hand - used clothes and items market we just happened upon that was utterly nutty.  It was jammed full of people selling everything from used shoes (many, many, many shoes) to old cell phones and adapters and wires and cables of every description as well as half full bottles of shampoo!  Cassio got a decent tie for 1 euro to wear on formal nights on our upcoming cruise (more about this soon).  The market was a fun place even if it felt a little sketchy and dirty.  We also noted that this area of town seemed to be predominately populated by people of arab descent and then a few short blocks away, we encountered posh, upscale "pretty" families lunching at a chic bistro.  It was a city of contrasts too.

On our second day in Turin we visited the Automobile Museum.  I am not a car person, but I tell you, it was riveting and I kept looking at the cars, trying to identify the gradual changes and evolutions from the very earliest models to the most futuristic "cars" of tomorrow.  We got there two and a half hours before closing and I figured for sure this would be enough time.  Nope.  We ended up seeing everything but had to rush through the last third.  It was well presented and had informative videos that put a cultural and historical spin on the importance and influence of the car in our world.  Excellent place.

More large scale places in Turin below:

Drive from Grenoble to Turin - through the alps!

Undoubtedly, this is a day both of us will remember.  It was simply so incredibly gorgeous that it was difficult not to pull out the camera every few seconds as a new and equally spectacular vista appeared before us.  This was the road from Grenoble to Turin via Briançon.  It was a no tolls road and well worth the extra time.  I highly recommend it if you can drive through here yourselves one day, because photos only tell a small part of the story. 

About half way to Turin is Briançon, a small town with a medieval old town at the top and we stopped for our customary picnic lunch in this incredible and very uncrowded place.  It was a tourist destination, so one would expect stores etc. to be open but it being Monday, May 28th, a holiday in France and Italy, pretty much everyone took a holiday too and we had the place to ourselves.  Magical view. You owe it to yourself to put this route on your list if you haven't already been!

France - Grenoble

Grenoble in France was breathtaking.  The city is surrounded by mountains on 3 sides, many of which were snow capped peaks, like the one above.  We spent a glorious day here and went up the "bubble" cable car which went up very high and gave us a beautiful view of the mountains and the whole city below.  Once again, gorgeous architecture and a fast flowing river running through the town.  We picniced on a bench at the top. The photo 2 down shows the top where the cable car goes and the one after that shows a view about half way down.  There weren't a ton of people either, which was nice.  We decided it is a place to return to in winter to see it blanketed in snow.

Flowers and Nuclear Power - France - Nimes, Orange, Crest

On the drive from Montpellier to Grenoble, we passed through some stunning countryside.  The snow capped mountains are peaking out through the clouds in the distance.  Our first stop for the day was in Nimes and we saw a colliseum built about 2000 years ago by the Romans.  Currently it is used as a bullring and we arrived just in time to see a large weekend festival setting up.

Our next stop was in Orange.  I had some little memory that Orange was a worthwhile town to see in the Provence region.  I had thought it had something to do with perfumeries, but no, it is because it is another sight with ancient Roman structures.  This town's biggest is a huge amphitheater and an arch.  Pretty town.

But what really got us going, "WOW" was driving by another nice village and then all of a sudden seeing these massive nuclear stacks, pretty much in the centre of the town.  Kind of scary to grow up in such close proximity.  Another strange kind of propaganda:  one of the stacks had a giant painting of a child playing with water painted on the side of it.  I thought is was an oddity and worth mentioning.

Then we headed to La Plaine in Crest to visit a farm that produces and distributes peony flowers by mail order or direct purchase.  Peonies are called pivoines in french.  The place was called Maison Riviere de Pivoine, I believe.  It was a place I read about last year and was determined to visit.  Cassio was very patient, driving to all these places in one day, but boy, was I happy to see so many varieties and, more than that, to SMELL them.  They are such lovely flowers and they had so many beautiful scents. There were fields of them.  Gorgeous day!

Spain - Barcelona

Gaudi, Gaudi, Gaudi...  I had wanted for many years to visit Barcelona, home of the many architectural works of Antoni Gaudi.  Well, they were nice, but they really weren't "All That".  I guess I had a notion that there was a lot more of his work and that it was crazier than it turned out to be.  Above is the line to get inside the Sagrada Familia, apparently the only cathedral in the world still being built.  Gaudi died in 1926 and the city is hoping to have it completed by 2026 on the hundredth year of his death.  In the meantime, they are raking in the dough to build it!  After arriving at 9am (opening time) and seeing this line up, we elected to skip going in and waiting over an hour in line - instead we got some nice shots of the exterior.  We did the same thing with La Pedrera and another on La Gracia.  There were simply droves of tourists and high entry fees and we decided to use our time to appreciate the rest of Barcelona.

This is Park Guell, a free park that I understand was originally meant to be a neighbourhood with houses designed by Gaudi but the demand at the time wasn't strong enough and in the end, Gaudi's benefactor bought the development and turned it into a park.  This was my favorite example of Gaudi's work and was a restful place despite the huge crowds.  It was a Saturday, but to give you an idea, I waited in line a full half hour just to use the bathroom! 

Another stroke of luck, we happened to be visiting on a day that was called "the night of the museums".  It was May 19th and I don't think this is done often.  I got a list of about 30-40 museums and cultural centres that were offering free admission between 7pm-1am.  Well, here I am and Cassio took the pic, (of course) to prove that we were FIRST in line for the Picasso museum.  We arrived at 5:30 and waited 90 minutes but hey, we got to sit down, and the line after us, went all the way down the street.  Plus, it gave us a good chance to rest after having walked around town since 9am.  The museum was good, and I saw many works I recognized, but it also houses a fair number of early works to show Picasso's development as an artist.

This is "Las Ramblas" - the main drag down the older centre of Barcelona.  Boy was it crowded and full of tourist type souvenir shops.  No where to sit and definitely a pick-pocket's heaven. 

View of the beach area of Barcelona

The Market

Fountain in the Jardin by the Zoo.