Mountains and Lakes

Back home at last, after a busy schedule outlined in the last blog. The best laid plans are often disrupted and our odyssey into Italy and back through France's Provence was no exception. However, the holiday was great and family bonds were reinforced, as they should be.

The crossing of the alps was the first casualty of my route plan. I turned into the wrong valley while cruising along the autoroute on a warm, sunny afternoon and we couldn't be bothered to retrace once I realised the error. So we went through the Fréjus tunnel instead of climbing over the 'Little St Bernard' pass.  It was just as well. We reached our destination just as it was getting dark. The drive over the top would have set us back further in time, making the final 100 kilometres to Simon's house near Lake Maggiore a bit tricky as we were a two-car convoy with Michel following me on his first visit to Italy. The dense scattering of villages and lanes full of local traffic on steep

hillsides once we'd left the motorway was not the easiest place to try to follow another car in the dark.

Our three-day stay included a day trip on one of the passenger boats which cruise around the southern end of the lake like buses; the ticket was inclusive of stops anywhere around the circuit which included Laveno where we embarked, and the islands of Isola Madre and Isola Pescatori, both of which we visited.

Isola Madre consists entirely of a garden with a 16th century villa in the middle of it which belonged to the Barromeo family, all of which can be seen between passenger boat visits. The picture shows a view from the gardens. I've put a set of these pictures here on 'flickr'

After another superb celebratory dinner, arranged by Simon which took place in a sort of grocer's/butcher's shop which doubled as a restaurant after hours, it was time to leave for the next planned stop on our itinerary - Siena.

So far so good, if not quite as predicted....

Mapmaker