Day 8

Milano to Venice

We awoke to oppresive heat in Milano and had a quick hotel breakfat and made our way to the Central Stazione. We caught a train across the top of Italy to Verona, the setting for Shakespere's "Romeo & Juliet" I believe he wrote it while staying in Verona.

 

The view from our hotel room balcony, not quite as amazing as our view yesterday. The cafe/bar was where we had a few drinks last night

ABOVE: On our walk to the station I shot another of Milan's ancient trams.

ABOVE: About 2 hours of of Milano we got off our train at Verona. It is home to an ancient Roman Coloseum type structure, unlike the one in Rome, this one is still in use and that night was hosting an opera.

ABOVE: Whilst waiting for our train from Verona to Venice, this train, also going to Venice stopped at Verona, it is a privatly run train operated by a company called Italo.  It runs on Trenitalia tracks and has a top speed of 300 km/h. 

ABOVE: Kris was initially a bit hesitant about visiting Venice, she thought it might be a bit too touristy, it is, and was a bit worried about being in a place that is sinking, it is. Louise booked our accomodation and it is in one of the less touristy areas. We even have a view of a canal. Kris looks pretty happy to be in Venice!   

ABOVE: We had a few ice cold beers near here just as the sun was setting.

After a few beers we bought some supplies at a very small deli, mortadella, olives and gogonzola cheese, the old man who served us was so cute Kris has applied to have him adopt her so she can live in Venice and work at his deli, for free. We had a little feast in our appartment and after the sun set we went for a walk to get some photos, ABOVE & BELOW, of this amazing place. I was hesitant to bring a tripod on this trip but I'm so glad I did now.

 

Day 7

Lake Como to Milano

Despite a bad start to the whole Lake Como thing we ended up being totally enchanted with the place. There is a stilness, a peace, about the place that is hard to put into words. Yes it was hot, very hot, but I think the usual pace of the place, like most of Italy, is one of serenity. Italy has existed too long for anyone to be in a hurry. For Australians it is a hard concept to grasp. We order and expect it to be at our tables instantly. That's not how it works in Italy. For a people that endured two world wars, just being able to get a vino or a meal is enough, if it takes a while, that's ok. They remember when there was no such thing as a glass of vino or a simple meal. Wars tend to make you stronger, and appreciative of what you have.

We woke in our place in San Giovanni, near Bellagio and went to the nearby cafe which was just next to a laundromat. While our clothes dried we had two espressos and two crossaints. The espressos were amazing and the crossaints were worthy of the best in France.  We went down to the dock at San Giovanni to wait for our ferry to Varenna. Whilst waiting we struck up a conversation with a couple from Paris. Their English was perfect even though they thought their English was "poor" they were such a joy to talk about travel with. They marvelled at how far Australians had to travel to get to Europe as they thought their 7 hour journey by train from Paris to Milan was an ordeal. So we got on our boat for the short journey to Varenna which is where the train station is.

 

ABOVE: Our train from Varenna to Milano arriving at Varenna. It was about 36 degrees, although there are no people in the photo, looks can be deceiving, there were about 100 people behind me waiting to get on the train. It is a railway station begging to be modelled, the train exited a tunnel into the station and straight away after leaving the platform the train went into another tunnel.

After an hour our train arrived at Milano Centrale. I have visited many of the world's great railway stations but Milano Centrale never ceases to impress. It seems more like a cathederal than a railway station.

ABOVE: Max, this is a photo I didn't want to take but Kris insisted that you would enjoy it. I was taken, artistically, with the doorway. 

Milano has an extensive tram system with some very old trams, I'm not a tran gunzel but I believe these trams are quite significant, this was shot on the way to our hotel.

This photo is of a north - south route quite close to Milano Centrale. Our hotel check in clerk warned us that there was a transport strike but everything seemed to be running well.

Day 6

Ballagio, Lake Como

There is good news and bad news today. I'll start with the bad, if you are looking at this blog for train photos you will be disappointed, we didn't go near a train all day. The good news is, if you are a Star Wars fan we visited Villa del Balbianello which is where Anakin and Padme had their first kiss and later where they were married. (with CP3O and R2D2 as best men, or should that be best droids?)

Despite what booking.com said we are not staying in Bellagio but staying in San Giovanni which you can see just below Bellagio on the map. There is an extensive and intensive ferry service on Lake Como. If San Giovanni were a railway station it would be said that it was on a branch line. Very few ferries stop here. After a good strong espresso at San Giovanni we got on a ferry bound for Lenno which is actually just across the lake. Lenno is where you get off to visit Villa del Balbianello. 

ABOVE: Our ferry arriving at San Giovanni that will take us to Lenno.

ABOVE: This photo, taken from the ferry shows the land jutting into the lake from Lenno, Villa del Balbianello is at the far left and our ferry is about to dock at the far right of the photo.     

ABOVE: Once at Villa del Balbianello there are the most amazing gardens to walk around.

ABOVE: An elderly lady from New Jersey offered to take our photo overlooking the lake, she was lovely, she was having trouble with the steep terrain but said I will keep travelling until I can't. 

ABOVE: Not many people know that I am a speedboat enthusiast and this model had a very short production run and is quite rare so I had to take a photo of it. :-)

ABOVE: The sacred spot. This is where the Star Wars scene was filmed. I didn't get in the exact same spot to take the photo but there were "keep off the grass" signs everywhere. BELOW: A still from the Star Wars wedding scene, note the extra trees that were digitally added.

 

After visiting Villa del Balbianello we walked back to Lenno and had lunch, on the table next to us was a young couple with a 2 year old daughter, the little girl fell out of her chair backwards and wacked her head really hard on the concrete floor. We were mortified, amazingly the mother was able to comfort her daughter so well that within 10 minutes she seemed fine. My darling Kris gave the little girl some Australian animal shaped fridge magnets which she wasn't sure about at first but her mother thanked Kris profusely. ABOVE: the view of Lenno as we departed on the ferry. We decided to give Bellagio a second chance after the horrors of yesterday. So we got off the ferry from Lenno at Bellagio and wandered around. Mark's travel tip for today: By all means visit lake Como, it is amazing, but stay in a smaller town, Bellagio is hopelessly overrun by tourists and not really a nice place to be in.    

ABOVE: The view from where we had dinner tonight overlooking Lake Como from San Giovanni. BELOW: just before leaving the restaurant I snapped this fisherman rowing back and forth with a net.

Day 5

Tirano to Bellagio (Lake Como)

On long, exotic journeys, there are ups and there are downs. Most days are days to remember but some days, you'd rather forget. Today didn't start well as the owners of the place where we were staying had their dog kennel and yard right under our window and this dog loved to bark, all night. With some earplug help I did get some sleep but it wasn't a great start to the day. The place where we stayed did put on a good breakfast the highlight of which was the apricot jam filled crossaints. We had a while to wait for our tain so we went for a walk around Tirano which is an Italian city right on the border with Switzerland. There is an amazing cathederal that has a unique style of bell tower. The church was the site of a sighting of the Virgin Mary apparently in the 1500's. I kept a sharp lookout but didn't see anyone with a halo.

The official name of this is Santuario della Madonna di Tirano, up on the hill was Chiesetta di Santo Stefano 

 

ABOVE: Whilst at the church a Tirano to St Moritz train was departing Tirano. BELOW: A St Moritz to Tirano train passes the church and is about to arrive at Tirano. The Swiss border is less than a kilometre behind the train. 

 

ABOVE: The train arrived at Varenna where we caught a boat to Bellagio across Lake Como. This is a view from the boat looking back at Varenna.

ABOVE: Pretty soon the boat arrived at Bellagio. This is where our tale of woe began. Our host told us that following Google maps would not get us to the right place so she sent a video of how to get to our place. The only problem was that the video assumed you were driving there in a car. After a text exchange worthy of a Keystone cops episode we threw the towell in and had lunch. Bellagio was overrun by tourists so getting a table and then getting our order in, took forever. After lunch we decided to try again, this time by taxi, the only problem was we sat at the taxi rank for an hour and not one taxi was to be seen. We decided to enter the address in Google maps and follow its directions. As we were walking I got a text saying "where are you?" I described where we were and was told to stay there "I will pick you up". We finally arrived at our place which is superb but we were all in a pretty low mood. After settling in Kris and I walked down to the lake and found a little bar in an alleyway to have a beer and Aperol Spritz. It was mid 30's and humid so the shady lane and cold drinks were like heaven.    

ABOVE: What I thought was a nice little scene just near where we had a few drinks after finally finding the place.

ABOVE:  View of Bellagio from near where we are staying.

ABOVE: The view from our balcony.There was a highly rated trattoria near to our place that didn't open until 7.00pm. We got there at 9.03pm and were told the kitchen had closed! A fitting end to our day. We came back to our place and snacked on salami, mortadella, olives and cheese that we had bought at at supermarket nearby. The photo BELOW is of the sunset over Lake Como.

BELOW: Another view of the sunset with people fishing. 

Day 4

Filisur (Switzerland) to Tirano (Italy)

If you are going to spend only one night in Switzerland, Filisur would be a pretty good choice. High up in the alps, stupendous views and seriously one of the cutest towns you'll ever visit. It has 650 residents and is as neat as a pin. Kris and I went for a walk and there is a bus stop, next to the seat there was a broom. There was not a speck of litter anywhere. 

ABOVE: This a view from our hotel of the village with the church, BELOW is a photo from inside the church.

BELOW: This area is known as the Engadine region and the houses in Filisur are very typical of the region. They are rendered stone on the outside but inside there is mainly wood for insulation. The houses were amazing, every one we saw was immacutely kept.

BELOW: Whilst waiting for our train from Filisur to St Moritz this ancient historical tourist train arrived from Davos. The loco was built by Brown Broveri in 1923. This is the Davos branchline coming into Filisur. 

BELOW: the days travel was from Filisur to St Moritz and then St Moritz to Tirano. The line is truly a railway engineering marvel. The highlights of the trip are a spiral tunnel where the line goes over itself inside a tunnel and a viaduct where the train does a complete 360 degrees. I wish I was a fly on the wall when the surveyors presented their route to the railway that wanted to build the line. "We want to build a tunnel that goes in a complete circle" "We propose a viaduct that goes over itself in a 360 degrees circle" the owners first question must have been "And how many bottles of wine had you had when you came up with this?"    

 

ABOVE: Kris at St Moritz on her 50th birthday in Nov 2017 and BELOW, Kris at the same spot yesterday in summer. I'm sure all of you have heard of the famous ski resort St Moritz. Well here is todays little bit of travel advice. Unless you are going to ski, give St Moritz a miss. It is a souless town that is just a playground for the rich and famous. I saw a watch that was prices at 4,000 swiss francs, about $7000 Australian dollars. A plain looking pair of pants was about $1500 Australian dollars. Need I say more?

The line gets so high it gets above tree line and even though it is summer and the temp was about 30, snow and glaciers were still to be seen! BELOW

 

ABOVE: Another glacier, seen from the train, I can count at least 3 waterfalls.

ABOVE: I can't recall the name of this station but our train is crossing a train going to St Moritz. 

ABOVE: This photo shows the elevation change. Taken from the train, we will soon be running alongside the lake shown. 

ABOVE: Our train has just gone over this viaduct and is now going under it. Truly a engineering masterpiece!

We are now in Italy, a country that feels like home to Kris and I. Our heart was warmed the first time we heard "Gratzia" followed by "Prego" Itlay is not as neat and pristine as Switzerland but it has a beautiful soul. We had a drink at a bar where two 20 year old males who could easily be male models hugged and kissed each other. At another table there was a young woman who put Sophia Loren to shame in the looks department. These people are simply beautiful, inside and out. Booze is available everywhere but no one goes stupid. They know how to act and behave, and they act and behave with style and class.     

Day 3

Colmar (France) to Filisur (Switzerland)

After two nights in the picture perfect town of Colmar it was time to leave. 2 last photos taken the night before we left of this amazing old city BELOW.

 

After a quick breakfast of Crossaints and coffee we hopped on the train to to Basel. photo of Colmar station BELOW.

At Basel we had enough time to buy our tickets and get some lunch to have on the train. One of the things I love about Europe is that you are allowed to take a beer on board to have with your lunch!  I got a bit mixed up as to which train we had got on and thought that we had to change trains at Zurich, but as we were pulling into Zurich I noticed that our train was actually going to our first destination which was Chur, so we stayed on the train and talked about train drivers that can't read train timetables. Soon enought we got to Chur, apparently pronounced "Kerr". We had an hour there. You may recal that I left my SD card reader in Australia (SEE LEGAL NOTICE BELOW) so couldn't transfer photos from my real camera to my computer. We had a look around Chur and found an amazing store that was like an upmarket Aldi and sure enough they had an electronics section and I had my card reader. At Chur we left the Swiss government railway system, SBB and caught a private railway train. Here is a photo of Kris at Chur, our first truly mountainous town in Switzerland. BELOW

And here is a photo of our train from Chur to Filisur, BELOW.

The trip to Chur was through some amazing countryside. The views remind me of the pictures you see of Switzerland in tourist brochures and on chocolate wrappers. BELOW

We arrived at our final destination, Filisur and here is a photo of of our train on the right waiting to cross a train going to Chur. Our train was 6 minutes late due to a late running train in the other direction, the Swiss pride themselves on punctual trains and it is believed a parliamentary enquiry is under way to discover the reason for the late running train. BELOW

Upon arrival at Filisur we were confronted with a steep walk down to our hotel. This is the view from the train station, our hotel is the building with "hotel" painted on the roof. BELOW

Kris and Louise doing their best impressions of mountain goats walking from the station at Filisur to our hotel. We were not looking forward to lugging our backpacks back up this hill tomorrow but the lady who owns the motel says she will drive us up. Europeans are so nice to travellers! BELOW

 

ABOVE: This is the view from the balcony of our hotel room!

Filisur is famous, in train geek circles, for its amazing curved stone viaduct that was built in 1910ish. It is not only unbelievably high, and curved but it goes straight into a curved tunnel. Damian and I hiked to it which was a real physical effort but it was worth it. To stand underneath it is awe inspiring! BELOW are some photos of it.

 

 

LEAGAL NOTICE: In my first blog post an insinuation was made that a person very close to me caused me to become slightly inebriated which caused me to forget my SD card reader. I would like to publicly state that I never meant to defame any person and if any thin skinned, ultra sensitive people were offended I apologise but would also suggest that they drink a cup of cement and harden up :-) 

 

Day 1 & 2

Frankfurt (Germany) to Colmar (France)

Our good friend and next door neighbor Dom graciously drove us to the airport at the ungodly hour of 6:45am The gory details of an international flight have never been turned into a novel or a movie, not even a Netflix drama. That's because international flights basically suck, like prostate exams they are something to be endured, knowing that ones life will get better very soon. The flight from Tulla to Bangkok was uneventful and due to a booking oversight we had 7 hours to fill in at the Bangkok airport. We had left Melbourne in 7 degrees and the temp in Bangkok was about 30C. That airport would have to win a prize for being one of the worst international airports. There was a McDonalds which had a statue of Ronald McDonald in a very Thailandish pose BELOW:

The word "synchronicity" was the subject of a famous Police song and is often overused but it happened in Bangkok. There was a bookshop next to McDonalds and they had an English cooking book section. One of the books was quite approriate! BELOW. Who would have thought that a bodily function could be an ingrediant?

The flight from Bangkok to Frankfurt was similiarly uninspring. We left at midnight Bangkok time, 11 hours later we got to Frankfurt at 6.15 am Frankfurt time. We didn't have long to wait for Damian and Louise to arrive on their flight and we were soon on a German train travelling from Frankfurt airport to Freiberg after a change of trains at Mannheim BELOW: 

Now dear reader, now might be a good time to issue you with a warning. If you are reading this blog expecting to find find joyous, happy photos you are most certainly going to be disappointed. In the 24 hours before flying out my Beloved Kris insisted I stay up the night before our flight and insisted I drink copious amounts of beer, the result was I forgot to pack my sd card reader so as of now I cannot include any photos I took with my proper camera. 

We got to Freiberg on a blisteringly hot Saturday afternoon and the town was really hopping. We found a really nice place to have lunch and here is a photo of Damian and Louise waiting for their meal.

As it was our only meal in Germany we went for traditioal fare. We all had schnitzels or cordon bleaus. The German beer purity law ensured that the beer was amazing.   BELOW: a photo in Freiberg.

 

After lunch we caught the train from Freiberg (Germany) to Basel (Switzerland) and then from Basel to Colmar (France) That's 3 countries in about 12 hours.

Colmar is an amazing time capsule in Eastern France, very close to the German border. In fact, over the years, Colmar has been a German, then French, then German and now French city. It is actually a Disney film set that people live in. Kris took the best photos of it. BELOW:

 

 

 

 

BELOW: This is the house we stayed in at Colmar.

Today Damian and I visited the national French railway museum whilst Kris and Louise had a guided walking tour of Colmar. They learned that love hearts cut into windown shutters were an early form of Tinder. If there was an eligible woman in the house the love heart was cut into the shutter. A suitor would knock on the shutter (or throw a rock if the shutter was on the 2nd or 3rd floor) and the lady would look through the heat and decide if the potential suitor was worthy of her interest.

We got a tram from the railway museum to Mulhouse. A very old and frail lady got on. When the tram arrived at the Mulhouse Central a young boy took it upon himself to ensure the old lady got off the tram safely and them helped her across the tram tracks and them helped her onto the train to that we were catching back to Colmar. It was a beautiful thing to see. Young, looking after old.   I love Europe!

For dinner, Kris and I tookm the plunge and had escargot, snails, as an entree. They were great!

Tomorrow we travel from Colmar to a little village in the Swiss Alps called Filisur. 

>