Yesterday was a day of doing nothing.  Reading, sewing, eating stuff we bought, laundry, a nap or two.  Then last night, we went to dinner in the next town over at the Hotel Posta.  The dinner was wonderful.  I had perhaps the best grilled salmon I’ve ever eaten.  Everyone loved their dinner.  

Today, we took the boat to the town of Como…just four towns away.  We walked around and had a very good lunch at a little outdoor cafe.  I found a fabric store and didn’t find anything I wanted.  Walked around some more, bought a gift and we took the boat back.  Now we are trying to decide what place to go to eat.  Think we are going for pizza and Bill & Suzy are going to another restaurant for date night.  We are kinda tired.  Early dinner…early to bed.  

today, after coffee and cappuccino, we took the boat to Bellogio.  The lake is beautiful, with tiny towns all along the shores…each with their villas and churches with bell towers.  Everywhere there is a profusion of flowers, birds flying and ducks swimming in the lake.  Boats tied up at the shore and sailing or motoring in the water.  Our boat ride takes a couple of hours of pleasant relaxation.  In Bellagio, there are shops, restaurants and hotel entrances at dock and street level.  At several intervals along Main Street, there are flights of stairs that go up to two different levels.  We trek up to a restaurant where we ate the first time we came.  A couple of us had pasta with anchovies, one had pork in gravy and grilled veges.  Andy had a beautiful grilled fish and Suzy had a spinach soufflé with grilled veges.  After this delicious lunch, we split up and went exploring and shopping.  Went to the old church with the curious mosaic over the main altar. It depicts a man lying on the ground, surrounded by men on foot or horseback, and one man has a huge mallet raised over his head getting ready to smash the prone man’s head.  I don’t recall a Bible story of this, but it could be a local martyr or saint.  After a nice day, we re-boarded the boat back home…but we had to go one town past ours.  We caught the city bus and it dropped us off near our villa.  I stayed at the cafe and read my book while the other went home for an hour.  We met up for a pizza at dinner time.  We got a 4 cheese pizza with anchovies added.  In Rome all of the 4 cheese pizzas are white…but here in Lake Como, the add tomatoe sauce…making it a red pizza.  Both good, just different.  We went home, full and happy to our comfortable beds.  Sleeping with the windows wide open under a duvet.  Heavenly!  Loving this cool weather after the heat of Rome.  We plan on a day of relaxation at the villa tomorrow…reading, sewing, laundry and eating some of the grocery store we hauled home on Sunday.  Back when there is something of interest to report.  Ciao!

We went to a little cafe and had cappuccino then went to the little town of Cenobbia for lunch.  We had pasta with a crabmeat sauce….delicious.  Then we drove to the grocery store and loaded up.  Even after lunch and being full we bought enough for three weeks for Cox’s Army!  We are only going to be here five days!  We had drinks on the patio overlooking Lake Como and then rested a bit before dinner.  Our dinner was in a glasses in room overlooking the Lake as the sun was going down.  The service was excellent and the food divine.  Andy and I had fried lake fish and shoestring zucchini fries.  White and red trout, sardines and something else…with tartar sauce.  Suzanne had horseradish encrusted salmon with poppy seeds, Suzy had grilled asparagus with a fried egg on top and fish eggs.  Bill had a pasta.  For dessert, we shared a chocolate volcano cake with fresh berries and vanilla ice cream.  We all agreed we would eat there again.  By the way, there are 109 steps from the street to our front door.  Up and down a couple of times a day works off a few calories…I hope.  

Tomorrow we are off by ferry to Ballagio at the head of the Lake for lunch and some retail therapy…shopping!  Hoping for a pretty, sunny day like today.  Buona Notte!

drove most of the day to get to our villa in Lake Como.  Along the way, we encountered a downpour with hail!  Thank goodness it wasn’t TEXAS sized….breaking our car window…finally stopped and the sun came out and we traveled on.  We had GPS that was doing a fabulous job of getting us to our villa when  we got to a road block.  Ahead, we could see what appeared to be a tanker overturned, completely blocking the street we needed to go down.  But Elizabetta Maria…Betty for short…as we are calling our GPS girl….guided us around the wreck to north of the closed section of the road.  Our hostess, Laura met us and got us settled in the Villa.  We had to climb dozens of OLD stairs to our door.  The first floor has three bedrooms each with its own bath and a laundry room with washer.  Bill & Suzy have a queen bed room.  I have a queen bed room and Suzanne and Andy have a queen bed and bunk beds. All have TV’s.   The second floor has the living room with big screen tv and DVD player and a dining room table seating 8.  There is a breakfast room three steps up and a small sitting room and the fully equipped kitchen.  Off the breakfast room is a huge patio with three tables with umbrellas and this overlooks Lake Como.  Just heavenly!  We went to a store down the road and bought yogurt, cheese and crackers and wine and water to tide us over.  Then we went to dinner at a nice place down the road.  Made reservations for a lovely place for tonight.  The restaurant looks like they have a glassed-in gazebo room overlooking the water.  Laura told us her family lives above us…and they completely renovated our space 4 years ago.  She said the building is over 1000 years old.  We intend to just chill here today.  Will go to the real grocery in town before lunch and pick up essentials, have lunch and come back to sit on the patio and watch the activity on the lake.  Will start exploring the area tomorrow.  It’s Sunday…so a day of rest!

I know I’ve been quiet for awhile.  When we got home from Romania, a friend from Dallas was waiting at the apartment.  We started sightseeing in Rome the next day…all day and then went to Sorrento.  Our hotel was one I had stayed at a few years ago, Il Nido…meaning The Nest.  It is way up above Sorrento and overlooks the Bay of Naples and Mt. Vesuvius.  The food at this hotel is wonderful, too.  After a good night sleep, we took a bus to Amalfi along the wingding Amalfi Coast road… hairpin turns and a LONG drop off, but some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.  We spent the day exploring Amalfi.  There was a wedding at the Duomo, and we waited for the bride and groom and wedding party.  The bride was delivered to the church in an Excalibur car.  Every man in Amalifi with a camera took a picture of it during the TWO hours the couple was in the church.  I sent one to Evan and he loved it!  Later, we took a bus home to the hotel.  Now, all day long, they were doing controlled burns and the smoke hung over the bay.  I’m allergic to smoke…so spent the next day in bed…the girls went to Capri while I slept. The train the next day home to Rome and I spent the next day sleeping too.  Just bummed around Rome with friend Diane until it was time to go to Lake Como.  One day, we met a friend at the Jewish Ghetto and had a terrible meal because our favorite place was closed on Tuesdays.  We went back the next day for the better meal.  The next day went to my very favorite place by the Forum…and had a fabulous meal.  Andy and I are going there to celebrate our birthdays.

We left our apartment Friday morning.  Andy’s friend, Suzanne had arrived the day before as did Andy’s sister, Suzy and her husband Bill.  We decided to change the rental car that was a stick shift for an automatic.  Went to the Avis place not too far away and spent two hours waiting for the other car to arrive from Fiumicino airport.  We were first told the car would be an additional 500 euros.  That was acceptable.  The. The price went to 1000 additional euros….that was borderline acceptable…but when the second car arrived it was now an additional 1500 euros…so double the price of the first car.  We kept the first car.  It was supposed to be a car for 7 people.  There are two tiny fold down seats for two in the very back…if you don’t have luggage.  Of course, we have enough luggage for three months for this one week trip.  So, with this several hour delay, we head to Arezzo.  On the way, we decide to stop for lunch at an old Monastery outside of Orvieto.  La Badia is the name of the hotel and restaurant.  Beautiful setting with an ancient church where a wedding was being set up for the next day.  The lunch was great also.  Think Andy and I might go there also to celebrate our birthdays…hers in November and mine in December.  Then a couple of days in Orvieto proper where it is more affordable!  After lunch, we headed on to Arezzzo.  Checked into our Hotel Minerva…down the street from the hotel we stayed in in June.  Would have stayed at Hotel La Toscana again, except no air conditioning there.  After we got settled, we went to the old town for dinner.  Suzy collects plates from restaurants that participate in a plate club.  So this one was Buca dei San Francesco.  A wonderful old basement place with gray artwork and very good food.  I had a fresh pasta dish with anchovy cream and capers.  Very subtle anchovy taste.  Andy had a great plate of grilled asparagus with Parmesan and butter.  Suzanne had a beautiful grilled chicken dish.  Returned to hotel well fed and slept well with rain all night.  More to come….

The painted churches of Romania are  on the Unesco World Heritage Sight List and they are national treasures.  We saw three of the many in Romania and these 500 year old monasteries are just amazing.  Each are done in a predominate color seen in the backgrounds or clothing of the  Biblical characters.  These churches are surrounded by four walls with a single entrance and on the interior are two story apartments that house the nuns and priests.  The grounds have beautiful gardens with every flower in bloom: roses, four o’clocks, lilies, dahlias, zennias and some I have never seen.  Along the balconies of the apartments are hanging baskets and window boxes full of petunias of every color.  The churches were painted 500 years ago when most people were illiterate and the outside was painted with all the Bible stories in detail to teach the people through pictures.  Each church has all of the Old Testament stories illustrated, going all the way through the Last Judgement.  Each Last Judgement shows the people going to heaven on one side…with halos…reaching toward Jesus.  The ones on the other side are damned and sliding down a river inhabited by Devils and monsters.  Inside the churches, the walls are covered with paintings of major saints and the Apostles and they are large.  There are 365 saints painted and they are divided by phases of the moon and astrological signs so people could tell what day of the month it was and which Saint’s day it is.  The paintings are vibrant with beautiful colors and gold.  Every inch of the inside and outside is completely covered with these beautiful paintings as well as icons.  The icons are framed pictures with painted faces surrounded by clothes and crowns made of silver and gold, often studded with jewels.  When it is time for a service to begin, a nun takes a board that is about 5 feet long and three inches wide and hits it with a wooden mallet.  The sound alerts everyone that the service is starting and it gets faster as it gets closer…hurry, hurry.  All nuns and priests are just Romanian Orthodox clergy, there are no different orders or habits like in the Catholic Church.  In the service at one of the painted churches, a nun was reading the service…with no priest in evidence.  We really enjoyed seeing these beautiful churches and would have loved to see more.

Today, we went to a fortified church.  These churches were surrounded by high walls, often up a steep hillside.  In case of attack, the town’s folk could go to the church and be protected.  At this first fortified church we saw a little house with two rooms where couples contemplating divorce were locked into for two weeks.  One bed, one table, small quarters.  They worked it out – or killed someone is my guess.  Food and well water would have sustained the people during a siege.  At a later fortified church, apartment like housing was built for every family in the town.  Even today, food is stored on the church grounds in case of a disaster.  We saw Bram Stoker’s house where he lived in Transylvania.  Toured a beautiful church that is under reconstruction after being burned.  The town has statues of big Emus that are painted…sort of like the Pegasus statues in Dallas…or cows…is it in Chicago?  At some time, the town was famous for their emu farms.  I. Sorry I don’t have the names of the town’s rolling off my tongue…but Romanian is pretty unpronounceable for me…and the spelling has different letters that our alphabet doesn’t have.  I will say that every Romanian town we have been in has been clean, with wide streets and beautiful parks.  And flowers are everywhere.  They are in gardens, pots, hanging baskets, window boxes, in and around churches.  At home this time of year, all the flowers would be cooked…but this country is a-bloom!  One of Romania’s biggest crops is Sunflowers.  Huge fields of them all over.  Now for a little Italian lesson…in Italian, sunflowers are called girasole.  Gira means to turn – where the words gyroscope and gyrate comes from – and sole means sun.  And, in case you don’t know, sunflowers turn to follow the sun during the day.  And, when it rained, the sunflowers all bowed their heavy heads toward earth.  More to come….

Will be telling you about the houses and food later.

Today we drove to a town that has a famous church that we were going to see before checking into our hotel.  It was raining, but the 179 steps up to the church were covered, sort of like a covered bridge.  We got,up,there only to find out the church was closed!  So,we hiked back down.  All 179 steps.  Our hotel was an old place in the town with lots of old buildings built around a town square.  It rained all day on our drive and this has cooled everything off.  We wandered around the town, hitting some of the shops, rested up and then went to a restaurant in the house where Vlad the Impaler was born.  Vlad and his father were known as Devils and in the Romanian language that word devil sounds like Dracula…and that is where Bram Stoker got his inspiration for Dracula.  Vlad had been sent off to a type of prison as a child and endured travesties there.  So,when he became an adult and had power, he impaled his victims…but he was not a vampire and didn’t drink blood.  Romania really isn’t known for vampires at all.  Bram Stoker just had a fertile imagination…and the Dracula he wrote has never gone out of print.  The next morning after breakfast, the group hiked back up to see the church that was closed yesterday…and it was closed again today.  So,after the hike back down, we went to the clock tower and climbed up it for the view.  That’s it for today…

after breakfast we began touring Bucharest….a beautiful city with beautiful buildings.  The churches are Romanian Orthodox mostly.  We saw an old church that is the church of the Patriarch of the Church.  It is Sunday and the faithful are in attendance.  Women wear headscarves.  Everyone, except the elderly and inferm stands.  They cross themselves three time and bend each time and touch the floor.  That is the modern way.  Usually they would cross themselves, kneel on the floor and prostrate themselves, get up and do it again.  The churches are beautiful, inside and out.  Inside are painted walls with saints, flowers, and icons are everywhere.  Everyone kisses the icons and just about anything else that can be kissed.  The music was piped in, but was very lovely.  Candles are placed in covered stands outside the church…one area to be lighted for the living, and one area for deceased people.  The service normally lasts three and a half to four hours.  Quite an aerobic workout!  

We went to Victory Square where The Dictator gave his last speech before he flew off in. Helicopter to his execution.  The buildings are neoclassical French.  A statue of the first of three kings of Romania is in the square…Carol I.  He was followed by his nephew, Ferdinand, followed by his son, Carol II.  

Then we went to see the Parliament building…a huge white building that is the second largest in the world after our Pentagon.  It is supposed to be absolutely spectacular inside and we will do an interior tour our last day here in Romania.  More later….

after breakfast we began touring Bucharest….a beautiful city with beautiful buildings. The churches are Romanian Orthodox mostly. We saw an old church that is the church of the Patriarch of the Church. It is Sunday and the faithful are in attendance. Women wear headscarves. Everyone, except the elderly and inferm stands. They cross themselves three time and bend each time and touch the floor. That is the modern way. Usually they would cross themselves, kneel on the floor and prostrate themselves, get up and do it again. The churches are beautiful, inside and out. Inside are painted walls with saints, flowers, and icons are everywhere. Everyone kisses the icons and just about anything else that can be kissed. The music was piped in, but was very lovely. Candles are placed in covered stands outside the church…one area to be lighted for the living, and one area for deceased people. The service normally lasts three and a half to four hours. Quite an aerobic workout!  
We went to Victory Square where The Dictator gave his last speech before he flew off in. Helicopter to his execution. The buildings are neoclassical French. A statue of the first of three kings of Romania is in the square…Carol I. He was followed by his nephew, Ferdinand, followed by his son, Carol II.  
Then we went to see the Parliament building…a huge white building that is the second largest in the world after our Pentagon. It is supposed to be absolutely spectacular inside and we will do an interior tour our last day here in Romania. More later….