Mergozzo and Sentiere Azzuro

Last week was filled with beautiful fall days and Sasha and I headed out for a hike.  As is typical fashion in Italy even if you have a GPS you get lost no matter what.  It has become a running joke that you have to leave 2 hours early before your normal leave time and hope you make it! LOL Anyhow I attempted to go Gran Paradiso park for some hiking and long story short I got terribly lost and ended up on these tiny mountain roads so I turned around, because I drank way too much water that morning and needed to find a bathroom.  Well, I ended up at a town called Mergozzo and what a surprise treat! Sasha and I ended up hiking the Sentiere Azzuro and along the way they had tourist signs that showed pictures of this area, which used to be a granite quarry.  Each sign showed pictures of the early quarry workers and said that the most famous items that were built from the quarry included the 320 columns for the Basilica of St. Paul's outside of Rome!   

Around Arona in the Fall

A couple of weekends ago Matt and I decided to take a breather and sight see a little closer to home so we took a boat trip across the lake from Arona, Italy to Angera, Italy.

View of Rocco Borromeo in Angera, Italy

Boat ride

View of Arona from Agera

 

We stopped for a little fortification and lunch

Overall, I was disappointed that Angera was so dead on a weekend!  It was a pretty little town and maybe it will be more interesting in the summer.  But, the boat ride was a lot of fun!

Has anyone ever seen a Black Swan?  Yes, they are real and here is a picture to prove it!  They are a black bird with a red beak and it is really pretty......

Black Swan in Laggo Maggiore

 The sunrise over the lake is just incredible.....

Skiing at Domo Bianca Italy

This past Sunday we were invited to go skiing with our friend Ian and his Italian friends to go skiing about 45 minutes away to a resort called Domobianca near Domodossola, Italy.  This may be shocking, but skiing in the Alps is slightly tougher then Wisconsin... ;-)  We fought the Alps and after a long day we were slightly beat up, but had a blast!

Wow we look dorky, but the view was great

Matt soaking up the sunshine

Will we go again?  Most definitely!

Brussels for Thanksgiving!

No we didn't have brussel sprouts for thanksgiving, we went to Brussels, Belgium for chocolate and beer!  Beer and chocolate lovers prepare for jealousy.....

We started out Thursday night looking for something we could call thanksgiving dinner and we hit a tiny local place that gets great reviews on tripadvisor called "Nuetnigenough" and it was fantastic!!  The place was so tiny with only a couple of tables so we waited at the bar (the bar only had 3 seats). 

Matt is happy he is off the plane and has a beer in hand

menu

Now, you know I am not a beer drinker, but I have had some pretty good luck in Europe so we asked the bartender and he gave me "kriek" which is cherry beer and it did not disappoint (yum!!)!

Our beers with dinner

For dinner we split a ham shank with a dijon sauce, a salad, and a vegetable mixture common to Belgium that has carrots, peas, potatoes, etc. all smashed together.

Thanksgiving Dinner

We decided to walk off the awesome dinner around grand place (the main square) and "Grand" it was! Here are the pictures of Grand Place and around it.  Every 1/2 an hour Grand Place would turn into a jaw dropping light display timed to the rhythm of music!

 

The next morning we had to check out the famous belgian waffles of course...

Belgian Waffle with strawberries

Matt had the banana Waffles

After breakfast we needed to work off those calories so we went on a beer walking tour (Ok, I guess we consumed those calories back or at least the people who drink beer did ;-)).

Oldest brewery still in existence

Of course the Swede had to get a horn filled with beer

Beer lovers hold onto your hats!  If you know beer, you know Westvleteren, which is apparently very hard to get and has been voted the best beer in the world for several years can be had at a tiny little bar built around the 1600's for a mere 10 Euro a glass.....Matt had 3.....

A trip to Brussels isn't complete without a bicycle tour around the city to see touristy things like the Mannequin Pis...

The Famour Mannequin Pis dressed for Christmas

They are apparently equal opportunity and put up a statue of a girl peeing I think her name was Jane...

In front of Delirium, one of the most famous bars

I have never seen more chocolate stores in my life...

I would highly recommend Brussels at Thanksgiving time.  The decorations are amazing and the people were extremely friendly and helpful!