Ramada Treff La Palma Locarno

... good for what you pay!! And awesome for a backpacker!!
Went for drinks at Frank's Bar which Patrick who owns the hotel recommended. Turned out to be a pretty trendy cocktail joint
where you pay for your drink at 1 place then get it at another. 10 Euro for a beverage no matter what you had so naturally I ordered a long island ice tea!!!

... but it was nice to be able to relax and have a quiet walk around the villages. I needed to take a lot of ferries as this is the quickest way to get between each town as they are all placed at different points around the lake. A very nice place that I would love to visit again in the Summertime.

Next stop is Venice, Italy!

... quaint with beautiful villas. We walked the gardens of the Melza Villa. The canons in the photos are not toys....they are from the Napoleonic period...used to defeat Milan. The keys are to the city of Milan from the 1700's.

The food here is terrific. We travel back to Milan tomorrow to pick up our friends and head to the villa in Montanione. Forecast is for thunderstorms...yeah!

Love,
R ich and Kara

... the world as an explorer and mountain climber. Through his travels he had collected art from Africa, Asia, South America and other parts of Europe. The Villa was a museum dedicated to his travels and collections. Very interesting!
Tonight is our last in Lake Como. We had originally planned to stay the last night in ...

Hi Everyone:

We just returned from an amazing day with Luca and Mary, our friends who live in Figline Valdarno (20 mins south of Florence), who drove for 7 hrs (actually they were stuck in lots of traffic along the way) to visit us in Varenna. We had lunch lakeside, and then took a ferry to Bellagio, strolled around the Gardens of Villa Serbolini, ferried back to Varenna for dinner at Vecchia Varenna. They just left for what Luca aticipates ...

John

From Venice we drove across Italy to Lake Como which is close to the Swiss border. On the way we stopped at the town of Verona which was developed by the Romans and has its own smaller version of the Colosseum which is still used for opera and musical events. However Verona is most famous for being the hometown of Romeo and Juliet whose love is thwarted by a fued between their respective families the Capulets and the ...

... overload.

We toured Villa Melzi and its beautiful English-style giardini (gardens) with groves of azaleas, gigantic rhododendrons and perfectly manicured hedges all which sit on the lake's banks. We enjoyed a panini on the waterfront, lemoncello on la terraza, and just took it all in... this is a place one must experience ...

My friend had the fabulous idea of going to Lugano this weekend and I am not one to turn down great ideas. I still had my Canadian friend staying with me as well and he was ready to move on, but I convinced him to wait until he sees Lugano before he moves on to the next country on his list.

So we made a three-day weekend out of it and had a fabulous time. Lugano is so beautiful! The winding streets, steep hills, charming shopping ...

Lago Maggiore, anyone?  One of my very favorite places to go in Italy during the summer is Pallanza on Lago Maggiore. I can reach it in about an hour from Malpensa. This is a smallish town, but it has a beautiful lakefront with a number of nice hotels and good restaurants, a pedistrian shopping street and a ...

... like the French side of Switzerland I lived in, nor the German side I visited semi-regularly.

But, looking harder, the streets were free of potholes, the lakeside was completely free of rubbish and there was a general feeling of orderliness that could never be confused for Italy. This really was still the same country I lived in.

The difference was obvious as soon as we crossed the border. The autostrade was a little bumpy and the fog became smog as we passed ...