26 Monday Aug 2013
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Tom wants nothing to do with this blog entry – an unworthy topic, he feels, a yawn at that. But the readers, especially the girls, have been begging. Can I find him? Did I see him? Is there a new girlfriend? Ever since George Clooney bought Villa Oleandra, the former Heinz mansion, in 2002 for $10 million, his name has been synonymous with Lake Como.
20 Tuesday Aug 2013
Posted in Travel
Those of you who know me know that, one or seven times a week, I go out to survey the merchandise in retail stores to see what’s new, how it is displayed, and how much it costs. Tom calls this shopping. I call it exploring.
18 Sunday Aug 2013
A beautiful Italian day bathed us in the soft air of the Lake Como countryside. We had arrived at the town of Lenno via the lake’s “slow boat” (see Louise’s post here) and, feeling a little lethargic from beer and pizza (my gawd, the pizza is good here!), we decided to hike back to the prior boat landing rather than return to the landing where we had just got off. The five-kilometer route took us high into the hills overlooking the quaint community of Mezzegra, not far from the Swiss border. Wildflowers and chalets surrounded us. If this had been Austria, we no doubt would’ve seen Julie Andrews twirling through a meadow, singing Rogers and Hammerstein.
16 Friday Aug 2013
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It’s easy to get envious around Lake Como, where tony tourists wander around buying diamonds, dining on $25 plates of pasta, and then retire to $900 hotel rooms. Many of these hotels are set in old villas built in the 1800s on the shores of the lake, most of which are still inhabited by the likes of Giorgio Armani and Giorgio Clooney, plus various obscure zillionaires. In an effort to get up close and personal with the enviable lifestyles of the rich and famous, yesterday we took the Midlake Boat Tour. For fifteen euros, we could hop on and hop off at six towns in the area.
12 Monday Aug 2013
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The Bellagio waterfront (click to enlarge)
Our journey from Venice to Bellagio was uneventful until we boarded the train from Milan to Como. (The entire journey is described here.) Reading our Italian tickets as best we could, we determined we had 45 minutes to get from the Milan train to the Como train, in the same station. Couldn’t be too hard. But an aggressive porter snatched our bags as soon as the train arrived in Milan and ran off (bags in tow) when we showed him our tickets. There wasn’t much for us to do but chase after him.
09 Friday Aug 2013
Today our travelers are in Venice, the romantic Italian city of Carnival and Casanova. Readers are reminded, however, that it is August, one of the hotter Augusts on record in Italy, and that provokes a certain irritability within our normally amicable duo, resulting in two decidedly antipodal perspectives on the Venetian experience…
07 Wednesday Aug 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Gallery, Travel
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Arriving at Venice (click to enlarge — all photos)
Okay. If it was all predictable, it wouldn’t be adventure, right? And with all the buses, taxis, and boats we’ve traveled on during the past couple of days, there was plenty of opportunity for unpredictability.
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02 Friday Aug 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Gallery, Travel
31 Wednesday Jul 2013
Posted in Accommodations, Travel, Video
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We finalized our arrangements on Theotokopoulou Street back in October, 2012 (and recruited our avatars to make a short video, which is here), and now our stay in Greece is about to end. To complete the circle that our avatars began, we take you back to Theotokopoulou Street, this time in person with Louise as host, to see our neighborhood up close, to try to pronounce “Theotokopoulou,” and to meet some of our friends there:
30 Tuesday Jul 2013
Posted in Travel
Right near our street, outside the medieval wall, there is an agricultural fair (photo above) smack in the middle of the dried-up ancient castle moat. I strolled around the other night to take pictures of souvlaki, linens, handicrafts, shoes, honey, raki, and spinach pies.
The Expat Almanac 