Matt and Jen's Excellent Italian Adventure: September 2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Varese, Santa Maria del Monte, Sacro Monte, and Parco Regionale Campo Dei Fiori

Sasha and I are adventurous (we are not the sit around the hotel type of dog and dog owner) and we decided to go to Varese (sits between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como) on Thursday. We hiked in the park and walked around Varese. As you can see from the pics I will have really great quads before I leave Italy......

Path up to a 360 Look out area

road into the park - I wanted to show you how amazing the trees are!

It was a shame it was so foggy today, we will have to return on a day that is more clear

I think this says that the Italian Artillery Association posted this cannon here in 1978 in the province of Varese

Varese

Here is one thing I find amazing about Italy.... they have very old religious buildings that were built into the side of a mountain several hundred years ago and they are still very well preserved. You walk along the path and each building has a scene from the bible or a religious depiction contained within. Each building must have taken months (maybe years?) to build along with the paintings, statues, and scenery inside.

This is a bed and breakfast I saw that might be worth visiting one day

Sacro Monte di Varese

Description on Sacro Monte and Santa Matria del Monte

Cinque Terre....almost....International Festival Arona, Aosta, and Cogne instead

The second "Italy bucket list" place was ripped from my little traveling paws this past weekend....again...third was not a charm! I first heard of Cinque Terre back in 2003 when Matt and I were backpacking Europe after we finished our Bachelor's degrees, but we couldn't go, because there was a mud slide that wiped out the train tracks. Then in 2005 when we backpacked Europe (Matt's 2nd time, my 3rd time) we couldn't go then either due to too much rain and they shut down the trail! And wouldn't you know my hotel reservation "mysteriously disappeared" this past Friday when we called to confirm that they still had a crib for my friend's baby they couldn't find our reservation. So do I take this as a sign that I shouldn't go for some reason? No! I will make it to Cinque Terre!!

After I got over my slight anger at missing Cinque Terre (again) we found out there was a traveling International Food Festival in Arona on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Matt and I talked to one of the German guys and he said they travel to a different town in Italy and Germany throughout the year then they go to England around Christmas time. You could get crepes with nutella from the netherlands, sausage and Stinko (yes that is the real name, it is a pig thigh) from Germany, beers from the czech republic, cupcakes from the US (except she sounded British and claimed she was from Chicago? hmmm), etc.

On Saturday morning we decided to head to the north west corner of Italy (very near the Swiss and French borders) to Aosta, Cogne, and the Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso (the Sodergren's will travel, they won't be held back by people who can't keep a reservation....ok that is the last rant I promise).

I loved how the home styles drastically changed in this area, they no longer looked like Italian villas, they started looking like Swiss Chalets. There were a couple of times we were questioning whether we crossed the border into Switzerland, but looking at our GPS, we were still in Italy!

Before we left some of our friends in Fort Worth gave us a book that has the 38 most scenic drives in Italy (thank you West Park Friends!) and it has definitely proven to be a fantastic guide. One of the towns, Cogne, on the drive was unbelievably picturesque and happened to have a festival. I will let you be the judge: