Everyday life

Installing a swimming pool nearby

High water after the rain in Como

Along Lago di Como in the city of Como

Shopping at the supermercato "Bennet"

Almost a full moon

Villa del Balbianello

Lazy, hazy days of summer

Today is Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 and we have awakened to another glorious sunshiny day here on Lake Como! I check the website www.lifeinitaly.com for an accurate weather update for Como every day. This morning it is indicating sunny and low 80’s for the next five days. With the humidity very low it doesn’t get much better than this! Tiarra and her mom left Monday morning and have now gone back to work while Joan and I continue to bask in the beauty of Lake Como. It was great having them here and they added a lot to our stay. It seems that our visitors very quickly get into the relaxing mode!! The day before they left the four of us went for an extraordinary walk to the Villa del Balbianello.(see the web site for info www.fondoambiente.it and click on properties). This was about a four mile hike round trip from our rental. We are high up on the hillside so remember "what goes down must go up.” For those who might have a map of Italy nearby you’ll notice there is a bulge of land jetting into Lake Como in the town of Lenno. Villa del Balbianello sits on the tip of the bulge. The Villa was constructed in the late 1700’s. Parts of the movie "Casino Royale" and "Star Wars II" were filmed here. I’ll leave it to the reader to check out the website for more details but I must add that I don’t think I have ever seen a more beautiful or better landscape in my life. Not a weed anywhere, every tree and shrub meticulously shaped and trimmed and irrigated to perfection! Check out the pictures!!! After our self-guided tour we headed back into Lenno for some grocery shopping and then made the trek back up to the house with the pack horse (me) carrying the groceries. Wow, did that lunch ever hit the spot when we finally sat down at the table. The Italian beer added mightily to the meal. Everyone then took a nap except for Joan, Linda and Tiarra. The last couple of days have been very lazy except for a ride up north to a town called Colico. Last year we went there often for grocery shopping and thought we might do a little sightseeing and shopping at the same time. A beautiful ride of 40 kilometers (25 miles) along the shore. I think it would be very cool to mount a video cam on the roof of the car just to document the scenery. Usually Joan and I have the same thing for lunch but this day we purchased different items and unfortunately Joan paid the price. By 6PM that evening she was really hurting. I won’t go into the gory details but suffice to say I was the only one to eat dinner that night. Thank goodness the next day (yesterday) she was pretty much back to normal. This was the first time something like this happened to us over here so maybe we have been lucky. We were invited to Dennis and Anna’s last night for a scrumptious authentic Italian dinner. Wow, was it great. After years of experience I have perfected the art of eating like a pig while our hosts think I’m a dainty eater. I really had Anna fooled! I hope they hadn’t planned to have leftovers tonight because there was very little left over. We have been invited back to their place in August for a huge fireworks display. We will sit on their balcony and have the fireworks practically over our heads. Very much looking forward to it. My sisters, Kathie and Francesca, arrived this morning in Munich and will be making the drive down through the Swiss, Austrian and Italian Alps and will arrive in time for dinner tomorrow night. We look forward to their company and to some new adventures in the days ahead.

Ciao,

Gino