Planes, Trains, Automobiles and Ferries

Well, we didn’t spend the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s with George Clooney, but if he was at his villa, we did spend it with the same beautiful view as he did. It is easy to see what drew him to Lake Como in the foothills of the Italian Alps! We found that visiting Bellagio in the “off” season was perfect. The weather was mild, the skies clear and blue and we truly felt as though we were in a private villa, staying at a new apartment suite hotel rebuilt on a property with a spectacular view and had the town virtually to ourselves. We could really imagine we were living the high life in a villa: we've never gone to sleep or woken up to more beautiful views. One wall of our bedroom was entirely glass.

Echoing what is becoming a dominant travel theme of Geipel trips, we had several transportation adventures – some annoying, some harrowing and some spectacular. If there is any travel advice we offer frequently it is to avoid RyanAir at all costs. But, we hesitated one too many times to take our own advice – yep, we flew RyanAir to Milan! No more. These flights are truly like Ground Hog Day: first, pay as much for your suitcase to travel as you did for your own ticket, scramble to get a seat, sit for 90 minutes flight in a seat that won’t recline while listening to flight attendants alternatively hawk lottery tickets for sale and growl and grumble at passengers, after a bumpy approach, join in applause with the rest of the passengers on a safe landing. That’s it; it never varies.

Rare shot of all five of us - on the deck of our "villa!"

We have become accustom here to some harrowing driving (see previous posts: autobahn, Ireland roads, Town Car in Banff), but hadn’t seen it all until driving the roads around Lake Como. It’s one thing to have your doors blown off on the autobahn by a car passing you at 110 mph – in the snow – but, it’s quite another thing to be passed at 60 mph around a blind curve on a 1 ½ lane-wide road! Yikes. The curvy roads around the lake were spectacularly beautiful though Gary missed most of the scenery because the roads, with no shoulders, wrapping around cliffs and rock walls required every ounce of his vigilance. The locals – some in their Maseratis and some in their 20-year old Fiats – thought nothing of passing us at twice the legal (and sane) speed limit. I imagine in high-season, this may happen less often as the traffic must slow to a crawl with all the tourists.

We braved the roads nonetheless to see some of the nearby towns. To save time and stress, we found the car ferries very convenient to quickly get to the towns across the lake without driving the long way around. And, they offered unique views of the lakeside Villas and towns. While there were only a handful of shops and restaurants open this time of year, each restaurant we stumbled into was excellent. There is nothing like Italian food in Italy – especially in towns that cater to the rich and famous! 

Mid-week, we got up very early and drove further into a valley in the Alps to board the Bernina Express – the highest rail crossing of the Alps – which took us to St. Moritz, Switzerland in time for lunch. This is the way to see the snowy Alps. The train cars are outfitted with special panoramic windows and the views are incomparable. The most surprising thing of all to me was that the trains along this route are electric! We glided over viaducts and through tunnels on tracks that are a century old but in the most modern of trains.

Along the way, we climbed over 6,000 feet in altitude, witnessed a sport we hadn’t heard of before -  kite skiing, and were treated to views from palm trees where we began to snow 3 feet deep at the highest point. The kids managed to multi-task - playing Farkle while taking in the scenery (interesting to kids for only so long...).

St. Moritz is exactly what one would expect of a town known as much for being a playground and shopping mall for the upper, upper crust as it is for the nearby skiing! Lunch was good but cost us dearly. Shopping was limited to window-gazing except for the now-obligatory tacky souvenir: a Swiss playing an Alpine horn seemed exactly appropriate. Diamonds or designer clothing would have been more representative but fits neither the definition nor the budget of “tacky souvenir!”

Milan -- Haute Couture, Haute Disordine e Degrado, Haute Chiesa Campanili!

Well, I've totally abused the languages of both France and Italy. Similarly, the conflict and contrast in Milan left me feeling a bit abused! We spent a day there before flying home and learned that while it is the city of the fashion world, it along with most of the cities and towns we drove through in northern Italy, it has vast areas of great disrepair  - dirty, buildings (not the ancient ruins) in falling down, unpainted condition and clutter and rubbish sitting out in yards and on sidewalks.  Yet, among this unpicturesque cityscape rises one of the great cathedrals of Europe - for me, it surpasses Notre Dame in its beauty and majesty.

The Duomo di Milano is nothing short of spectacular. After a leisurely look around the inside, Gary and the kids climbed to the top for the bird's eye view while Molly and I did some quick shopping on the main shopping piazza. On the piazza was the largest Tiffany's box under the largest Christmas tree we've every seen! One of those "pop-up shops" that are currently "the rage."

Sophisticated Vending Machines

What happens when that ubiquitous American icon that plagues our children’s eating habits is exported to oh-so-sophisticated Europe? I know you’ve been wondering this for some time. I have the answer! In Italy, it is installed in airports to dispense – you guessed it – PIZZA! I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes at the Milan airport. The pizza is made to order and dispensed within minutes.

And  here in Germany, in Berlin, vending machines have been installed in the most fashionable shopping district to dispense bars of gold bullion. Yes, that’s right. If you are shopping and have the sudden recollection that you need some bars of gold to-go, you can saunter up to the conveniently located vending machines to satisfy your shopping or financial investment needs 24/7!  Even better than an ATM, no?