Italia

Wednesday

Drive

On Wednesday, we drove to Italy. We stopped in Schwyz, a pretty mountainous part of Switzerland. There was a little spot where you could pull of the road and park to take some pictures. We took a LOT.. We also went into the Gotthard tunnel, which was 17km (about 12 miles) long! Later on, we drove through Lugano, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. Again, it was cool to see how the signs changed languages, but this time it was Italian not French, n. Driving into Italy was cool, too. It is amazing how the building styles, and just everything changed once we drove over the border. The best I can explain is that the buildings were more rectangular and brightly colored, like orange, pink, yellow. Also, most of the buildings had moldings around the windows painted on, they looked real!

Schwyz

Italian buildings

Painted on moldings

Menaggio

Finally, we got to Menaggio, a city on Lake Como. It was lunchtime so we found a restaurant that Okan and Coral had eaten at before.  The restaurant had seating across the street that was literally ON the lake. Well technically over the lake, but it was awesome. I ordered a pizza, and it was AMAZING. I ate almost the whole thing! Words cannot describe how good the pizza was. Yum!

Pizza!

The restaurant

Bellagio

After lunch in Menaggio, we took a car ferry to Bellagio. I had never been on a car ferry before. We just drove the car onto the boat. Then we went up to the top to enjoy the ride. It’s amazing the boat doesn’t sink, because it must be really heavy with all those cars.  Once in Bellagio, we sat down at a restaurant and ordered some lattes. I don’t normally like coffee, but this stuff was good. Then, we went shopping :).  I loved all the Italian glass, especially in the jewelry.

So cool! 

The streets with the shops looked like that ^

Thursday

Santa Margherita

In the car again, we drove to Santa Margherita, where our hotel was.  We got there kinda late. The hotel was called Regina Elena, and my sisters and I got our own room. I was so tired and I fell asleep right away.

The hotel had a buffet breakfast. After we ate, we walked into town and admired everything. We were just chilling on a bench, when some random family came up to us and told us that we should climb up these stairs, and find this garden. We took their advice and found the garden. We had to climb up a bunch a steps and go past a really pretty church. At the garden we ordered some drinks from a restaurant. I got this lemon soda. It’s like lemonade but bubbly. After the garden, we went back to the hotel. The hotel had a private beach across the street. We spent some time there, putting our feet in the water and skipping rocks.

Sante Margherita

Awesome

The steps we climbed when trying to find the garden.

The church

Portofino

The drive from Santa Margherita to Portofino was only about 20 minutes. We ate lunch by the sea. I ate pasta with Portofino sauce, which was  pesto, cream and tomato. Of course, it was delicious. We ate gelato for dessert and walked around Portofino.  Later, we climbed up a bunch of steps to go to Castello Brown, which was more like a villa. It mostly had empty rooms, but the garden outside was really cool, plus there was a great view.

My lunch

Lara enjoyed her lunch very much :)

The steps to the castle. I am tired just thinking about it!

There were lizards everywhere! I almost felt like I was in Ponte Vedra! :)

The Castle

Portofino

The view of Portofino from the castle