During the frantic rush of getting a house ready to sell and finishing up the school year I spent countless late nights planning this two week adventure that would take us beyond Italy. We started our adventure flying into Milan and picking up the smallest car we'd ever rented. We headed straight to Lake Como which is just a little over an hour north of Milan in Northern Italy. Thankfully we had a micro mini rental car because there is no way anything much bigger would have fit on some of those tiny, windy roads. We stayed on the lake in a quaint town called Menaggio that I had researched would allow us the best access to the mid lake region which consists of some beautiful towns including Bellagio. We went with a hotel on the lake with a room that looked right onto it! In typical Jack fashion, we spent our first night renting a boat and touring around the lake. Of course the lake is huge but what we saw of it was spectacular. Unfortunately we didn't run into George Clooney who was vacationing at his villa on the lake at the same time but we understand now why he spends a large amount of time there each year...
The next morning we woke up and took the ferry over to Varenna and Bellagio. They were both beautiful towns located on the water and the scent of flowers followed you wherever you went. We especially loved all the narrow brick stairways that would lead you up to the City center.
After a wonderful few days on Lake Como, we left Menaggio and headed towards Switzerland stopping on the way in Lugano. My parents had taken a trip to Switzerland ten years ago and had been telling us for years we needed to visit. My paternal grandma was born in Switzerland and although we didn't make it to the town she was raised in, we traced over some of the places my parents had recommended and visited. Lake Lugano was one of them. After purchasing our half fare card which ended up saving us some money on the swiss rail system that we'd be using for portions of the trip we headed up the Monte San Salvatore for some amazing views of Lake Lugano.
The first photo is looking up at the mountain we'd soon take a funicular to the top of:
The drive from Lugano to Grindelwald was by far the most spectacular drive we had ever taken. Jack felt like he was on a race track for some of it with all the switchbacks going up the mountain. We went from being surrounded by green pastures where you'd hear cow bells ringing away to driving through a tunnel that went on for miles. We climbed up mountains until we were at glacier level and saw lakes that were as turquoise as could be. It was breathtaking.
As we pulled into our hotel in Griendelwald it felt like a real life fairy tale. Seeing all the Swiss chalets nestled on the hill looked almost fake. The beautiful flowers that sat below the windows or outside the balconies of the chalets added such an amazing contrast to all the green that surrounded each home and made for one beautiful backdrop.
After hearing all the beautiful cow bells on the drive in, Jack was determined to get one for himself. As tempting and exciting the challenge seemed to try to get one off a cow, we knew we had to come up with a better way to get an authentic one. Jack knew he wasn't interested in a tacky painted one from a tourist shop so he started asking around as to where to find the real ones that farmers actually use. It turns out that many have been passed down from generation to generation and that they aren't that easy to find. We searched high and low from hardware stores to antique stores looking for the right one. Thankfully I was able to get him to stop at one! As cool as I thought they were too, I know I didn't want a collection sitting in my home and after seeing some bells costing upwards of $1,000, I knew one would be plenty! This one looks identical to the one we picked up!
One of the things we had planned to do in this region was to do the Jungfrau or "top of Europe". My parents had recommended it and once we saw the segment from "Where in the World is Matt Lauer" when he was there, I knew we had to go.
Here we are making our way to the "top". The train climbs through the mountain tunnel for most of the 45 minute ride.
What an amazing sight and how lucky we were to be able to catch it on a clear day. Apparently that's rare! Once you arrive at the top there is an observatory, a restaurant, a couple gift shops and a bunch of tunnels. You can even walk out on the snow where they have a small zip line, tubing and skiing. Of course it's just a small hill but it's very cool...literally! The trip wouldn't be complete for Jack without a trip to the gift shop. As much as I hate coming home with a bunch of tourist trash, I was happy Jack had recommended the fleece's as we both agreed it was the one of the best purchases of the trip. 11,000+ feet is chilly!
On the way back down the mountain I had a friend who had recommended that we stop in Wengen. The first photo is looking at Wengen as we come back down from the "top". From there we came back to the hotel a different way via cable cars. I could go on and on about the beauty of it all.
At the center of this photo if you look closely you can see a white taller building sticking out which was our hotel.
After such a great day you wonder how all the rest will compare but we found throughout our whole trip there wasn't one day we'd do over or leave out if we had to do things again. So the next day we headed up a few different cable cars to Schilthorn via Murren which received it's claim to fame for the filming of a 007 movie On Her Magesty's Secret Service. It was only because of the movie that this observation center was finished and again, another amazing view to see. They have a revolving restaurant at the top which we enjoyed lunch at!
It's amazing to see villages situated on top of mountains with other villages below them. Here we are coming down into Lauterbrunnen.
After spending a few wonderful days in this part of Switzerland, we headed south to Zermatt, Switzerland. Almost 15 years ago we bought a small piece of land in a swiss themed town in Utah called Midway. The homes all have a Swiss look, they host a Swiss Days summer event, and there is a great resort called Zermatt. Well, it was time to compare the Zermatt resort in Midway and the Matterhorn at Disneyland to the real thing. Once again the beauty of the drive kept our attention the whole way. For some of the trip we even drove our car onto a train that took us through a mountain. At some points I wondered if our car was going to stay on the train as we bounced around in the dark. A good comparison would have been the feeling of being on Thunder Mountain at Disneyland. What a hoot! It's a fairly long tunnel and train ride but the adventure of it made the trip so much fun!
We loved Zermatt. It felt like Park City, UT on steroids. You aren't allowed to drive into Zermatt so we took the train in from Tasch. The hotel sends a glorified golf cart to pick you up and you spend your days walking or taking the train to the surrounding areas.
I knew I wanted to take the train up Klein Matterhorn which is the closest way to get a great visual of the Matterhorn without actually climbing up it. It was breathtaking and fortunately we were lucky to catch it on a day when the top of it was clear from clouds. They say it's rare to see because even if it's a clear day outside there can be cloud coverage surrounding the tip of the mountain. We headed up first thing in the morning and were glad we had because on our way down some high clouds were starting to circle the top of the mountain!
After returning from the Matterhorn we decided to head up the Gorgengrat that same day since we had plenty of time and who knew what the weather would be like the next day. So far we had been blessed with picture perfect weather for the whole trip but the hotel had warned that rain was on the way. I had read that this was the other must do in Zermatt and it gives you different viewpoints of the alps. The view offered a different viewpoint of the Matterhorn plus full 360 degree views of the alps. It was gorgeous!
One of the other highlights of Zermatt was finding this wonderful woodworker who made his own walking sticks. To rewind, we had asked my parents if they had any requests from Switzerland. We wanted to bring them back something from the trip and only casually had my mom mentioned that my dad had found a walking stick on their trip out but for whatever reason hadn't ended up purchasing it. So Jack was on the hunt for one. Outside this gentleman's shop he had some hand carved sticks displayed. Jack was so excited to get it engraved with my dad's name on it. Jack also insisted on me having my photo taken with the sweet man who had spent who knows how many hours carving the stick!
By this point time was flying way too fast. Our vacation was already half over and it was now time to leave the quaint, clean, green part of the trip and head back into Italy. We were excited but knew it would be different. We enjoyed our drive from Zermatt down into Italy stopping to listen to the cows alongside the road with their bells ringing and taking in the last of the beautiful scenery! Even with a cow bell purchased and packed up, Jack was still tempted by the bells on the side of the road...haha! So close...oh but wait this one is bolted on...hmmm...
On our way to Milan we had planned to stop at Lake Maggiore and one of our waiters had recommended that we stop in Stressa. It was beautiful! We love these boarder lakes, like Lake Como where you get a swiss and italian combo.
Driving into Milan from the lake region was far less scenic than the rest of the trip had been. We dropped the rental car off back at the Milan airport and grabbed a cab to our downtown hotel. Luxottica had put us up in a great hotel right in the city center so Jack could walk to his office and I could hit up all sites of downtown Milan. On our first night Italy was playing Spain in the soccer championship game. Unfortunately for Italy, they lost but thankfully there were no riots! Here is a photo of the scene as the game was getting underway...
Milan is primarily recognized as the fashion and financial capital of Italy. It's not like there are a ton of tourist attractions but we did enjoy the Galleria and the Duomo. One of our favorite meals was at an italian restaurant located in the galleria.
The Duomo was really amazing. On Sunday night we went through as they were holding mass. Sadly the benches were pretty empty however the outlying interior areas were packed with tourists soaking it all in. I returned the next day to grab a couple photos when it was cleared out and less busy. The stained glass was amazing.
NYC really needs to take advantage of the borrow a bike system. I loved watching all the business men pop in their cards and unload a bike from the rack...
This was the view from our hotel room balcony. We were amazed at the amount of people that ride bikes to work each morning.
So after our few days in Milan we were back in a rental car on our way to the northern mountains of Italy for Jack to check out Luxottica's manufacturing plant. We stayed in a mountain community called Belluno which is where the Dolomites mountains are located. I got some great video footage of the mountains but somehow didn't capture any great photos of them. They truly are amazing, all jagged and high. Luxottica had booked our accommodations in this converted 17th century mansion. It was the perfect place for me to capture some fun photos of the grounds.
I spent an afternoon in downtown Belluno and loved capturing some fun photos of the buildings there. Here are a couple I loved...
After a wonderful couple days in Belluno it was time to move south to Venice for our final few days. At this point we were very excited to see Venice but also very sad because we knew we only had a few nights there and then it would be time to travel back home. We missed the kids terribly but had had such an amazing trip so far, it was bittersweet to head back to real life. Aside from determining we will never return a rental car in Venice, we loved our time there. After dropping off the car it was time for our first water taxi ride down the Grand Canal. Here we are heading to the hotel. I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't some ride in Disneyland...
The beautiful St. Maria was what our hotel looked across at...
We spent many hours walking around the tiny walkways of Venice, with most of the time spent getting lost trying to find restaurants that had been recommended. We quickly learned that navigation on the phone doesn't work in Venice very well either. It's a place that you just have to lose yourself in in order to get the feel for it. Getting lost was easy...
Our first day we spent taking the ferry out to Murano and Burano. Venice is known for all it's glass art and jewlry so we wanted to head out and see where it all happens. When we got off in Murano we went into a glass blowing facility and watched how they do it. It was quite interesting to see and of course there were plenty of galleries where you could see the work on display and purchase some. At one point we were asked if we would like to check out the VIP gallery upstairs where Jack and I were given a private tour of all the fine art pieces. Most pieces were priced in the tens of thousands of dollars but they'd try to tempt you with free shipping and insurance...lol! There were some amazing pieces and we could have easily settled on a few.
This was just a gift shop displaying some of the glass you could purchase. I loved the chandelier...
Downtown Murano
Next it was on to the place I was really looking forward to seeing, Burano. I had read that it was a must see just for all the colorful houses that line the small canals. It was a photographers dream place that reminded us a lot of Bermuda except in Bermuda the stucco homes tend to be painted in pastels while here in Burano they are much more vibrant! They had some great boutiques here where I was able to pick up some fun glass jewelry. I'm not a jewelry fan but there were some really cool pieces!
A trip to Venice wouldn't be complete without the overpriced but must do gondola ride down the Grand Canal. After waiting for quite some time to board a gondola at a recommended spot but continually being told it would just be another five minutes, we decided to bail and find someone else who was looking for business because clearly there is no shortages on gondolas in Venice. We came across this other guy who could get us on immediately. Although he charged the same ridiculous amount his gondola wasn't quite as nice and he even left his tarp partly on due to the hassle of completely taking it on and off. It was definitely leaning to one side and we seemed to be the only ones traveling down the canal less traveled. It was worth it just for the laughs! Much like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade...you do it once...but probably never again...well, unless we had the kids with us! :)
Our hotel was conveniently located next to San Marco Square which tends to be the big tourist hotspot in venice. We went to the top of the tower to gain a better perspective of the layout of Venice.
The best deal in town...
Well, it was now time for our trip to end. What fabulous memories!!!
