A Day of Driving (Firenze to Ancona)

This is to be a day of driving.  Our plan is to drive to Ancona today, where we will check on a ferry to Croatia.  We have never been there before,  so this will be a new experience.

We got up at 8:30 and went down to breakfast,  where Lonnie had cornflakes with milk, and I had muesli with yogurt. We didn't get away from the hotel until after 11. Since then we have been on the interstate.  Right now we are pulled over on the side of the road so that Lonnie can nap. Since his esophagus hurts, he hasn't been eating much of anything so he is tired. I am still praying that it will get better so that he can enjoy the trip more.

We made it to Ancona with plenty of time to spare.  We finally found the ferry station and got tickets for the Blue Line ferry to Croatia.  We couldn't get a cabin so we will be sleeping in airplane seats.  Lonnie is not really happy about it,  but I figured it would be better than driving two days to get there. It is a 10 hour ferry ride, so we will see how it goes. 

I am sitting in reception waiting for Lonnie to come. They would not let me stay in the car with him so I have been on the boat for over an hour now while he waits outside to bring the car on. A very nice lady sat down and started to talk to me. I obviously could not understand a word she said.  After sitting here watching everyone check in, I fully believe that we are the only ones on this boat that speak English except for a very few of the workers. Most speak Italian,  with some speaking what I can only guess is Croatian.  Lonnie is still not here snd it is time for the ferry to pull out. Should I be nervous? 

Lonnie finally showed up about 

2 1/2 hours after I got on board.  They had to load all of the semi trucks and tour busses before they would let the cars on. He asked at reception if there hsd been any room cancellations, but theee hadn't.  I showed him where our seats were, then we went to look for food.  All of a sudden,  Lonnie realized that he had left his new Galaxy Tab in the seat and ran back to see if it was still there. Since I had chosen seats in the back and it was really dark back there,  no one had noticed it yet. I'm glad he thought of it before everyone decided to retire for the night.

Now we are in the restaurant waiting for our food.  I hope it is good.

My meal on the ferry turned out to be one of the best meals that I have had this trip. Who would have thought it. I had a salad, grilled chicken,  and grilled vegetables. Lonnie ordered tomato soup which smelled very good,  but he got sick after the first bite and couldn't finish it.  He is really starting to worry me. I was hoping he would be better by now but he's not. I ask him every day if he wants to go back to Zurich and fly home but he says he would rather feel bad here than at home.  We both know he  would probably be in the hospital at home (at least for tests if nothing else). It is really kind of scary.

Well the boat is about to rock me to sleep,  so I guess we need to pay for our food then make our way to our airplane seats and go to sleep. 

A Day in Firenze, Italia

Today was a beautiful day in Firenze Italia.  I am sure the temperature was nice (probably in the upper seventies),  but it felt 

hot to us since we had been in much cooler climates. While many were wearing jackets,  we were in short sleeves, thinking how hot it was. 

We got into Florence around noon,  after a harrowing ride through the city. For some reason,  the Garmin GPS was acting up and taking us all over the city instead of to the parking area under the train station. I finally got my phone out and turned on Google maps to get us there. 

 For those of you who have never been to Italy, I have to tell you that the driving is crazy!  They try to fit five or six lanes of cars into three actual lanes on the road. Add to that all of the motorbikes, bicycles and people wandering across the street, and it can make for a rather stressful drive to one who is not used to it. They have lots of streets going in all directions,  they drive fast and people who want to cross the street just step out in faith and walk across in front of the cars with the assumption that the drivers will stop for them. And, crazy as it sounds,  we have been both - driver and pedestrian.  And, yes, you had better stop for the pedestrian who appears out of nowhere. It is also not uncommon to see people stop in the middle of the street to get out of their cars to yell at another driver. I watched a man get out of his car to yell at our tour bus driver,  while holding up traffic in several directions. Such is a day of driving in Italy.

We began our day in Florence by taking a bus tour.  We had never done that before and it was very interesting.  I realized when we got back tonight that they actually had three different tours that we could have gone on with our pass, but each one would have taken an hour, and we really came here to shop. I also had the Rick Steves tour that we had planned to do but I was afraid the shops would close, so we skipped it. In actuality,  it would have taken me to the shopping faster than we found it on our own. If you go to Florence, I highly recommend that you download his walking tour and listen to it. I listened to part of it while we were walking and it was really very informative.

I had contemplated going to the Galleria dell'Academia or the Uffizi Museum but they were closed because it was Monday.  State museums are typically closed on Mondays all over Italy. We have been to both before, but Michaelangelo's David is such an imposing statue that I could definitely have gone to see it again! And his prisoners in stone sre so moving that I just want to go over to them and help them get out of the stone that they are imprisoned in. I first saw them on the tour that I took in 1969. I would have to say, though, that my favorite statues are in the Bhorgese Gallery in Rome. We are not going to Rome this year (even though I had planned to go there) because of the driving and the massive number of people that are everywhere.   Even though this is not the High Season,  there was a large throng of people in Florence. That is why we typically avoid tourist areas when traveling.  Unfortunately I have planned several of them for this trip.

After shopping,  we wandered the city just taking in the sites. We went to the Porto Vecchio where the gold is sold, but didn't buy any. We went to the Straw Market where we did some shopping.  We walked past Dante's house,  and the Duomo and went inside the church of Santa Maria Novella. It had gorgeous stained glass windows and beautiful paintings on the walls and ceilings.  God has blessed so many people with such great talents!  I could never begin to carve something out of stone,  or paint beautiful pictures on ceilings (or anywhere for that matter), or put together stained glass windows, or build a dome high up on a building. I am so very thankful that God has given me eyes to see these things,  as well as the opportunity.

While walking down one street,  we stumbled across a store that had perfect gifts for one of our sons and his family!  Now just a few more gifts to go. As can be expected,  I have found lots of things that I could have gotten for our youngest granddaughter, but I have had to restrain myself.

 And, of course,  a visit to Italy would not be complete without pizza and gelatto. We had my favorite gelatto - pistachio.  Yum!

We got back to the hotel around 9PM, after another "Mad Hatter" ride through the city. Thank you,  Lord!

After a meal of salad and veal scallopine, we retired to the room where I began this blog. And,  such was our day in Florence,  Italy.

Angera, Italy

The alarm went off at 8:50 this morning.  Lonnie was not ready to get up.  We headed to breakfast,  but they didn't have much to choose from.  I chose yogurt with muesli and walnuts and tried their hot chocolate (just not the same as Swiss). Lonnie had banana yogurt, a half peach,  and a sip of hot chocolate. 

Then we headed out to Rocca Borromeo. It was a fabulous castle,  housing a wonderful doll collection. The dolls were owned by Princess Bono Borromeo Arese. There were beautiful paintings and very old frescoes on the walls. We climbed the 155 steps to the top of the tower.  The last few steps were tall, steep stone steps in the very narrow tower. We grabbed some lunch,  then headed toward Florence,  where we checked into the Novotel Aeroporto Nord at around 9PM.  We have stayed here several times and find it to be a good hotel. We went to the restaurant where we ordered salad and spaghetti.  The salad was wonderful.  Not sure what they did to the spaghetti.  It was not good. The spaghetti had some kind of coating on it and was served with a few cooked tomatoes on it. But that's okay.  You live and learn (at least it wasn't tripe like I ended up with when I ordered a "special" three years ago)!

Lenno, Italy

Into every life a little rain must fall...

and I am so thankful.

Our day began very early, at 5:45AM, when I realized that we did not ask where we were supposed to park the car last night.  I dressed and went downstairs to ask. Sure enough,  we were parked in a towaway zone. Fortunately,  the car was still there.  Lonnie, very annoyed,  had to get up and move the car into the hotel garage.  After that excitement,  we slept until nearly ten. 

We had our typical breakfast. I had meat (kind of like bologna or other lunch meat), cheese,  croissant,  fruit, and,  of course,  Swiss hot chocolate.  Yum!  Lonnie tried what he thought was corn flakes. They weren't. He finally settled on yogurt, meat,  cheese and a little hot chocolate. 

After breakfast,  we hung around the hotel until noon.  The view from our balcony of Lake Como was beautiful. No sunshine,  though. It was rainy all day. That did not deter us from visiting the Villa del Balbianello. One of  the Star Wars movies was filmed here, as well as one of the James Bond movies. 

Since it was raining,  our hotel clerk offered to call a Water Taxi for us.  Then he drove us to the Water Taxi stop. The taxi driver was very nice and offered us an umbrella.  I had my raincoat and Lonnie thought he had his raincoat in the backpack,  so we politely declined.  A few minutes later when it started raining harder, he realized he did not have it.

We toured the grounds of the Villa, which were beautiful.  Then we toured the Villa itself.  Because it was built on the side of a mountain, it had six floors with only a couple of rooms on each floor. It also had some hidden staircases. Part of the house incorporated an old monastery into it. From the outside it looked like there was a small church building that you could walk into,  but the doors were fake and the kitchen of the house was located inside it. Interesting. 

After  touring the Villa, we walked the couple of miles back to the hotel,  then headed toward Angera, Italy.  Once again the Garmin GPS led us off the beaten path.  Driving on super narrow roads makes me nervous,  and that is where the Garmin led us. Not good. 

We stopped at a McDonalds to grab something to eat. It had been a long time since breakfast.  Not exactly what we wanted but we were running too late to stop for a two hour meal.

We finally arrived at Angera around 8PM. I looked up hotels on Tripadvi sor and found one listed that sounded good. We found it fairly easily and even found a free parking place on the street (thank you,  Lord).  Now to the reason I am thankful for the rain.  The hotel was wonderful and was half-price. What we didn't know was that this is a holiday weekend for Italy, and the clerk told us that if the weather had been nice, there would not have been any rooms available anywhere.  The Lord is good. 

And,  the  night clerk, who speaks only Italian,  directed us to a nice Pizzeria to eat. Lonnie had bean soup (which turned out to be just pinto beans in extra liquid), I had mixed salad and we shared a vegetarian pizza which I thought was good,  but Lonnie was not impressed with.

When we got back to the room,  I noticed that there was no shower  head. Lonnie really didn't want a hassle since we knew that the clerk did not speak English, but he did want to take a shower.  Finally he thought of Google translator,  typed in the problem,  took it to the clerk and was back almost immediately with a shower head.  Apparently they took it off to clean it and forgot to put it back. 

By midnight we were ready to go to bed. Night all.

Zermatt, Switzerland

Today has been one of those do nothing but drive days. We woke up early
this morning, but were really slow moving. We finally went down to
breakfast, then walked around town. Many of the shops, restaurants,
and hotels are closed for low season. Even at that, I managed to find
a couple of pairs of socks, Lonnie purchased a carrying case for his
tablet so that he can leave it running to track where we have been, and
we got the cutest birthday present for our Granddaughter Brynn.

We also visited the cemetery. So many young people have died while
trying to climb the Matterhorn. It is really sad.

After that, we stopped by the Walliserhof to have some raclette. I
didn't get any last time we were here, so I just had to have some this
time. Then we caught the train to Tasch, grabbed some groceries at Coop,
and headed for our next destination.

I would like to say it was that easy, but nothing is ever that easy when
we travel. We have our Garmin GPS, our netbook GPS, and my phone's
Google maps GPS. For some reason they could not agree on how to get to
our next destination, which is Lenno, Italy.

We chose what we thought would be the quickest and easiest way since we
were running behind. It wasn't. We drove on hairpin curves through
several towns, only to find that the pass over the mountains was closed.
We had to go back where we started and choose another route. This
route had us climbing to the very top of some mountains, over one of
the highest bridges anywhere, through heavy snow and thick fog. We are
now in the Italian Ticino region. Once again it will be very late when
we get to the Hotel. Fortunately, this is the last hotel we pre booked
until the end of the trip, so we will be able to move as fast or as
slow as we want to after tonight.

Preface to Europe

I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help. My
help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1.

I cannot believe how blessed I am to be sitting in one of my favorite
places and to be able to share it with you. The Lord is truly good and
I am so thankful for this opportunity.
The earth that He created is a beautiful place. And, Europe is one of my
favorites.

My love affair with Europe began at an early age. For as long as I can
remember, I have felt like I should be here. Perhaps it was the movies
that I watched, like Heidi with Shirley Temple or Journey for Margaret
with Margaret O'Brien. Maybe it was the fact that I was born a few years
after the war, so I watched a lot of WWII movies set in Europe. The
Weekly Reader books took me to foreign lands. And now the Christian
books that I read by the Thoenes or Michael Phillips take me to Eastern
Europe. The Diary of Anne Frank was required reading in school, making
me want to see where she lived and died. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten
Boom made me want to visit her home. In addition, some of the people in
my hometown were Polish so I wanted to see where they were from. I
loved the accordian music and other sounds of Europe. All of those
things made Europe sound so exciting.

While in High School, I worked three part-time jobs for three years to
spend it all in three weeks on a tour of Europe. I was totally hooked.
. .and I still am!