10/09/2007

Buongiorno, Italy

The view from our room :-)
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On Sunday afternoon we arrived in Italy at the Milan airport. Nico was there waiting for us at baggage claim. After a routine drive on the highway, we exited toward Como and it didn’t take long before the scenery started changing. We drove through the most narrow mountain roads as the setting sun fell in the distance, the whole time Nico talking in his broken English while beautiful Italian music played on the radio. It was unbelievably charming.

We arrived at their house and Nico dropped us at their newly refurbished inn. It’s so new, in fact, that we were the first guests to stay! Other than Kate’s mother and aunt, who are also visiting this week.

After we settled they took us to Nico’s favorite restaurant in all of Italy, Nuovo Sole, and we were treated to the most amazing Italian food ever. And it didn’t stop. They kept bringing it and bringing it. Kate told us that Nico took cooking lessons there and they’d always keep him out until 2 am! LOL.

On Monday we headed 15 minutes up the road to Bellagio. We’ve been to the Bellagio in Las Vegas, but visiting the real deal is quite a treat. Italians love to eat and therefore we love Italy. We had another amazing meal for lunch, right on the lake. I had a mushroom pasta with tomato crème sauce and Joy had mozzarella and tomato salad and spaghetti with tomato sauce and basil. Then we headed for gelato.

We spent the afternoon schlepping around Bellagio going from one charming storefront shoppe to the next. And then into another gelato store a few hours later to punish ourselves once more.

Tomorrow (Tues) we have a spot reserved on a water taxi, where we’ll go 30 minutes across the lake to visit Villa del Balbianello, where they filmed a portion of the newest James Bond movie, Casino Royale. Then we have a session scheduled with Kate and Nico in the afternoon. It should be quite a day.

Here are a few pics of Kate and Nico's guest house
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More from the boat tour shortly....
Ciao!

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