Lake Maggiore

16/9 (cont)

It’s a shiny fine day as we hit the lake shore to find yet another sparkling blue jewel rimmed by mountains, those to the north (probably in Sweiss) especially tall and serrated and surely snow covered for much of the year - not now.

A bit further on from Stresa, in a hamlet called Baveno, we found a lakeside campground (“Parisi,” full of German, Swiss, French, Austrian and English folk scattered with the odd Italian), enjoy a hefty late lunch alfresco, some writing for the kids, and then into the lake for an afternoon swim, the sun dropping behind us as we wallow about in the fresh/cool water and then sit back and dry off solar powered.  

Plan a hilly bike ride for tomorrow, all the while gazing across at the other side with it’s villages, mountains, and boats of all sorts (mostly fancy expensive stink boats, not much puff for a sailing craft today).

Hot showers (1^st for a few days), fruit/yog dinner, an Italian lesson, a movie, a read.

17/9

Greeted by an exquisite orange & pink and red and purple sunrise over a glass-like cobalt blue lake framed clearly by a squiggly peaky horizon.  

A cluster of four shapely Venetian like islands loaded with majestic stone buildings, palaces, enormous terraced gardens, restaurants, gelaterias & spires somehow stay above water & dot the lake adding photographic texture.

Jeff stayed in bed for a read, planning an exercise lake swim before lunch and Jen took off in search of a lakeside stomp but alas returned frustrated having been blocked by private property, narrow busy highways with shoulders allowing the passage of mice alone and massive hotels strung obtrusively along the waterfront.  It’s really pretty with a striking waterscape but more like the French Riviera where wealthy people play (and don’t exercise).  It could be anywhere in Fancy Europe with the majority of folk being German, English and Dutch. 

So back at Ed, our day began with it’s usual splendor and school was punctuated by coffee & books by the lake & swimming. 

We’d hoped to upload the blog and do some internet research but WiFi seems hard to come by here compared with Germany & Austria.

Just before a cook up of ravioli, we hooked into an Italian lesson (Jeff’s been busily sneaking in extra lessons to keep up with the kids - still struggling!) and then took a walk into ‘town.” 

We dawdled along a divine esplanade where public sculptures displayed the local pink & white granites before walking up into the village of Braveno admiring the painted houses, known as the Gallery under the Sky, and garden beds plump with roses.  An ample Roman staircase led us to the tranquil heart consisting of the church, the bell tower and a perimeter bounded by a series of porches & religious paintings.

Walking further uphill, scattered little devotional chapels are linked by quiet cobbled walkways with incredible panoramic views. They weave through small farms & tiny hamlets. A workman communicated in a mixture of French, German & Italian that the rest of the way to Stresa was blocked by fallen large trees so we turned around & dribbled home to sit by our lake.

Laveno on the eastern shore

The early evening saw commotion in the campsite as a Pommy pair of Nuevo Aussies pulled up in their explosively noisy ‘squashed homemade jeep wrangler style’ vehicle that they are touring through Europe in, raising funds for paediatric epilepsy & cancer.   A juicy talk about health & disability followed in the Conn Camp.

The olds watched the young enjoy a final swim and so marked the end of the day, with an added movie ("Enchanted") and some slow blogging. 

18/9

Jen scrambled eagerly from bed anticipating the climb to Matterone at 0630 when it was still dark so Mr Sensible suggested we have a glorious Italian cappucino at the ‘local’ before our ascent. The cafe owners were hanging out their front door singing boisterous bongiorno’s to neighbouring vendors and serving the ‘regular’ to the regulars that trail in for coffee & croissants.  We were served a brilliant coffee as usual with a cocoa love heart decorating the froth.

On the bikes, the metronome like chiming of churches stringing up the gradient set our cadence and we challenged in vain the ascent of the great, fat, red ball of sun over the mountains across the lake.  The higher up the mountain, the more we see authentic Italy with old, small, noisy boxy Fiat Pandas replacing the fancy bullet shaped tour buses and smooth Audis. The buildings snuggle closer together in little village groups, their just washed linen jostling for the breeze and chooks in small produce yards crow in the daylight.

50 minutes later we stopped for a drink taking in the view over lake, island and mountain and then zoomed off down the hill via Stresa with all it’s palace like hotels & real estate shops (like Menaggio, actually more like Nice!) to our warm, rosy cheeked kids.  We’d agreed to an undies swim together in the lake before the reward of our breakfast & coffee.

Lesson no 12 in Italian preceded maths. Jeff washed bits of Ed, Jen boiled eggs and blogged.

Work done, we set forth on the bikes to head north around the lake to the next little village of Feriolo.  Found ourselves in a narrow shouldered tunnel to the sheer freakout of Kib as the sounds reverberate/amplify so much so that the truck that was 100m away sounded like it was on top of us, along with the other 10 trucks, cars and motorbikes.  Shaken up we got to the lakeside bike path with a sigh of relief, and treadled into the little town.  

It sits at the foot of some marble/granite quarries, on a tranquil corner of the lake with a small marina, an old chap in his wooden tinnie chugging slowly about fishing, a lovely modest (by Euro standards) church with splendid marble on the walls and simple stained glass windows.  

We wandered through the town (took 5min) which was quaint, non-touristy, quiet alleys with washing swinging in the breeze above, locals enjoying lunch in the piazza restaurants, and then back to the waterfront for a snack and a gelati, some chats and stories, then back on bikes (avoiding the tunnel) to Camp Parisi where with a downpour forecast we put away the outdoor gear and had another swim.  This time Wil, keen to extend himself, (testosterone surge?) suggested he and Jeff swim across the lake - Jeff said we could try (it’s probably 3-5 km 1 way).  We got 500-600m out and he asked if we could turn back, which was a good idea.

Post hot shower to warm up (Wil is blue) we sat outside for a late lunch (pasta!), then the kids skated while the adults did net/business (it’s working!) for a couple of hours, and then it was time for a beer, a coffee/hot choc + biscotti by the lake, then a light snack for dinner and some reading (Wil finishing Tom Sawyer and getting back to Don Quixote) while Kel writes a spell book for her kids, Jen reads “The Hunted” by Elmore Leonard, and Jeff prepares a for sale ad for Ed.

19/9

END OF OUR LAKES ADVENTURE

The predicted thunderstorm overnight was thankfully a mere dribble and so all that slowed us getting out of bed for our exercise was lingering cloud cover.  The rides are always even better the second day.  On the bikes, we pulled up to our favourite cosy coffee shop to the salute of the store owner who rushed inside uttering “benzina cappuccino!” serving us an a quaint outside table ‘our (love heart-decorated) usual’ and charged us even less than yesterday!  Love this place.

We climbed further until the rode ran out and flew down the hill to the kids and breakfast by the lake.