Have Fun Storming the Castle!, Lake Como (August 30

Varenna's main "sight" is the ruined medieval castle nearby. Sure, it looks innocuous enough, a typical look with ladies dressed in gowns and men dressed in tights. Sometimes things so strange happen they merit their own story. By the time we left the Castle of Vezio on the top of the hill in Varenna, I was legitimately laughing out of sheer confusion.

We started making the trek up the hill both expecting sensational views of Lake Como. It was a much longer, steeper trek than we expected. You might notice the sign says 15 minutes on foot. That is a lie. it's more like 30 - 35, straight uphill on a little cobblestone path/stairs.
I didn't think it was too bad.
Ali disagreed.


She was willing to take another (happy) picture after a few minutes rest.

When we arrived at the top, we weren't disappointed. Various parts of the grounds had views of the lake from every angle just as the sun was setting.





But things felt like they might be a little bit off. At the entrance to the grounds, there was an owl. I'm still not sure why. An unofficial mascot perhaps?



Alas, while expansive views of what some people have called the most beautiful place on Earth should be enough to attract hordes of tourists, the real draw for most people appears to be the Castle's daily falconry exhibits.



Ali was extremely intrigued by the "falconer's" exhibition...until she realized she didn't speak Italian and had no idea what the guy was saying. This guy kept just picking up one of the 10ish birds, unhooking them, saying something about them, then disappearing down the hill only to return without the bird. It was slightly confusing. I think at some point they were supposed to return back after he called them...or something like that. The Italian tourists were enthralled and completely oblivious to the views all around them. The big falcon kept jumping in my direction in a very threatening/sad manner - he was tied by both feet to the ground with about 2 1/2 feet of chain.



After we realized it would be a while before the hawks returned and potentially did something unpredictable or dangerous, we decided to climb the tower that still rests in the middle of the castle. The views from the top were perhaps the best of the day.




And they gave us a chance to take a timed-photograph of ourselves with the phone dangling from a screw in the wall. Nobody was around to take our picture because falconry was still going on.



But of course, the castle wouldn't be complete with just pretty views. To keep things interesting, the climb was on a series of barely stable wooden steps that led Ali to legitimately fear for her life.



And of course, what tower in the middle of a castle famous for falconry exhibits would be complete without a fossil museum to educate the public about the lariosauro?



That was just hanging in one of the rooms in the tower. The website tells me that the lariosauro is "a middle-sized fossil reptile genus ascribed to the Saupterigians, an extinct group of aquatic reptiles." However, the website doesn't tell me exactly why there is a museum for it in a tower in a castle on the top of a hill. Perhaps it was found in the castle? Perhaps it once ruled over the town from the castle with an iron fist? Maybe the falcons were bred to defeat the lariosauro? It is all a mystery. Once you got into the castle, there were no descriptions of anything.

All this was enough to leave me confused and amused. But the castle was put over the top by the random art exhibition which involved plaster molds of human and ghost like figures all over the castle.



I really can't do justice to the weirdness of the whole thing. Especially considering the views alone were worth the admission. It's like getting a falconry show, fossil museum, and postmodern paper-machet exhibit for free!

Alas, then it was time to leave.

The castle is the castle-like icon in the middle of the map above. We came up by taking the path on the left which was by no means a road, but was wide and filled with steps. We decided to take the other road down the hill. The one that leaves the castle on the right. The one that looks like all the other roads on the map. After spending about 20 minutes looking for said road, we realized we had found it.



The "road" on the map is in fact an 8 inch wide path barely big enough for one person worn through plants and weeds and occasionally passing through what appeared to be people's backyards.



Fortunately the view was worth it. The way down was steeper than the way up had been, and significantly more difficult. We traipsed down tall steps, around what I was sure was poison ivy, past random shrines to the Virgin Mary, through a terraced olive grove, finally ending up at a random hotel that had a funicular and a killer view. We ended the day checking out the monastery gardens and villa described in the last post.

Overall, I give it two thumbs up. If you go to Varenna and don't go see the prehistoric dinosaur fossil, falconry, art exhibit Renaissance castle, you really haven't been to Varenna at all.

Varenna, Italy (On Lake Como)

From the doldrums of Milan to the cool(er) shores of Lake Como we came to the little village of Varenna on the left "hip" of Lake Como. Apparently, if you look at Lake Como on a map, it looks like a man, with two legs and a body. Another town we went to, Bellagio, is the "testicles". George Clooney's house (ciao, it's George) is somewhere around the right knee.

Varenna was very sleepy and quiet, and we enjoyed the scenery and getting some exercise. Streets there were less something you drive on than walking directly uphill via stairs that served as passageways between homes leading down to the water.

The view of Varenna from the top of the hill above it

Ferries taking cars and people from town to town on the lake - We spent a lovely afternoon riding the boat from town to town (Menaggio and Belaggio). When we got too lazy to actually get of, we just rode it around and enjoyed being out on the water.

Sunset over the lake

Monastery Gardens overlooking the Lake
Used to be a Cistercian convent, later a private villa on the lake

Another view from the Monastery Garden - it was a little overcast most of the time we were there, I think this is the one of the only pictures we got where you can actually see how beautifully blue the water was.

One night we decided we should suck it up and try the local cuisine - Lake Fish, of course. This little guy was a "lake herring" served with polenta and actually quite tasty, if a little boney. We also sampled a mixed grill of all different lake fish (the yummiest was trout, sorry, no pictures, it was dark and we were hungry) When we complimented our waiter on how good everything was, he told us how he and the chef actually went out every night after closing to go spearfishing for one of the fish we ate that night. He got pretty excited and came back out a few minutes later with a picture of a huge fish he had personally speared recently.

Last but not least, one of us. Okay, a little dark and blurry, but we're proud of it. We took this one of ourselves by hanging the camera on a nail at the top of the Castle. Did I say Castle? That's a whole different story.

Milan, Italy (August 28-30)

Found a little apartment hotel in Florence with internet so we're going to clear out some of the back stuff, starting with Milan.

We hadn't heard much about Milan other than that there wasn't much to be heard about Milan. The Duomo, the Last Supper, and fashion. Well the Last Supper was all booked and I only have interest in fashion if it involves khaki and shirts that are various shades of blue. August is an even worse time to go because the 90+ degree heat leads most of the actual residents to leave the city for their vacation home leaving the city a hot mess of closed shops and restaurants. Nevertheless, because of how things stacked up we ended up spending three nights in Milan.

One of our guidebooks mentioned that the Navigli District was the only place that was still bouncing in August. It's a small area south of the city center that still has two canals running through it - the last remnants of the extensive canal system designed in part by Leonardo DaVinci to bring trade goods in and out of Milan. The area used to be industrial with lot of factories and warehouses on top of the filled in canals. Now the warehouses are used as huge late night clubs (that we were too lame to ever see even open because we are early to bed. The few remaining canals give it a little bit of a Venice vibe and gives almost every one of the probably 20 - 30 little bars and restaurants water front dining. On weekends, there is also a huge antiques market (picture below).



The big thing in Milan and especially Navigli was the "Aperitivo" or "Happy Hour" as it was called at most places. This involved paying 8 euro for a cocktail and an all you can eat appetizer buffet, some of which were quite extensive and more of a meal than an appetizer (pizza, pasta, bruschetta, meats). So when you get a 7 euro Negroni, you're essentially just buying a 1 euro buffet. Some of these were obviously better than others, but overall it was a good way to get a light meal. A few places were a relaxed, some were a bit more "Ultra" but they were all slammed with young people feeding their faces and drinking cocktails by the water by about 8pm. We were a little timid at first, afraid to be the "Pigging out Americans" until we saw the Italian kids next to us come back from the buffet with 2 plates each and go back for more shortly after.

Another reason we decided on staying so long in Milan was that we really needed to do laundry and figured we could spend a day taking care of it. Unfortunately, the gentleman at the front desk didn't know of any laundromats nearby so he sent us on a wild goose chase on the other side of town. After an hour of wandering we passed one just as we were about to give up and head back. Thanks reception guy. We later saw a laundromat about a block away, but we never saw if it was open. This is probably for the better because reception guy would have been seriously on our bad sides if it was actually still open.

The one tourist thing we had to do was go to the Duomo. It is officially the 4th largest Cathedral in the world now that Cote d'Ivoire is building the 1st or 2nd largest cathedral depending on who you ask. However, it is most famous due to its astounding bugle and sugar cube recreation by a 4th grade Allison Hanson.



The Duomo is quite impressive as you climb out of the metro station, although it wasn't as big inside as I expected.

One of the plusses of the Duomo is that you can climb to the roof for a small fee (slightly higher fee to lazily take the elevator to the roof). We hoofed it up for some pictures.



Where's Kevin?

It's also a good place to lie down and find some shade and a breeze to get away from the somewhat oppressive heat.



All in all, Milan wasn't great given the circumstances, but I can't really judge it without seeing it when things are open and when I actually care to see tourist attractions. We did have two delicious meals including our first splurge of the trip at a very nice restaurant where we got a dish of Osso Bucco and Risotto Milanse, the two Milanese specialties. The second was an awesome lunch of pasta to start and a super yummy seafood soup jam packed with mussels, clams, fish, and the most delicious broth ever. So, all in all, because of where it is - apparently you can fly pretty much anywhere through the airport there - I'm sure we'll be back in Milan at some point, but probably not for more than a night or two. Also next time, we will probably have some idea of when we will be here, and try to see the Last Supper.

Pisa, Italy (September 10)

We're way out of order now and rather than do all the old ones first, we're just going to save some things for Rome and show you the fun stuff from today.

We went, for at least a whole hour to one of the world's oldest tourist traps, the leaning tower of Pisa.

Pauline Frommer described the tower as looking like a spaceship surrounded by a field of mimes. It does seem just like that except with a very large church and baptistery set in the field as well. We did some miming and purchased postcards. We had a feeling that if Grandma and Grandpa had come with us on this trip, having already enjoyed the splendor of Pisa at least twice before, probably would have opted to stay in Lucca for the morning and sent us to do our miming alone.

And now, without further adeiu . . .

Random people pretending to hold up the tower


Kevin very nonchalantly holding it up

Ali working a bit harder to get it straigtened up
Giant Kevin - getting this thing plumb is going to be a piece of cake for him...

Until Ali punches it back over!! Ky-Ya!
Then we played nice for a tripod aided picture. (Thanks Bill ;)) Please note the mimes in the background. And ask to see the set up picture. Ali won't let me post it.

State of the Blog

So obviously the goal was to post somewhat frequently in order to keep things up to date. As was (somewhat) expected, the internet still struggles to make a huge impact in parts of Italy. Where it exists, wi-fi networks are frequently closed, perhaps due to a law that requires a passport for all people attempting to use the internet. So far we've run into hotels with free internet, hotels with internet that doesn't work, hotels that advertise wi-fi but charge 17 euros for 24 hours (which even me and my internet addiction won't pay for) and currently a B&B with a wi-fi connection named after the B&B, but which we are told we can't use. Even when I find the rare open network, I figure I'm much better off ignoring it and actually exploring it.

With that said, we have a few more days in cities that are likely to have limited connection (Cinque Terre and Lucca) before heading to big cities and Rome where are apartment will have a connection. So by the time we leave Rome we should be all updated with some quirky additions. If you have stopped paying attention by then, I don't blame you. We will try to lure you back with the always popular pictures of words that are funny and signs of dogs picking up poop.

Be in touch.

Kevin (and Ali)

Bolzano, Italy

Okay everyone, almost all caught up. We are still lazing around in Milan, but we did get some cool shots of the the duomo this morning, probably a short post about that to come.

We took the train from Munich to Bolzano late in the morning, grabbing a croissant and a cup of coffee while we were trying to get tickets from a strangely inefficient German ticket system. For lunch, we ended up eating about 4 crackers each. By the time we got into our hotel, we were starving, but sadly had missed the italian lunch time by about an hour. Nothing much was open except for gelato and coffee shops. We ended up finding a pizza place that was open a little early and were quite excited.This masterpiece was the Tirol Pizza at a super cute little pizzeria in town. It's toppings reflected the dual German/Italian culture of this area - Speck and wurst. It was delicious since a) we were starving b) it tasted very much like a bacon and hot dog pizza, in the best way possible. c) we'd been starving ourselves of italian food for about a month prior to the trip and were going through serious withdrawal from tomatoes and cheese.
We walked around through the Piazza Erbe, a little street filled up with a produce market along the sidewalk and shops and restaurants along the edges. Everything from flowers to the makings of a magical trail mix of every possible dried fruit and nut to flowers and fresh veggies was available. I'd never seen a blooming artichoke before - this one was probably about 8 inches across. We wandered around for a little bit (sans camera, sadly) and checked out the wide park along the river on the edge of the old town, had a glass of wine or two, and went to bed with big plans for the morning.

First priority of the day was to go see Ötzi the Ice Man at the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology. Click the link to read about him if you haven't ever seen the show on the Discovery channel or National Geographic, and if you ever go to Bolzano definitely check out this museum. The display was really detailed and interesting, and they have other mummies from all over the world there ranging from Egypt to South America to Asia. And the whole thing only takes about an hour to go through, which is good for people like us with short museum attention spans.

After the museum, we went back to the market from some trail mix, then fixed ourselves a nice little picnic and took a cable car up into the mountains.

Up, and up, and up. With some very warm German tourists. It was warm. That's all I'm saying.
But the view was totally worth it and it was only E3.50 each round trip!

You could see a little twisty road winding up and up the mountain, through the farms and vinyards, every time you thought it was at the end, you'd go up a little higher and there would be yet another house or farm nestled into the mountain side.

When we were finally at the top (about 10 - 15 minutes) we walked another 25 minutes or so along one of the hiking trails and found a good spot to eat our feast of pasta salad, salami, bresaola, and cheese - and wine, of course. We ate until we were stuffed and couldn't take the bees anymore and then finished our wine walking back to ride back down the mountain and sitting in a little park near the middle of town.

Munich, Germany (August 22-25)

I was able to pirate a wi-fi connection in Milan so we're inside and catching up for an afternoon instead of sweltering in the heat that has led practically every native Milanese to leave for the month of August.

After Dublin we went to Munich. The original plan was to go for Oktoberfest, but once I did some quick checks I realized it would take a significant part of our budget to find lodging alone without factoring in the beer. After surveying some other options we decided to go back in August before heading down to Italy. I had been once before, but it was in November and it struck me as a town that might be entirely different in the summer.

We arrived late at night and went to the Augustiner beer hall for our first German brews.



Unlike the Irish beers, these seemed to have an inebriating effect, although it might have been the fact that they are a full liter. I'm not sure if Ali is laughing here because she is surprised by the massive size or if she drank enough to find one of my jokes funny.

We got in late so that was all we managed to accomplish for the night.

The next day we woke up and walked down for the obligatory viewing of the glockenspiel. It was glockenspiel-like.


We also stopped by the Residenz palace/museum. It was an interesting, albeit long, tour.

We went back to the hotel and took out the two bikes the hotel had available for free. Getting free bikes was nice. Getting uncomfortable bikes that made me sore for the next week was unfortunate. I may or may not have whined eventually (alot. but still would not switch with me. mine was quite comfy. -AH)

We stopped off at the beer garden in the Old Botanical Garden for our lunch of official Bavarian food.

Ali got the Schnitzl. It was a lot of schnitzl but it was quite good.



I got the weiss-wurst, traditional German sausage which I learned after I ordered is never to be eaten after lunch. Fortunately it was before noon (or at least still during lunch). Hooray for accidental etiqutte. Don't worry, I made up for it by asking a German guy at Hofbrauhaus how much his new BMW cost (The look on that poor guy's face was priceless. He had absolutely no idea of what to say. AH)



We rode the bikes to the Pinakothek (not even going to look up the spelling) museums which are fortunately only 1 euro on Sundays. It was even more fortunate because I do not spend enough time in museums (either classical or modern art) to make it worth much more than that. They were very cool museums both architecturally and content-wise, but I'm saving up my museum time for Florence and Rome.

Next we rode to the English Gardens. This was one area I remember thinking would be cool in the summertime. Last time I was here we went on a bike tour that went through it and they simply pointed out where stuff would be if it wasn't all closed.

We went by the increasingly famous river surfers. It's very cool to see.



Next we rode by the Chinese Beer Garden. Because it was a Sunday it was extremely packed with people jammed in drinking liters of beer. We rode the rest of the way through the park passed a softball game and naked sunbathers to the Paulaner beer garden on a little lake. We weren't in the mood for beer at this point, but we still walked around to see it. It also was packed with traditional German band playing.



After the long day I was pretty pooped. We went to get pho (only so much German food is necessary for one day. After that we hit the hay early.

The next morning we woke up with a sort of a plan. We walked down to the Marienplatz again and Ali got a pretzel. She also used it to find a shady place to beat the heat.



Next we went to the church with the big towers, Am Dom, and took the stairs/elevator to the top (86 steps, 1 elevator - AH).



We got some very cool 360 degree views of Munich including the Residenz and garden that we had visited the day before.



Next we walked back through the Hofgarten to the English Garden. Despite being Monday, parts of the park were even busier than the day before. Since it was hot (bad day to wear pants), some of the Muncheners were enjoying the river in the park despite the "Baden Verboten" sign that even I understood.

This guy was putting on a tightrope show.



And other people were using this miniwaterfall as a defacto water slide (the original Schlitterbahn?)



At this point Ali was extremely jealous and wanted to jump in. She claims she almost intentionally accidentally fell in. But we didn't have appropriate attire and the river would have swept us about 2 miles down from where we were.

Instead we settled for beers at the Paulaner beer garden we had seen the day before. It was significantly less busy as you can see below.



At this point I was wiped out, although mostly just hot and sweaty because I decided to wear pants (hence the lack of pictures of us). I decided that we should take public transportation back to save time and energy so I could get back and shower. Unfortunately, the city map with the park was confusing and I took a slight wrong turn.

Sadly that wrong turn put us in the tunnel of doom. Although it looks innocuous, it had the largest spiders ever crawling from the ceiling. I was convinced one of them was going to eat us whole.



After getting through the tunnel, I decided we weren't looking for a residential area of Munich that had no indications of public transportation (I took a turn with the map and realized we had been looking for a BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER not a TUNNEL UNDER A HIGHWAY - AH). So we had to sprint back through the tunnel. Eventually we found our way back. And usually things do have a silver lining as we walked through what appeared to be a very cool neighborhood worth walking through during our next visit. Eventually we made it back to the hotel, although I think we walked as long looking for public transportation as if I had just decided to walk straight back to the hotel. Live and learn (mostly learn to not wear pants).

That night we went to a beerhall/restaurant by Am Dom and had delicious bratwurst (and great mustard) and finished up at Hofbrauhaus which I found an obligatory destination although it was pretty quite because it was late on a Monday night.

Next we were off to Bolzano. More soon.

Dublin, Ireland, Part II

Due to internet reasons the last post had to be cut short and we have fallen about a week behind. The next couple of places we stay at have free internet (as opposed to 17 euros for 24 hours), so we will spend time there catching up on the blog (instead of going out and enjoying Lake Como and Venice.

So our last full day in Dublin we had to take care of the #1 tourist attraction in Ireland (or perhaps the world), the Guinness Brewery.

We downloaded a walking tour podcast from the Guinness website and used it as our guide to get to the brewery. We learned some interesting things about Arthur Guinness who is apparently the greatest man that has ever lived.

We took the obligatory photographs.


And some less obligatory and kind of strange looking photographs. You probably knew that barley is one of the main ingredients of beer, but you probably didn't know that taking a picture with it makes somebody look like a weirdo.


After about 4 floors of Guinness information, you realize you know all you need to and can take a trip to the Gravity Bar to sample the product (if you haven't done enough of that in the previous few days). It's a very cool bar with a great view of Dublin and surroundings. You can see the ocean on one side and lush green hills on the other.


Somebody was kind enough to take a picture of the two of us.


All in all it's a fun tour. On a slightly related note, we both found Guinness in general delicious, but not very effective in decreasing sobriety. Perhaps it's just a coincidence.

Since then we have been to Munich, Bolzano, and our now sweltering in Milan (heat seems to be a common theme for us). 90% of the city has left Milan. We understand why.

Temporarily Out of Reach

We've encountered a bit of an internet black hole in the past few places we've been, so our goal of updating the blog regularly has been difficult to meet. Obviously we are now about a week behind. We are currently in Bolzano, Italy. Once we get to a hotel that has internet we will update the blog, our photos, and the map.