Yesterday we spent the day canoeing the Bay of Konstanz to the Rein River. We made a couple of stops along the route to an ancient monastery that continues to house 6 monks. From their, we coasted down the Rein to the historic village of ....for cappuccino & gelato. This trip is not being kind to our waist lines! After spending a great day on the water we returned home for a refreshing swim in the lake. The water temperature was about 20 degrees and after the initial shock it was wonderful. Walter barbequed us a German dinner accompanied by some fine wines and deserts. What a way to cap of an incredible day.
It's nice to see some familiar faces again and the time we are spending at Lake Konstanz with our good German friends, Walter & Sibylle and Walter (Metso) & Karina has been wonderful. Walter & Sibylle own a large historic home on the shores of Konstanz. They have spent the past 2 years working diligently to restore most of the rooms to their original state. Their hard work has paid off and the charming old house has been restored to it's original beauty with an abundance of hand crafted wood panelling, gorgeous hardwood and stone floors and a one of a kind curved staircase in their grand foyer. Looks like we will be spend 4 days with them before heading toward Croatia before the summer crowds start arriving.
Yesterday we spent the day canoeing the Bay of Konstanz to the Rein River. We made a couple of stops along the route to an ancient monastery that continues to house 6 monks. From their, we coasted down the Rein to the historic village of ....for cappuccino & gelato. This trip is not being kind to our waist lines! After spending a great day on the water we returned home for a refreshing swim in the lake. The water temperature was about 20 degrees and after the initial shock it was wonderful. Walter barbequed us a German dinner accompanied by some fine wines and deserts. What a way to cap of an incredible day.
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I want to start by thanking the Grand Hotel Britannia Excelsior for allowing me to use their beautiful lobby lounge as my home away office for the past 5 days. The hotel is pretty spectacular and seems to be a very popular spot with the British, hence the name I suppose http://www.grandhotelbritanniaexcelsior.com/ . The day started out cloudy and a little cool as it has for the past few mornings. Once again, by 11 am, the clouds burnt off and we got the sun and heat for a few hours. We hiked to the St. Martin Church, the church perched on the cliff above our villa. The church was built in the 1700's with every piece of wood, brick & mortar being hauled up by mule. I think this would an unthinkable task today. Initially, we thought the hike would be pretty daunting based on the view from our room but actually, it was a very manageable hike, great stone path, good elevation that got your heart pumping, but very doable for all levels of hiker's. It took us about 25 minutes to reach the top and the same amount of time to descend. The vistas were breath taking as the elevation is about as high as you can get over looking Lake Como. Leslie spent the afternoon reading and basically relaxing after a hectic week of touring. I am at my office at Britannia checking email and updating our website. Pretty much a daily routine. Woke up at 7 am after hitting the sack at 9:15 the night before. Not much to do in the evenings with no TV or internet so doing a lot of reading and actually not missing the crap you watch on the tube these days. Probably not a bad thing. Not too many channels in English either other than BBC in the odd location. The day started a bit cloudy and a little cooler but by 11 am, that changed significantly with the sun breaking through and the temperature started to rise rapidly. By noon, we had bright blue skies and temps in the mid 30's again. We decided to get a day pass on the Como Ferry system which gave us access to ferry service to all the local villages at our end of the lake. We sailed to Bellagio & Varenna and we had no time for any others as the day had flown by and we were both pretty tired. Another great day in Como but I think a week here for us would be plenty. It is a real resort, tourist area and neither of us are big into that. Each villages are quite distinct but the one constant is the tacky tourist shops and gelato shops on every corner selling ice cream at $6 a cone. I must admit, we have broke down more than a couple of times! It started clouding over about 4 pm yesterday and then the thunder and lightning started rolling in. It rained throughout the night and we woke up to clouds and significantly cooler weather. So much for our plans for a boat cruise. We walked to Cadenabbia and checked for email and did some updating on our website. Looks like it will be a lay back day and hopefully things will improve tomorrow. Toured Menaggio this afternoon. Another nice lakeside village but I think Cadenabbia is slightly more upscale. It remained cloudy and cool all day and I think we are going to venture to Ballagio tomorrow on the boat regardless of the weather. As long as it is not pouring were all in. What an amazing place! From we arrived in Lake Como, we knew why people rave about this place. Our B&B is a suite with lots of room, nestled in the beautiful little village of Griante, not even listed on the map. Griante overlooks the larger village of Cadenabbia. The place is stunningly beautiful and the people are incredibly friendly. Most everybody we run into speaks English and all are eager to help in anyway possible. This morning I visited the quaint little pub/restaurant in our tiny village of 600. I Ivan, the owner of the establishment and he immediately welcomed me in for a coffee, wine or whatever suited my fancy. The place was really cool, probably built centuries ago and if walls could talk, I am sure it would have many stories to tell. http://www.vecchiatorre.it/ Leslie went for a run early this morning when the temperature was already reaching the low 30's C. She immediately commented about the fabulous villas she ran by and was sure she saw George Clooney waiving at her!! RIGHT! We later walked her running route and a bit further and she was right. This place is the land of rich and famous. So why are we here? We were told that this part of the Como region is the most expensive and most popular. I can certainly see why! You can take private tours or public ferries around the lake from prices starting at $10 Euro p.p to $24 Euro for an all day pass. I think we are going to opt for the all day pass tomorrow and try to hit most of the key spots on Como. Maybe even stop for lunch at George's. In the afternoon, we strolled to Cadenabbia, a few hundred meters below us on the lake. We walked the granite tile boardwalk that extended for a few kilometers along the lake. People dining, swimming in private pool areas along the lake that you pay to use. Tour boats line the shores and you can venture to whatever destination you would like to visit along the lake. It was another blue blazer today with temperatures reaching the high 30's. Tomorrow we are planning to book an all day ticket on one of the tour boats and hit as many locations as possible. We are really enjoying the B&B and are thinking of extending our stay another day. I want to stand corrected on the comments I made a couple of blogs ago about ITALIAN DRIVER'S. I stand corrected. The driving we have seen so far in this part of Italy has been very courteous and nothing like our last experience in the south of Italy. We were up by 8 am and on the road by 10. Both MapQuest and "Navi Biatch" (GPS) put us into Lake Como and our B&B in 5.5 hours. Another gorgeous day of sunshine and temps in the mid 30C range. We continued through the twisting, winding, narrow country roads when we came across the breathing view of Mont Blanc. It was a formidable site, this huge, snow covered mountain seemed to appear out of no where. As we approached there was the dreaded "Deviation" sign. Rather than circling the base of the mountain, it appeared we would have to climb part of it. As we made our way up the steep pass we came to realize our 5-6 hour drive would likely be a couple of hours longer due to the detour. Suddenly we came across super highway with a massive 4 lane elevated bridge that appeared to extend for miles through the valley. Navi Biatch seemed to be fine with it even though we told her to avoid toll highways. Out of no where, we were at toll booth and were told we were going through the Mount Blanc Tunnel, not around Mount Blanc but through Mount Blanc. The tunnel was over 20 kilometres long. The price to go through the tunnel was either $40 Euro, $60 Euro or $67 Euro. We could not tell by the way the receipt was broken down but I guess we will know when we get our MasterCard bill. After the shock of the bill and Navi Biatch's screw up we came to realize what a massive undertaking this tunnel must have been, a 20 km freeway through Mount Blanc! We anticipated the plus sign of the costly mistake would shave some time off our trip...NOT...and that is not all. When we cleared the MB Tunnel, we started entering large tunnels on the Italian side. They too were blasted through some major mountains but not quite as long as MB. By now we are at the 5 hour and no where near Lake Como. The next big surprise was another toll booth on the Italian side, this time un manned and no instructions other than CASH or CREDIT CARD PLEASE!!! Another surprise! We had no idea what this toll would cost so we simply inserted the card and hoped for the best. It appeared this toll was not as costly, maybe $8 Euro but we did not get a receipt so again, we will find out when we get our MC statement. All right, all this is behind us so lets make tracks. Not so fast folks, this is Europe and nothing really moves fast. We were once again on the country roads, taking us through cow pastures, narrow roads within inches of historic buildings and rock walls, but this is Europe and we love it. More road construction and long traffic lines. This went on for another 2 hours. Now we are at the 7 hour mark and still a long way from our B&B. Now we are starting to get nervous. Is she going to hold our room when we told her we would be there hours ago. Now we are back on a freeway and headed into some major traffic congestion. We soon realized we were in Milan, Italy at the height of rush hour traffic....OH BOY, what can you do. Long story short, we finally arrived at Lake Como about 8:15 pm. The owner greeted us and showed us to our room. It was far more than we expect and a pleasant end to long and trying day. We started for Geneva at about 10 am. Traffic was relatively light by European standards but lots of road construction for most of the trip. "Navi Bitch" the name we coined for our GPS on our European Adventure of 2007, took us through some remote pasture land and some of the strangest back roads you could ever imagine but as always, she comes through and gets us to our desired destination. We did not realize when we crossed the border from France into Switzerland and that is quite common when driving the country roads. We certainly knew when we arrived in Geneva and it was not just the license plates. The traffic is horrendous, gridlock at every turn. We were forewarned about this from various people and what we read on the internet, but still we decided to test our driving skills and that was a move we would soon regret. Parking is at a premium and if you luck out on a spot, the price is often more than a hotel room. Driving habits are similar to France but the Swiss are much more skilled & courteous. After 15 minutes of mayhem, I was ready to call it quits and head back to the peace and quiet of the French countryside. Even Leslie was agreeable to bolt if I wanted but I knew how much see wanted to see Geneva. As I have stated on many occasions, I am not into the large cities and the tourist traps but Leslie wants to see it all for herself, regardless of reports good or bad. I cannot say it was bad but after a long, tiresome day, if we had to do it over, I don't think we would. This place must be the capital of luxury cars, I have never seen more Bentley's, Farari's, Lamborgini's, Porsche's, etc. Leslie wants to return to Switzerland in a week or so to see Interlaken and a bit more of the beautiful countryside we have heard so much about. The drive from Saint Martial de Nabirat to Annecy took about 8 hours after lunch on the river & a few potty breaks. The scenery was quite different but none the less spectacular, driving through the French Alps and various ski resorts. We will spend a few days in the Annecy area and may even venture into Switzerland for some day trips. This morning we got our exercise from walking the shores of Lac du Bourget, locally known as Lac Gris. The lake is at the southern most end of the Jura Mountains. There is a paved boardwalk that extends for miles along the lake and is very popular with cyclists, walkers, runners, roller bladers. Other than the lake, there is not much to see in Gresy sur Aix. After our 2 hour walk, we drove to Annecy which was approximately an hour from our hotel. Annecy is another tourist trap which I would call the Banff of France. The lake is a beautiful turquoise color, similar to Lac Gris. We stopped and had our lunch at a small little beach side park with one picnic table. We lucked out and got the table situated in a picturesque spot next to a French Chateau. You couldn't have asked for a more perfect ambience. The only thing the French & Italians do fast is DRIVING! They are pretty laid back and pokey at everything else. From our experience, the Italians are the worst drivers we have experienced and the French run a close second. Their driving is best described as organized chaos and both countries could take a lesson from the Brit's on how to use a "round about" or "traffic circle" as they are commonly referred to in North America. The art of Queing is also foreign in these two countries as nobody lets you merge in a line of traffic. I would be curious to know the statistics on serious car accidents in these two countries. In my opinion, the British are the best and most courteous drivers in the world. Well it looks like our decompression day off yesterday may not have paid off as we left this morning forgetting to charge the camera battery and also left the SD memory card in the room. Luckily I had an extra SD Card in the camera case which I forgot about and the battery ended up lasting us til the last venue, which was not that great anyway. It was another very hot day, probably getting close to 100°F degrees. We covered the historic villages of Domme, Chateau la Chapelle, La Roque Gageac, Beynac-et-Cazenac, all along the beautiful and busy La Dordogne River. Lots of canoes, and river boats on the water this holiday weekend. I think Leslie and I have had our fill of historic/medieval villages for a while. The holiday weekend made things a little busier than we would have liked but not too bad. The real crowds will show up July 1 and am told will remain until September 1. OH GOODIE!! |
Glen
I have always been a straight shooter and a go getter. Many have said Leslie must be a saint to have put up with me for over 40 years. We have been business partners since the day we got married and each played an intrigal roll in our business success. There is nothing more important to us than our Family & Friends. Our love of people and travel has allowed us to develop amazing friendships around the world. Archives
November 2017
Categories"The New Gineration"Disclaimer:
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