We left Paris on Sleezy Jet, my favorite cheapo airline in Europe. It never fails to be cramped, overbooked, and uncomfortable. It is also always cheap...a very good thing when you are on a budget. Here are Danielle and I getting ready for the hour and a half flight to Milano.
Once we arrived in Milano, we had to find the rental car place. Yes, it's true, we rented a car and it was as frightening as you would imagine it to be. Well, basically we went to the completely wrong terminal (and added an extra half hour to our already long day) trying to get the car. That was the easy part. We had rented a van knowing we would need the room for people and luggage. However, unlike the US, a van in Europe is more like a small sedan. We barely managed to fit our luggage and had to squeeze four people into the already small middle seat for the hour ride to Lugano. Needless to say, people weren't exactly in the best of moods.
Navigating the Italian and Swiss highways added an extra bit of excitement. I think Garmin won 3 to 2, which I am sad to admit :).
After arriving in Lugano, we ate dinner at the one and only Bellavista. Fortunately the food is amazing so my brothers had little to complain about. We all feel quickly to sleep that night after our long day of travel.
The next morning we woke up and decided to tour Montagnola and Lugano. We made it down to Lugano for lunch at Cafe Argentina. Zack was very excited to discover they had Budweiser. What he didn't realize was that this particular Budweiser was a Czech beer. He drank it anyway :).
Lunch proved to be a good time, as was the whole trip. You can see here that my mom and I were cracking up over something Zack said. I can't remember what it was now, but it was hilarious. Does anyone remember??
After lunch I took the fam to the lake to meander along the water and through the city park. Here are some photo ops of the walk.
There is this crazy tree in the park that grows horizontally and has to be supported by wooden posts. My brothers decided to climb it, which turned into a family photo op that required me to climb it in my boots. I barely made it, but it was worth it for the cute picture.
Zack had a thing for naked statues. Very mature :).
Oh, and here is my dad being equally mature :).
That evening I took my family to a wine bar in Lugano. The food was awesome and the wine was delicious. It was a great way to end the day.
The following day we headed into Italy to Lake Como and Bellagio. We walked around the town of Como for a while and had some coffee, then hopped in the car to drive to Bellagio. The drive was about two hours of intense driving. Not only were we in a manual car, but the road (two-way) was more narrow than the one-way streets in the states. We were all very happy when we made it to Bellagio. Here are a few pictures:
At the end of the day we decided to take the ferry across the lake to get back to Lugano instead of braving the lake road again. It was a gorgeous ride.
What we didn't know was that the lake road along Lugano would be just as treacherous. In fact, we almost were knocked off the road by two buses trying to pass each other. To take a break, we stopped in Gandria, the cutest lake town on Lugano. My mom loved the pottery shop and we all enjoyed walking along the paths of the town that is carved into the side of a cliff.
That evening I took my family to Grotto Fingini for a traditional Ticino meal. It wasn't exactly a hit, but it was a good experience.
The next day we packed up for our trip to Prague that evening out of Milano (or so we thought). Thinking our flight was at six in the evening, we decided to spend the day walking around the city of Milano. My mom and I attempted to find wedding shoes for me while the rest of the group did some cultural stuff. The cultural stuff proved not very exciting and our shoe trip was unsuccessful. We were definitely ready for a new city as we headed to the airport.
Once we arrived at Malpensa , we hopped out of the car to check in while my dad returned the rental car. We thought we were really fortunate when we got to the ticket counter and there was no line. As it turned out, there was no line because the flight had left six hours before. We somehow messed up the timing and basically ruined our chances of getting to Prague. Here are a few pictures of us in the airport trying to figure out what the heck we were going to do for the next four days:
Our little slip up turned out not the be that bad. We settled on taking the train down to Roma to explore the ancient city of Romulus and Remus. We had to spend the night at a Best Western near Malpensa, then take the shuttle to the airport in the morning, board another shuttle from the airport to the train station, run to buy train tickets and barely get on the train in time. It was all very exciting, although I'm not sure that's the word my mother would have used.
Up next, the final part of the Griswold Trilogy!
1 comment:
Ok, so you did have to climb the tree in nice boots, but it is a cute picture!
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