Day 5 continued after our nap with plans for dinner. We ended up at a sidewalk café where there was free wi-fi, and met a charming server by the name of “Helvis.” Friendly guy. Then off to dinner at probably the best meal we have had so far. The restaurant was where a lot of the locals go, and in fact, as you listened to the conversations, no one was speaking in English. That was a good sign. The owner of the restaurant has been running this family restaurant for 30 plus years, and he was like the 3rd generation. Amazing . Makes you wonder what it would be like to live like that? His daughter and his granddaughter were servers. We had a delicious pasta, followed by a veal with tomatoes and arugala. Yay. Good food! After dinner, he took us on a tour of his whole restaurant, along with his wine cellar. We enjoyed this so much that we made plans to come here tomorrow for dinner.
Day 6-Friday. Today was a lovely day. I finally got a decent night’s sleep, and after breakfast, made plans to go to Brunate. We took the funiculare up the mountain to go to this sleepy little mountain town. I absolutely love the steep climb up the mountain of at least a couple of thousand feet. Even thought it was sort of a cloudy day, the view of the lake was spectacular! After many inquiries for a good place to go for lunch, we ended up in a charming little restaurant owned by a man and his son. The interesting thing is, we had to go down at least 100 steps to get to his restaurant, which was on a hill, that we had to climb up to. The place looked deserted, and the menu on the outside said that they were closed until September 3, which was today. So, my bold and daring husband, said, “come on, let’s go inside.” I was so uncomfortable, because it felt like we were walking into someone’s home. When we entered, there were four men sitting at a table, and one of them got up to greet us, and showed us to a table. We were the only other people in the restaurant.
The young man who seated us spoke very little English, and we were subject to difficult interpretation at best. We didn’t get a menu, he just told us 2 options for each course. And then in the interpretation of what the options were, we didn’t exactly get what we wanted. First was a platter of meat and vegetables, which is mostly salami and prosciutto, with marinated mushrooms and zucchini. This was surprisingly wonderful. The next course, while I wanted to order the ravioli, Jeff wanted tortellini. This was delicious with a brown sauce and mushrooms. After that we had beef with mushroom gravy, and while this was also outstanding, I think it was too much, and too rich. Again, I sort of thought we were ordering a steak or something, so it was much richer than I expected.
But the best part was the charm of this little restaurant. The owner played electric guitar for fun, and had a whole set up, with an amplifier, and other musical instruments on the walls. You could see that maybe during the evening, this might be a place where people would come to hand out and listen to music. We talked him into playing some music for us, and he was absolutely amazing. He had a setup with his computer that gave him the backup tracks, while he played the main guitar part. Kind of like karaoke for guitar. Truly a special thing to see. Jeff took a video of him playing, and the cute little restaurant that was like a mountain cabin with antiques. Absolutely charming. Funiculare back down the mountain to the room for a nap. We seem to be doing that a lot here…napping. Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep at night?
Since we knew we would be travelling a good part of tomorrow, we decided to have a “birthday dinner” at the same restaurant that we had last night. But, before we went to dinner, we had a drink at the street café with Helvis. We enjoyed his personality so much. We discovered that he was from Albania. He went to the university to study graphic design, and then changed to interior design. He worked while he was going to school, and the owner of the café liked him so much, he wanted him to stay. He must have paid him quite well, because he never got a jog in interior design or graphic design, but instead moved his whoe family, mother, father and I think his sister out of Albania to Como. Great story. We exchanged email address, facebook, and took a picture with him. He brought me a tiramisu for my birthday which was probably the best I’ve ever had! But I couldn’t eat too much, because we still had plans for dinner!!
We got to the restaurant, and the owner had put a “riservado” sign on our table. Very sweet. The place was packed with people, and we felt like we were at home. Had an incredible dinner of Pasta Carbonera which is a white sauce with bacon, and Jeff had the Osso Bucco, unbelievable! We also had a great bottle of wine, which is probably the first good wine we’ve had since we first made our trip.
Day 7 – Saturday. Up early, packed and to the train. We decided to walk, since it wasn’t really that far. But, with luggage and back packs, it can be a bit of a hike. I was just worried about the wheels on the luggage on the cobblestone roads. But they and we survived. We did have about 45-50 stairs to climb with the luggage, but I packed light this time, so I was able to make it fairly easily. There was a landing after about 15 stairs, so we could readjust. At the train station, we had a cappuccino, while we waited and got a lovely birthday call from Justin. Couldn’t talk long, since it was an international call, but it was so good to hear his voice! Took the train to Milan, then we had to change in Milan to Lausanne.
When we got off the train in Milan, we soon found out that two trains were unloading full trains of passengers at the same time, and more people were trying to get onto both trains. It took us a full 20 minutes to get off the platform and back into the train area to figure out where our next train was. I have never seen so many people in one place at one time. There were some people who were pushing their way through, because they had another train to catch. And there was a crazy hound dog barking while we were trying to get through the throngs of people. Have I mentioned that particularly in Italy, people take their dogs everywhere? But this was the first hound dog, and when there are literally thousands of people trying to pass through each other, and all you can hear is the annoying bark. It just added to the comedy of the event!
Took the train into Switzerland, which was about 3 hours or so. Not too bad, really. Slept a bit off and on. The train stopped about 5 different times, and each time, they had to come through and check our tickets, so we didn’t really sleep too much. Took a taxi to the hotel, which was driven by an older lady. I don’t know how old really, but she seemed like she shouldn’t be driving a taxi. And you know how taxi drivers always load your luggage into the car? Well, it felt funny that she should be loading our luggage. So Jeff loaded his particularly, I think that because he felt bad. Haha!
We found our hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland, which is absolutely beautiful. It overlooks the lake, but is not on the lake. We were told that the population in the city of Lausanne was probably about 2,000 people, and that most everyone in Switzerland spoke English. Well both of these were incorrect. The city is huge, and is like an older version of San Francisco. There are hills everywhere, and all the streets are paved cobblestones, like most older European cities. This is a huge city that sort of feels like New York in a way with the blending of all of the different cultures. We went to 2 different places where the bartenders or attendants only spoke Spanish. We had dinner at an Argentinian Steak House. Very much melting pot here. As we walked around, it felt more like we were in France than Switzerland, although I didn’t know what Switzerland was supposed to feel like. As it turns out, and as we did a little more research, we did discover that this territory has a decidedly French influence, and in fact most people here speak French. Hmmm.
The thing that felt the most wrong, and yet was probably the best thing about the day, was that there was a Starbucks in the heart of the city. I didn’t order coffee, but we had free wi-fi. Perfect.
Got a lovely birthday phone call from Krysten and left to enjoy the city night life. A very busy night life here, and mostly for the young. Great and wonderfully birthday with lots of adventures!
Day 8 – Sunday. Slept in late. The beds here are wonderful, and I feel like we are finally in a hotel that is putting all the right touches on the room, etc. Getting ready to go out today into a couple of little spots where there is supposed to be a palace, and other stuff. Looking forward to a great day to spend for our Anniversary!!
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