our last day on lake como...

...consisted of wandering around Bellagio in search of a man selling linen clothes on the street. But he had disappeared and we never found him. We found a small cafe and ate food that tasted like it was made by an Italian grandma. We rode more boats and Gary was happy because, yes, Gary loves boats. We had some gelato. I wore a flower dress that Sky gave me. 

more italy

Ferry rides and visiting quaint towns. Menaggio, Verena, Bellagio. Ducking in churches to say a quick prayer and cool off from the hot sun. Pasta for lunch. Sleeping on the long boat rides. What a day with my guy.

gary loves boats

Our second day in Italy breakfast consisted of fresh fruit, raisin bread, orange cake and sparkling water. We took a boat from Travernola to Como, and then took an hour boat ride to Bellagio.

Bellagio was beautiful. We walked up and down alleys in this charming seaside town and enjoyed some shopping, a walk in a park, lunch and gelato. My favorite gelato was limoncello, which is creamy vanilla with lemon. That day we met people from all over the world, including a friendly shopkeeper from England who gave us a helpful local map, a sweet family from Texas with three kids like us, and a motley, outgoing crew of men from Australia and America, clad in matching blue shirts, who were driving their race cars all over Europe. From afar I thought maybe they were a soccer team.

After a day of soaking in the sights of Bellagio, we reversed the trip to return to our hotel. Every second on every boat Gary was happy as a clam. I can feel queasy on boats sometimes, but the water was not rough so I was happy too!

Upon our return we made another picnic dinner and enjoyed a peaceful evening on our veranda, watching, guess, what...the boats go by.

Ahh Italy!

lake como

The next day we flew to Italy and arrived at our hotel on Lake Como, in a town called Travernola. It was much hotter in Italy than it was in France. We had a beautiful room with a balcony that overlooked the lake. We had a quick lunch at the hotel, after settling in.

We knew when we arrived in this area that our main transportation would be by ferry boat. So we took a boat to the closest town of Como and walked around, scoping out Como. Como wasn't as charming as we hoped, but we did find a small grocery store, which was perfect. We shopped for some of our favorite foods, cooling off from the day's heat. Afterwards, grocery bags in hand, running from stop to stop, we caught our boat back just in time, after going to two wrong stops.

Later at the hotel we had a sweet picnic dinner on our deck, laughing at ourselves for being clueless tourists. We talked to Sky that night. It was morning time for her. As we planned our next day's adventures, we smiled at the sun shining on the dazzling lake, and watched the boats peacefully going by, wondering about all the people in all of the houses on the enormous lake. We hoped they we having as much fun as we were.

our last day in paris...

... consisted of drizzly rain which led to a spontaneous decision to go shopping! We discovered very close to our hotel was a circular shaped very fancy mall with beautiful stores selling household items, clothing, a restaurant and an entire floor dedicated to a gourmet grocery store. We found beautiful clothes made from cotton and linen, unique shoes, scarves. We ate olives, bread, quinoa with chicken, fresh strawberries and a chocolate baguette for lunch. When we left the mall hours later, the sun was shining so we decided to venture out and walk to the Seine. Later that night we returned to the same small bistro we had been to the night before for dinner and got the same waiter. La Merlot. The night before he was rather serious. But on our last day he smiled while he teased me about photographing our food, and I knew we were friends, and it made me love Paris even more.

Paris is such a beautiful city. It's hard to put into words how much fun we had.

Meanwhile we were hearing a little bit from the kids that they were all doing well. Annabel was in Nepal with a tour group. They were staying in a monastery and literally living off the land. She was loving it. And Shawn was in camp, having a blast and making friends. Sky was back home working on her photography and living with an old childhood friend.

All was well.