EXPLORING BELLAGIO, LAKE COMO, ITALY

This interesting little town filled with delightful restuarants and great shops starts at the waterfront and then staggers up the mountainside.  We are getting our exercise here.  Even though the town isn't all that big, just walking a block is a workout.  The steps are all cobblestone of varying widths and slants.  I definately brought the wrong shoes with me for this trip.  So far I am managing though with only a few blisters.

The streets through the town are nearly vertical in some areas.  This was great fun navigating during a down pour yesterday.  It is difficult in a photograph to show you just how steep some of these streets are.

EXPLORING LENNO, LAKE COMO

Today (Saturday, July 9th), we visited Lenno, which is another town on Lake Como just across from Bellagio where we are staying.  In Lenno there is a famous villa called Villa del Balbianello.  Famous films such as, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and the James Bond movie, Casino Royale were filmed on the property.

The hike straight uphill was quite a challenge.  I never thought we would get to the top.  But once there and took a little rest, we wandered around and found the property and its view absolutely gorgeous.  

 

WE SAW LONDON, WE SAW FRANCE…

…Como soaked our underpants!  We left France today and will spend our remaining time in Italy.  Au revoir, France.  Bon giorno, Italy!  If you’re wondering about the title of this post, we do have a good explanation behind it.  When we arrived in Como, Italy today, it was nice, but a bit cloudy and humid.  We had a 45 minute wait for a bus to take us to the pier for the hydrofoil to take us up Lake Como to Bellagio where we are staying for the next 3 nights.  Once we boarded the bus, it started to rain - big drops.  I’m not talking about a drizzle.  I’m talking big rain drops!  From the bus to the pier, it was about a 5 minute walk, typically no big deal, but today we walked through a downpour and we got soaked.  Kara even got splashed by a passing car just to add insult to injury.  At that point, we just had to laugh.  It only got worse as we rode the ferry to our hotel.  We ran off the ferry straight to the nearest café that had rain cover and ordered a glass of wine and a cappuccino to wait out the rain.  When it didn’t stop, we decided to make a run for our hotel as well.  The hotel receptionist told us this was not a usual occurrence, so lucky us.  The fun continues…

BASKIN ROBBINS LOOKOUT

After dinner last night, we went to a glacier (gla-cee-ay) or ice cream shop for desert.  This place put Baskin Robins to shame - 31 flavors?  Kid’s stuff!  This place had 58 parfums (flavors)!  I had violette and pistachio and Rex had fig and pistachio.  They were yummy.  I know it will be different once we are in Italy and can have gelato.  I can’t wait.

ANNECY (AHN-SEE)

This is a majestic town.  It is preparing us for Venice.  There is a lovely canal that runs through to the lake.  On the other side of the lake are the Alps that separate France from Switzerland.  We have already taken several walks through the streets and alleyways.

Once it was dark we went out again for a night cap.  We stopped at this outdoor café and I order Absinthe.  Last I knew you couldn’t get Absinthe in the states and since I have never had it before, I had to try.  It was hilarious.  It was very strong.  However, they only serve less than a shot and it is presented with a double sugar cube on top.  It was interesting.    

 

BEAUNE TO ANNECY

What a gorgeous train ride to Annecy, France this morning (Tuesday, July 05, 2011).  We headed southeast today into the mountain region bordering Switzerland and Italy.  The camera says we took over 230 pictures in about ½ a day.  Needless to say, the countryside was beautiful.  I don’t have any data to back this up, but I would estimate that about 80% of all French land is farm land.  There are fields everywhere – grapes (of course), corn, wheat, hay, sunflowers, lettuce and much more we could not immediately identify.  Even backyards have gardens.  It has prompted us to see if we can find a way to start a little garden of our own when we get home.

OLYMPICS COMING TO ANNECY IN 2018?

We might have stumbled upon a big party in Annecy tonight.  Annecy is one of 3 finalists hoping to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.  The 3 cities are Pyeongchang, South Korea; Munich, Germany; and Annecy, France.  We just found out that the winner will be announced today at 4PM local time.  So, if Annecy wins, they’re might be quite a party here tonight.  Stay tuned...

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Annecy didn't get selected.  Suprisingly, though, the locals were not too upset.  One of the waiters told us they didn't want the crowds of people taking over the town.  I guess those crowds will be heading to Pyeongchang now.

IMPORTANT FRENCH PHRASES

ENGLISH	FRENCH	PRONOUNCIATION
Good Day	Bonjour	Bohn-zhoor
Good Evening	Bonsoir	Bohn-swar
Goodbye	Au revoir	Oh reh-vwah
Check, please	L’addtion, s’il vous plaÎt	Lah-dee-see-ohn, see voo play
Pitcher of tap water	Pizcher de eau	Pish-air de oh
Bathroom	Les toilette	Lay twah-leht
Exit	Sortie	Sor-tee
Yes / No	Oui / Non	Wee / Nohn
Please	S’il vous plaÎt	See voo play
Your welcome	De rien	Duh ree-an
Excuse me (attention)	Excusez-moi	Ehk-skew-zay-mwah
Excuse me (to pass)	Pardon	Pahr-dohn
Euro (€)	Euro	Eh-oo-roh
Here it is	Voilà	Vwah-lah

These phrases really helped us get along in France.  You really only need to know these and we have found that the french are very nice when you try.

DOWN DAY IN BEAUNE

 As today is Sunday nothing is open.  We wandered around getting to know this little town.  We came upon a Patisserie - marvelous pastry.  Rex had a pistachio éclair and I had a citron chocolate dome.  That was lunch.  We were saving room for dinner.  We have noticed that if we eat breakfast at the hotel, then lunch out and dinner that we are so stuffed by the end of the day.  We are much better today that we kept to a light breakfast at the hotel, very light lunch and dinner.

Once it got dark we noticed the most interesting lights on the cathedral across the street from our hotel.  I took a video and will upload it later.  It was amazing, like Disney magic.  These pictures give you a small taste of what I am talking about.

CREDIT CARDS IN FRANCE

A cool thing we’ve discovered in France has to do with the way they handle credit cards.  It is against French law for a waiter to take a credit card out of the site of its owner.  So, when you pay with a card, they bring a hand held scanner over to the table and swipe the card rather than taking it to the back of the restaurant and doing who-knows-what with it like they do in the United States.  Attention all important US Congressmen and Senators reading this blog: make this a law in the US too.

LA MOUTARDERIE

It is Sunday, July 3^rd and nothing is open today.  Some of the restaurants are even closed.  Thank goodness I booked us a tour of La Moutarderie (Mustard Factory).  Edward Fallot is the only mustard maker left in Beaune and the Burgundy region today (there used to be over 33, but they have all been swallowed up by the conglomerants).  He is also the only mustard maker that is still using real stone grindstones to make his mustard.  This adds to the flavor and takes much more time to create. 

During the tour we had the opportunity to grind our own Dijon by hand.  You start with a mortar and pestle, and then add in the mustard seeds, white wine vinegar and salt, then grind, grind, and grind away.  It starts very bitter, then as you open up the seeds and they combine with the other ingredients the heat emerges.  When you have broken up most of the seeds, you would need to   keep stirring the batch for over 20 minutes for the bitterness to begin to change to the spicy heat of Dijon mustard.

We bought some of the mustard, so if you are ever over for dinner, be sure to ask for a sample.  However, don’t wait too long; since mustard is my favorite condiment, I am sure it won’t last long.

 

TRAVEL FROM PARIS TO BEAUNE

We thought we woke up with plenty of time to make our 10:25 train from Paris Lyon to Dijon, then to connect on from Dijon to Beaune.  However, we used Rex’s phone as our alarm in the morning and since it doesn’t connect to any cell service over here, it was still reading London time.  We were an hour behind.  We didn’t discover this error until it was 9:25.  We rushed to finish packing and left the hotel without breakfast.  We had to take three metro trains to get to the Paris Lyon station to catch the train and we didn’t have much time.

We arrived at the station in time to walk straight onto the train.  Thank goodness.  The clock on the phone is changed now, so that can be avoided again.

The train from Paris Lyon to Dijon was quick – a little over an hour.  With our Eurail pass, we didn’t need reservations for the train, so when we got to the station we decided to have lunch at a nearby café in Dijon then take the next train on to Beaune.  As we get further away from Paris, it is more difficult to communicate in English and our French is not so good.  While at the café I wrote up a cheat sheet on how to ask when the train would arrive in Beaune.  It worked perfectly.  We knew when our stop would be so we could be ready.

The ride to Beaune was only 20 minutes.  Once we got here we had to walk for awhile to find our hotel.  Beaune is a very small town and the streets are laid out like a wagon wheel with little alleys here and there, which made finding our hotel interesting.

Our hotel is a quaint boutique hotel.  We are staying in the top floor in a room for 4 people.  We feel like we got the largest room in the place.  There is no air conditioning, but we have multiple windows that provide a very nice cross breeze which makes it very pleasant.  Also, all the television channels are in French.  Oddly enough some of the shows and commercials we understand (slightly).