Italy - Part 1

Upon our return from Anglet, we only stayed long enough in the countryside to get ready to go to Switzerland and Italy... The purpose of the trip, beside visiting, was to get Paul's passport stamped in a non-EU country since his tourist visa is only good for three months at a time.

In Como, Italy

On the very last day before Paul's visa ran out, we got on the TGV from Paris to Geneva. The Swiss, apparently, aren't too worried about foreigners in their country because they quickly checked our passports and that was all.... no stamps!...
This time around I had decided not to take any reservations for any hotels in any cities to give us freedom to change our plans as we went. In Geneva, that turned out to be a bit of a mistake... After checking the two hostels in the city, which were fully booked, we resorted to the tourism office for their help in finding us a hotel in an apparently, fully booked city (there were several conventions that week....).
In the end, they did manage to find us a hotel for one night, just a few minutes before their closing time! And luckily, it wasn't a 5-star hotel!
So it looked like we were only going to stay one night in Geneva. The little that we saw of it was really pleasant; the city was very pretty with a lot of pedestrian lanes and the people generally nice and relaxed. The lake too was really nice: the water, crystal clear!
Anyway, it was clearly a city breathing wealth and lack of worry (probably from not being involved in any international conflicts?...).
The next day we moved on again, in search of a place to sleep at night.... We took the train again, this time in direction of Como, just north of Milan. The train went through the Alpine Mountains and was a really pretty ride through many miles of vineyards in Switzerland, and then pretty italian towns along Lake Maggiore in Italy.

Lake Como

Como is a little town on the border of Lake Como, and has become quite famous lately... of course, I had no clue, as is always the case when it comes to Hollywood gossip, but it is where George Clooney has set up his new home, in a villa on the lake... We did not see him or any other Hollywood stars, but the town is definitely popular and again, we had a bit of a hard time finding a hotel! We ended up spending the three nights we had in Como in three different hotels!

Little village in the Mountains around Como

Como from above

The town itself was very quaint with little paved streets and colorful buildings and flowers at the windows, and the setting was impressive with the lake and the mountains. The people were very stylish at all hours of the day... girls particularly, seemed keen on wearing their stilettos and abundant jewelry all day!... We were definitely not fitting in! :)


We were quite underdressed in Milan as well, which we went to visit for a day. Milan is taking its role as Fashion Capital City of the world (or at least rivaling with Paris for the title) very seriously. Expensive clothing is its specialty, and fake Pradas are also very abundant on the street! The white marble cathedral was impressive, with hundreds of statues on its walls and roof - some of them, depicting tortured saints, interestingly gruesome...

Milan Cathedral

The Sforzesco fortress (of the Sforza familly - who were protectors of Leonardo da Vinci for a long time) was less adorned but really impressive as well.

Castello Sforzesco

The rest of the city though, seemed sort of gloomy and a good layer of black dust covered all buildings except the cathedral... so it was definitely a good idea to stay in Como instead of Milan.


After Como we travelled down to Florence, where we stayed during the rest of our trip....
to be continued...

Modern Italian Art in Milan

Anglet Storm!

Amaro Matos

First day in Anglet (next to Biarritz), despite the unpromising weather forecast, was beautiful! Clear blue sky, light winds, nice waves: a perfect day for the longboard championship and for us to take photos... so that's just what we did and got plenty of great shots. We also sold the surfboard Paul had bought in Costa Rica, which he ended up not liking, and got me back a new board (since we sold my board in Costa Rica to get Paul's new board... hehehe...)...

Jared Neal

The next day was more cloudy so we went to test the new surfboard, our wetsuits, and the french waves... painful experience! In the time it took us to get ready, a strong onshore wind picked up and the ocean became horribly choppy and disorganized.... with a strong current, and numbing water temperatures... Paul managed to catch a few waves but i caught only one, and my feet were too numb to be properly controled, and i couldn't get them to get up on the board!!!
So... i'm not sold on the surf in France yet!

Ned Snow

That same night, a big storm hit southwestern France and caused several rivers to flood nearby villages. The floods also caused plenty of silt and rubbish and lumber to go out into the ocean, which turned a coffee-with-milk brown...
The stormy weather since hasn't really left: the winds are strong, the weather unstable, the water unappealing.... It must not be fun for the championship contestants to have to go surf in those conditions!!

Back in Biarritz and Online!

After a month of a combination of slooowww dial-up internet connection at my house in the countryside and very nice summer weather, which made it hard for me to want to get on the computer; we are now back in Biarritz for the world championship of longboarding under rainy weather and with great internet! so i'm back online! :)

so here's what happened in the last month...
On our first trip to Biarritz, we had great weather during the entire weekend but unfortunately, the ocean was virtually flat during the entire time we were there. A few people still went out in the water, but we didn’t; with water at 12°C (53°F) and a nippy north wind, it just wasn’t worth it!

Bayonne

We enjoyed other things though: walk along the 4-mile beach in Anglet, the salted ham fair and the old town of Bayonne (umm, Bayonne is famous for its deli meats and particularly the salted ham...), a rather amusing surf contest in Biarritz (it can be fun to watch a surf contest when there is hardly a wave, a lot of tactic comes into play… and the drama was complete with a sore looser kid who was throwing his board around and then throwing himself too and rolling on the ground in despair… anyway, I guess loosing can be just as painful even on a flat day! ☺).

Biarritz

It was also very amusing (after the fact) how the host at our b&b told us that we would get lost driving places in town and, unfailingly, we did, almost each time! The streets in the Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne city conglomerate are never straight so you loose your direction quickly, and the signs half in Basque and half in French are little help!
In the end we had a good time during our little excursion and left our boards at the bed & breakfast for our return in May.

Sea anemones at Biarritz Aquarium

Since our weekend in Biarritz, the weather has been getting warmer each day, and the spring has come in full bloom, along with what seemed like summer for the last two weeks of April! We were in shorts and slippers every day, the trees grew leaves in days, the grass grew, flowers bloomed... very nice!

Buttercups

cherry blossoms

With the mild winter and the early warm spring temperatures, the pests also bloomed: we spotted snakes 5 times already (a first... I must have spotted snakes a total of 10 times in the 10 years that I lived in the countryside year-round before!); caterpillars have wrecked havoc in one kind of tree, making web-like nests and eating all the leaves; and wasps and bees are also in big numbers... so with the good comes some bad too, but still, temperatures hovering around 25°C (77°F) in April is amazing and we can't complain!


So we've been hard at work in the yard planting flowers, doing cuttings, pulling weeds, and growing watermelon... hehehe, we'll see about bearing any fruits though...

We've also been going fishing in the river nearby... no trout yet, but a perch!... it is no Mahi-Mahi but it is something to catch your own fish... well, really, the harder part of fishing is getting the fish off the hook and killing it... and I had no part in that!


Other than that, we're hiking and biking and visiting places and events of interest when they come about...

Horse show... *sob*

Wolf at an animal park in the area

winning the pompous look contest...