On Friday, Melanie, Nonna (Carlo's mom who also lives in Bellinzona and Melanie's grandma who is super excited Melanie is here because she hasn't seen her for nine years) and I went to the nearby town of Lugano, the one with the giant lake that I took pictures of when I went on my helicopter ride. There are lots of little shops and it's a lot more touristy than Bellinzona but still very cool and charming. In Lugano, we took a lunch boat on a trip around the lake, so we got to enjoy some beautiful views while eating spaghetti with seafood. It was really delicious with muscles and clams and kalamari and the like, but I could not bring myself to eat the baby octopus. Somehow, I couldn't get past the little tentacles.
Salami, anyone?
The main square in Lugano, surrounded by tons of little restaurants and shops
I thought this was kind of cool- instead of the tunnels being tagged with graffiti, the walls were blackboards and people could write on it in chalk
A neat little bookshop. Too bad everything was in Italian. For those of you who are wondering, my Italian is still pretty limited. I am better at getting the gist of what people are saying, but a lot of them speak so fast it's hard to tell. I do know how to say "Thank you for the gelato" and "I would like [insert flavor here] of gelato." Do you sense a theme here? :)
Came across a Fisker Karma- isn't it pretty??
What's interesting about the lake at Lugano is how the mountains are right up against the lake- it goes straight from water to a vertical climb
Melanie and Nonna
Part of the land on the lake is Switlerland, and part of it is Italy and the only way to tell the difference is to see which flag the people are flying, because it looks much the same
After the lunch boat, we got a gelato and then took another boat, this time to the other end of the lake (I should note that this is a rather humungous lake- you should google a map of it) which took us to the Italian town of Porlezza. We only had 50 minutes before the boat left again, so we did a quick tour, had another gelato, (help!) and then we were back to Lugano.
The amazing little church in Porlezza. I wish we'd had more time there because there were lots of cool little pasta shops and clothing shops (which I didn't think were near as exciting as the pasta ones)
After we dropped Nonna back and home and had some regroup time, Carlo and Marie-Helen took us out to a local pizzeria. I had a mushroom and ham pizza which was pretty good, especially because it was cooked in a brick oven. My favorite, however, was Marie-Helens; it was arugula with this amaaaaaazing fresh cheese on it
When we were done with dinner, their oldest son Rossano arrived for the weekend from Zurich, where he is studying mechanical engineering. Cora left on Wednesday to go back to Bern because she has exams soon.
On a more random note, this is their other cat, Tildy. (Nirvana left with Cora) She always sneaks into my bedroom and curls up on my bed, whether I'm in it or not. Somehow I don't mind. :)
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