Isola Bella and Stresa Funicolare

Stresa is a cute little holiday day just a 20 minute drive up the lake from us.  From there you can take a Funicolare (a cable car) up the mountain and hike around and also from Stresa you can take a boat across the water to Isola Bella and see the palace.

View from the funicolare

On the boat headed to Isola Bella

Peacocks that live on the island

Piemonte Wine Day in Barolo and Barbaresco

We had a wonderful group of 6 that went to wine country for the day.   We hired a driver and enjoyed a relaxing day showing our friends one of the most famous wine areas of the world.  We started our day at 10am and headed to an Enoteca in Barbaresco for a sampling.

Dan, Stacey, Matt, Brie, and Brian

We had to follow that with a fantastic lunch at Casa Nicolini in Barbaresco (www.casanicolini.com) and check out these views!

Stacey and Dan

Matt and me

Brie and Brian

 

Next we headed to Barolo and did a tasting at Marchesi di Barolo.

We had a few minutes until our tasting and tour started so we killed a little time....

And then we got down to serious business.

And our final tasting was at one of my favorite places with a lady named Chiara (you have seen pictures from here in my previous posts).

After bellies full of wine samplings and great food we made it home to beautiful Arona!

Florence

I feel bad saying this even as I write it, but I just plainly didn't care for Florence or maybe I have been so enchanted with Italian culture that Florence didn't feel like Italy.  Was it the 97F temperatures? Maybe.  Was it the very rude people I kept encountering? Maybe.  Was it the extreme crowds that are always drawn to Florence in June? Maybe.  Or maybe just a combo of all of the above.  I wanted to fall in love with Florence.  I fell in love with Umbria and other cities in Tuscany so why not Florence?  I was with an awesome group and Florence had so much potential.  After all, they have the David (which I was beyond extremely impressed with), the beautiful Duomo and all of the other well known sites.

Everywhere I go I always tell Italians that I am from the USA, honestly Italians are very curious and want to inquire and they love, love Americans!  Every time I tell them I was born near Chicago they mention their love for Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls and they have to tell me about the time they visited New York or California or wherever their travels had taken them.  That is why I was surprised when I had to embarrass a taxi cab driver in Florence.  My sister in law, her boyfriend, and I were getting into a taxi with a gelato (who says you can't have gelato before dinner?) and we were well dressed.  The taxi driver told us we could not eat in the Taxi and when the hotel doorman asked him why (btw this was all in Italian) the driver told him we were babies and may spill.  Well mr. taxi driver didn't know that one of these foreigners can speak enough Italian to understand what he said.  So I politely threw away the previous gelato (and it was oh so good) and as I got in the taxi I asked him in Italian "So we are babies, huh?"  The look of horror on his face was actually pretty funny.  Also in Florence they were really pushy about tipping at the dinner table and that just isn't common in Italy.

Enough with that, let me show you some beautiful pictures! We started out with the Duomo and climbed the stairs to the top of the dome (yes it really is 463 stairs to the top)!

Duomo

view from the top

Stacey and me

Dan and me

Next we saw the famous doors....

And I had to save a little time for my man Leonardo.  They have a museum where you can see many of the items he either created or imagined and you can touch and play. Yup, it is a real nerd's dream and I loved it.

Leonardo museum

We took a nice evening stroll to the Piazza Michelangelo.  I am really surprised this wasn't high on the list of things to do in Rick Steve's book!  It was beautiful and a perfect spot for the sunset.  On our walk we noticed they had a cat protection area where they had a bunch of cat houses, food, etc. for the furry friends.

view from Piazza Michelangelo

Enjoying a little white wine while the sun was setting

We of course had to go see David.  I wish I could have captured how fantastic and impressive this sculpture was!  Amazing it was created from one solid piece.

Brie and me

Brie, Brian, and me

I have seen this before and I can't believe I was talked into it......No it does not hurt, it made me feel very ticklish!

yes those are little fish!

 

My last morning I was awake early and so I took a nice stroll through town and listed to the Rick Steve's podcast walk through Florence (which I highly recommend!).  This was one of my favorite moments, it was cool outside, no one in sight!

Maybe I will try Florence again......